Auguste Renoir famous paintings. Renoir's Muses, or Hymn to Female Beauty: whose portraits the artist painted throughout his life. Artist’s paintings – “Railway Bridge in Shatu”

(French Pierre-Auguste Renoir; February 25, 1841, Limoges - December 2, 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, one of the main representatives of impressionism. Renoir is known primarily as a master of secular portraiture, not devoid of sentimentality; he was the first of the impressionists to gain success among wealthy Parisians. In the mid-1880s. actually broke with impressionism, returning to the linearity of classicism, to Engrism. Father of the famous director.
Auguste Renoir was born on February 25, 1841 in Limoges, a city located in south-central France. Renoir was the sixth child of a poor tailor named Léonard and his wife, Marguerite.
In 1844, the Renoirs moved to Paris, and here Auguste entered the church choir at the great cathedral of Saint-Eustache. He had such a voice that the choir director, Charles Gounod, tried to convince the boy’s parents to send him to study music. However, in addition to this, Auguste showed a gift as an artist, and when he was 13 years old, he began to help the family by getting a job with a master, from whom he learned to paint porcelain plates and other dishes. In the evenings, Auguste attended painting school.

Roses in a vase. 1910

In 1865, at the house of his friend, artist Jules Le Coeur, he met a 16-year-old girl, Lisa Treo, who soon became Renoir's lover and his favorite model. Their relationship continued until 1872, when Lisa left Renoir and married someone else.
Renoir's creative career was interrupted in 1870-1871, when he was drafted into the army during the Franco-Prussian War, which ended in a crushing defeat for France.
In 1890, Renoir married Alina Charigot, whom he had met ten years earlier, when she was a 21-year-old seamstress. They already had a son, Pierre, born in 1885, and after their marriage they had two more sons - Jean, born in 1894, and Claude (known as "Coco"), born in 1901 and who became one of the most beloved models father. By the time his family finally formed, Renoir had achieved success and fame, was recognized as one of the leading artists in France and managed to receive from the state the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Rheumatism made it difficult for Renoir to live in Paris, and in 1903 the Renoir family moved to an estate called Colette.
Renoir's personal happiness and professional success were overshadowed by his illness. After an attack of paralysis in 1912, Renoir was confined to wheelchair, however, he continued to write with a brush that the nurse put between his fingers
IN last years During his lifetime, Renoir gained fame and universal recognition. In 1917, when his “Umbrellas” were exhibited at the London National Gallery, hundreds of British artists and art lovers sent him congratulations, which said: “ From the moment your painting was hung alongside the works of the old masters, we felt the joy that our contemporary had taken his rightful place in European painting " Renoir's painting was also exhibited at the Louvre, and in August 1919 the artist last time visited Paris to look at her.
On December 3, 1919, Pierre Auguste Renoir died in Caen of pneumonia at the age of 78. He was buried in Essois.

Umbrellas, 1881-1886 National Gallery, London

Little Miss Romaine Lacaux. 1864. Cleveland Museum of Art

Lisa with an umbrella. 1867

Portrait of Alfred and Marie Sisley. 1868

Study - Summer. 1868

Promenade. 1870. Paul Getty Museum

Pont Neuf. 1872. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Seine in Argentueil. 1873

Spring Bouquet, 1866, Museum Harvard University.

"Girls at the Piano" (1892). Orsay Museum.

La Loge. 1874

Woman with a cat. 1875. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Claude Monet paints a painting in his garden at Argenteuil. 1875

Portrait of the artist Claude Monet, 1875, Orsay Museum, Paris

Gabriel Renard and infant son Jean Renoir, 1895

Artist's family: Pierre Renoir, Alina Charigot,
epouse Renoir, Jean Renoir, Gabriel Renard. 1896.
Barnes Merion Foundation, Pennsylvania

Portrait of Alphonsine Fournaise, 1879, Orsay Museum, Paris

Girl with a watering can. 1876. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Ball at the Moulin de la Galette. 1876

Vase with chrysanthemums

Portrait of Jeanne Samary. 1877

Leaving The Conservatoire. 1877

Jeanne Samary mademoiselle. 1878.
Cincinnati Art Museum

Bank of the Seine at Asnieres. 1879

Odalisque

Rowers on Chatou. 1879. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Doge's Palace, Venice, 1881

Still Life: Roses Vargemont, 1882

Children on Guernesey Beach, 1883 - Barnes Foundation, Merion, USA

Garden Scene in Brittany, 1886 Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, USA

Girl with flowers. 1888

Still Life: Roses (1908)

