Pierre-Auguste Renoir
I am proud to announce that we are launching our MobileArsenal for culture column, whose first part will be presenting the life and times of the renown French painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Our regular readers probably still remember our astronomy talk in the HTC Sedna review - which is in fact the herald of our MobileArsenal for space research column – or those crazy UFO stories we’ve written at the Toshiba G910. We hope that our current summary – which is now a bit more serious – will help you catch a breath of air in the wave of mass-produced phones – it helped me, that’s why I have written it in fact. Ladies and gentleman: Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Limoges, February 25, 1841. – Cagnes, December 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style and a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality
Renoir was born as a child of a working class family, his father was a tailor, his mother a tailor assistant. The family moved to Paris when he turned 3, than they have found accommodation near the Louvre, which hasn’t been only a museum back then, but it has housed offices and homes as well. The artist began studying as a porcelain painter at the age of 13, while at the age of 15 he had such outstanding results that in manufactory he has been assigned demanding tasks, tailored to experienced workers. He made his own living and supported his parents as well. In his spare time he has been visiting the Louvre a lot. At the time when machine painting has been introduced he was 17 and the manufactory was closed down. After this Renoir made a living from occasional jobs, for example he was painting family crests.
Between 1861-1864 he has been studying art under Charles Gleyre, a Swiss painter. He has found other people to follow very soon: he has met Gustave Courbet and Diaz de la Pena by chance, who have encouraged him to look for inspiration in real life. He became friends with Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille and they have been painting together in open air. In 1864 the Salon in Paris has accepted a picture of his. In 1868he became successful at the same place with his picture titled Lisa with parasol, the model of this painting being Renoir’s love between 1865-1871, Lise Tréhot. His experience in open-air painting has proved to have a positive effect on his works made in his studio. Critics have observed the freshness and naturalism of his paintings – he still couldn’t really find people to buy his pictures, until the end of the sixties he has been so poor that sometimes he couldn’t afford even food. During the Prussian-French war of 1870 he has volunteered to the cavalry, but luckily he has been assigned to a unit far from the war theater. In 1871, upon returning to the capital, he has been captured by the Paris Commune. The rebels have declared him liable to military service, he tried to escape, but then he has been captured by the enemy.
After the fall of the commune he got in touch with his friends Monet and Sisley again, in the 1870s he spent lots of summers with them and Edouard Manet. One of his renown pictures has been created in this period: this portrays the Monet family in the garden of their house in Argenteuil. This theme has been painted at the same time by Manet, working one near the other, each on a different canvas. Renoir has gladly portrayed social events, the manifestation of happiness. One of the most famous of these pictures is Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette.
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The Theater Box, 1874, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
As opposed to Monet and other impressionists, Renoir has made all the efforts to be present at the official Salon expo, but besides this, as of 1874, he has been glad to participate on the first expo of the impressionists and later on the 1876 and 1877 editions as well. At this time he managed to sell paintings to art-dealers Paul Durand-Ruel and Père-Martin. Durand-Ruel, a great supporter of the impressionists, gave money to him for renting a studio. Renoir’s income has still been so low that he had a hard time keeping up livelihood. From the mid 1870s his situation turned for the better, since he got to know Victor Cocquet customs officer and Georges Charpentier editor who have charged him to paint portraits and a larger board painting. The influential Madame Charpentier has recommended him to many of her acquaintances and he received so many portrait painting requests that it proved to be too much from time to time. In 1881-1882 he had three longer travels to Alger and Italy. After his travel in 1881, where he examined a book about painting from 1400, he showed great interest in the frescos of Raffaello and the art of Jean-Auguste-Dominique. This was the beginning of the so-called “Ingres-period”, or “dry period”. Renoir turned to a completely new direction in art: from spontaneity to more elaborate shapes. The happiness of life has still remained persistent in his works. He turned from impressionism to classicism, from colors to shapes.
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Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), 1876, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
At around he has fallen into a crisis. He felt uninterest from critics and his public and he has admitted being in an artistic dead-end. The peak of these years has been the painting entitled The Large Bathers. He studied for years in order to paint this picture. By the end of the 1880s he again finds pleasure in playing with colors, but he has definitely turned away from impressionism. In 1885 his first child, Pierre Renoir, is born, the mother being Aline Charigot, whom he met in the early 1880s. Pierre has later become known as an actor. His second son, Jean Renoir, became a movie director. As of 1892 the first sign of rheumatic asthma appear. The climate of the Mediterranean Sea affects his health positively, so in 1907 he settles in his country home in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nizza, which today functions as a museum. In spite of his illness he continues to paint, he keeps his brimming with life during the course of his sickness, he paints almost every day, until his death. He is gradually forced to use a wheelchair, he has his paintbrush tied to his hand, as he can’t hold it anymore. Pierre-Auguste Renoir died at the age of 78 in 1919, leaving thousands of landscape paintings, still life pictures, portraits, dance- and family acts behind. His grave is in the cemetery of Essoyes, count Aube in Champagne.
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The Large Bathers,, 1887, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa.
In 2008 a mobile phone is named after Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Source: Wikipedia