Dinner. 1879

The Lunch of the Boating Party. 1881. Cleveland Museum of Art

On Water, 1880, Art Institute of Chicago

Two girls in black. 1881

On the terrace. 1881. Art Institute of Chicago

Swing (La Balancoire), 1876, Orsay Museum, Paris

Fruits from the Midi. 1881. Art Institute, Chicago

La Grenouillere, 1868, National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

City Dance. 1883

Dancing in Bougival. 1883

Dance in the Country. 1883

Girl with a hoop. 1885. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Mother and child. 1886. Cleveland Museum of Art

Apple seller. 1890. Cleveland Museum of Art

Rambler. 1895

The Large Bathers. 1887. Philadelphia Museum of Art

Bather Arranging Her Hair. 1893. National Gallery of Art (USA)

Bather with long hair. 1895

Bather with blond hair. 1906

French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919– one of the key figures at the origins of impressionism. Already during his lifetime he achieved considerable success and recognition among his compatriots. Now his name is on a par with other founders.

Future great painter came from a simple tailor's family. He was the sixth child of seven. This is probably why Renoir worked along with his parents from childhood. He brought his first income home at the age of 13, getting a job in a tableware painting workshop.

The artist created portraits, still lifes, urban and seascapes, genre sketches and even nudes. More than 1,400 paintings by Renoir have survived to this day, 1,377 of them were painted in an impressionistic manner. In addition to painting, he also worked for some time.

It should also be noted that Renoir’s talent for singing: having joined a church choir after his family moved from Limoges to Paris, the future great artist made a huge impression on his regent. Who knows what his fate might have been like if his talent for painting had not been discovered during that same period?

Unlike other representatives of his movement, Renoir had little interest in plein air paintings. He was practically not worried about the play of light as such; he embodied all the techniques of the Impressionists in other works: these were mainly portraits of fairly wealthy people of that time and his relatives. Pierre Auguste Renoir often repeated that he knew nothing about painting, he was only interested in women, children and roses. Moreover, any talk about art made him sad, and sometimes even infuriated him.

However, it is no coincidence that he is considered a master of secular portraiture. The artist endowed the images with a bit of sentimentality, which evoked the categorical favor of the audience. In his paintings, Renoir showed people in unexpected life situations, when communicating with loved ones and relatives, in unity with the beauty of nature. The master sought to show the festive side of the life of the townspeople. In his works we see serene scenes of relaxation, colorful characters, dynamic walks, balls with dancing.

Despite the fact that in different periods Renoir's creativity radically revised many of his techniques; the peculiarity of his writing was always emotionality and slight fleetingness. He made a quick pictorial sketch based on the first impression. This is exactly what the impressionists always strived for in their quests.

The early period of Renoir's work is associated with a diligent search for genre and style. His teacher at school fine arts, where the young man came after the closure of the tableware painting workshop, was Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre. Young artist experimented a lot and was eventually captured by a new direction of painting - impressionism.

Already during this period, he was not limited to one genre and created the portrait “The Artist's Mother” (1860), the painting “The Return of the Boating Party” (1862) and the floral still life “Crown of Roses” (Crown of Roses, 1858). They are distinguished by the airiness and emotionality of the transfer, but still the uncertainty of implementation. In the paintings one can feel the touch of an imposed academic school and an irresistible desire to go beyond the boundaries of the accepted.

Renoir's first successful work, highly appreciated at the Salon, was the portrait of his beloved “Lise with an Umbrella” (Lise with Umbrella, 1867). The stern image of a young girl in a white dress briefly became business card painter. At this time, Renoir was influenced by the artists of the Barbizon school, as well as.

In the period from 1874 to 1882, Renoir, together with his comrades from the Anonymous Cooperative Partnership society, fought for the right to be heard and, in the end, largely thanks to this, achieved universal recognition. True, the first exhibition of young impressionists was a failure, and the very name “impressionists” seemed offensive. Despite this, all participants in the partnership achieved success in one way or another.

It was during these years that perhaps his strongest works came from the artist’s hands: “Camille Monet And Her Son Jean In The Garden At Argenteuil”, 1874, “Pink and Blue” (Pink and Blue, 1881) and “Ball at the Moulin de la Galette” (Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, 1876). By the way, a smaller copy of the latter became the most expensive painting by Renoir. It was sold in 1990 at Sotheby's in New York for $78 million.

Following him, until the early 1890s, the so-called “Ingres period” of Renoir’s work lasts. The artist himself called it “sour.” Under the influence of the works of the classics of the Renaissance, the painter's taste changes. Renoir decisively abandoned impressionism and returned to realism.

During this period, he created another high-profile painting - “The Great Bathers” (The Great Bathers, 1884-1887), which depicts three naked girls. The lines of the drawing on it became much clearer, the colors lost their brightness, and other paintings seemed to become “colder.”

The next decade of Renoir’s work is commonly called the “mother-of-pearl period.” He received this name due to the fact that the artist’s painting style developed a penchant for iridescent colors. The most characteristic works of this time are “Apples and flowers” ​​(1895-1896) and “Woman playing the guitar” (1896). At this stage, the artist was especially interested in canvases and.

The final period of Renoir’s work is usually called “red”. And in this case there is no need to look hidden meanings: the artist simply began to give preference to warm red and pink shades. It was at this time that he suffered from one illness or another, and as a result he was bedridden and could only draw with great difficulty, squeezing his brush with weakened fingers.

Throughout his life, Pierre Auguste Renoir joked that he knew nothing about painting. A few hours before his death, he asked for a brush, paints and a new palette to paint a still life from the bouquet collected for him. His last words was:

“I think I’m starting to understand something about this.”

There is a lot to dislike about Renoir. There are too many naked female figures reclining on elaborate sofas like giant chickens ready to be plucked. They are often too sugary to deeply touch our imagination. Its color effects may seem too sentimental and smooth.

And when Renoir painted landscapes (which he did much less often), he often and willingly leaned towards the coloring expected for him. In short, you can immediately identify the comfortable and familiar Renoir while walking around the Orsay Museum.

For example, here:

Artist’s paintings – “Railway Bridge in Shatu”

Or here:

Paintings of the artist - “Banks of the Seine at Champrossey”

But not in Algerian landscapes.

The artist’s paintings are “Algerian landscape. Savage Ravine"

Renoir took a trip to Algeria (a French colony in northern Africa) in 1881 and he was the only impressionist to do so. He made a second trip to next year- but noticeably shorter than the first. A short immersion in Algerian life was quite enough. Oriental motifs were of little interest to other impressionists - for many of them, the French hinterland was “deep enough.” What Renoir saw in Algeria turned out to be very unusual. The bright, fiery colors of the wild, unruly and often unkempt nature took him by surprise. And the artist changed his usual style.

We see a ravine (gorge) in rural areas not far from the capital of Algiers is a wild and untamed desert area covered with bushes, flowers, trees and grass. The title of the painting apparently hints at some spicy incident that happened somewhere here, but we do not see any hint on the canvas.

It is impossible to determine exactly from what distance Renoir looked at this area - it seems that everything is next to us and directly in front of us without any intermediate stages. However, if you look more closely, the far part of the ravine is lost in the haze and stretches the image. We feel both impressions almost simultaneously. It’s as if Renoir’s eye swallowed whole this entire curvature and sweep of the landscape, the delightful visual abundance of lines up, down and across.

It's all a little like hair that flutters in a wild, unruly wind in all directions at once - pulsating, wavering back and forth, ever changing and fickle.

Our eye does not immediately begin to move across the picture in a certain direction. Our gaze immediately stumbles upon another obstacle and automatically returns back. Our visual walk across the surface of the painting resembles a roller coaster - stormy, bumpy, invigorating and exciting. Nothing happens for a long time and constantly in this picture. The style is more reminiscent of early Fauvism than impressionism.

The picture consists of a huge number of roughnesses and irregularities. Look, for example, at those menacing aloe thorns in the foreground - and then immediately smoothness and smoothness, although not for long.

We also see how many, many individual brush strokes the artist made. It seems that Renoir is no longer doing this in order to capture the effect of light - this would be quite in the spirit of impressionism, but rather to cope with the huge mass of leaves that the artist’s eye noticed.

Artist’s paintings – “Banana fields”

Artist’s paintings – “Path in the Tall Grass”

This is one of Renoir's most recognizable landscapes. Path in tall grass- the result of joint work in plein air with Claude Monet. Here Renoir uses the same motif as Monet in Makah in the Argenteuil area: a meadow full of greenery and a woman with a boy.

Just like Monet, Renoir repeats this pairing in the background. However, his figures are more expressive; they, and not the poppies, are the central characters.

Renoir paints this picture with small strokes, as is customary with the Impressionists. But this manner was not organic for him. As he admitted, it made it possible to “make a more gentle transition from one key to another, but this technique gives a rough texture... I can’t stand it. I like to stroke the painting with my hand.”

(the text uses materials from the article Michael Glover - Algerian Landscape. INPEDENDANT, March 2011 and the book by A. Kiselev “Impressionist Landscapes”, Series “Great Canvases”)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir is considered one of the leading figures in impressionism. Over the course of his time, he created more than a thousand paintings. The artist was so devoted to painting that even while confined to a wheelchair, he painted with a brush tied to his hand.

Renoir might not have become an artist. As a boy, he sang in a church choir, and the teacher seriously insisted that he be sent to study music. However, when the parents noticed how beautifully their son drew with charcoal on the walls, they sent him as an apprentice. He painted porcelain in Mr. Levy's workshop.

13-year-old Renoir worked incredibly quickly and efficiently. The owner of the workshop did not know whether to be happy or upset. “Boy! And he makes so much money!”- he sighed. Mister Levy lowered the rate young talent and translated it to piecework payment, but still Pierre Auguste worked at such a speed that he soon earned so much money that it was enough to buy a house for his parents.

When Auguste Renoir found himself in the house of Richard Wagner, he was able to paint a portrait of the famous composer in just 35 minutes.

Despite the fact that Renoir’s work is classified as impressionism, the artist did not force himself into the clear framework of any particular style. He experimented. After studying Renaissance painting, the artist's style of work was influenced by the paintings of Raphael and other masters of that era. This period of his work is called “Ingres” (derived from the name of the leader of European academicism of the 19th century, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres).

Art historians define the last 10 years of the 19th century as Renoir’s “mother-of-pearl” period. It was then that the painter actively experiments with color transitions, while maintaining his individual style. His paintings are filled with a peculiar play of light and a special charm.

In 1897, the artist had an unfortunate fall from his bicycle, breaking his arm. Against this background, he developed rheumatism. Another 13 years later, Renoir suffered an attack of paralysis, which confined him to a wheelchair. But the desire to create paintings helped the artist live. He asked the maid to tie the brush to his hand and continued to create.

Fame and universal recognition came to Renoir only in the last years of his life. When the painting “Umbrellas” was exhibited at the London National Gallery in 1917, the artist began to receive hundreds of letters. People who saw his painting congratulated Renoir on his success: “From the moment your painting was hung alongside the works of the old masters, we felt the joy that our contemporary had taken his rightful place in European painting.”

In 1919, a few months before his death, the already paralyzed Renoir arrived at the Louvre only to see his painting in the art museum.

Renoir continues to make headlines even in the 21st century. In 2009, a woman bought a painting at a flea market for $7. Later it turned out that “Landscape on the banks of the Seine” belongs to the brush of Renoir and is estimated at between 75 and 100 thousand US dollars.

Not only the painting by Auguste Renoir, but also other works of art, ironically, ended up at flea markets. These

Renoir is considered one of the founders of classical impressionism, however, unlike the paintings of his colleagues, his painting developed in a different direction. He devoted his creativity to techniques transparent painting. Using completely new techniques of applying brush strokes, Renoir achieved a separate structure in his works, which greatly distinguishes his work from the school of the old masters.

Women in Renoir's paintings

Paintings by Renoir, whose names are associated with truly feminine charm, amazingly convey barely noticeable features of girlish beauty. He was an optimist and looked for the most best manifestations in life, trying to preserve them with the help of the pictorial kinetics of his brushes.

Like someone who radiates light, he knew how to find and depict only joyful and happy faces. Largely thanks to this ability, as well as the inherent love of people, the creator made women the quintessence of his art.

Renoir’s paintings with the titles “Jeanne Samary”, “Ballerina”, “Bathers” reveal him as a connoisseur of female nature, who had his own ideal of beauty and was alien to conventions. The women in Auguste's paintings are recognizable, and anyone who has ever encountered the history of painting is able to recognize the hand of the master. Every lady always looks from the canvas with eyes filled with a thirst for love and a desire for change. Among common features, which are viewed in all women's portraits artist, - all the ladies in the paintings have a small forehead and a heavy chin.

“Portrait of Jeanne Samary” and “Portrait of Henriette Henriot”

In 1877, a personal exhibition of the artist’s expositions within the framework of impressionism was held. Among the majority of works, the greatest interest was caused by Renoir’s paintings with the titles “Portrait of Jeanne Samary” and “Portrait of Henriette Henriot.” The ladies depicted in the paintings are actresses. The author painted their portraits more than once. The paintings captured attention largely due to the skillfully created illusion of mobility of the blue-white background, which gradually thickens around the outlines of the feminine Henriette and leads the viewer to her velvety brown eyes. Despite the fact that the overall exhibition was very kinetic and emotional, at the same time it remained motionless, with an emphasis on the contrast of dark brow ridges and supple red curls.

In a similar manner, Pierre Auguste Renoir, whose paintings are not famous for their placement of accents and detail, painted a portrait of the charming Jeanne Samary. The actress’s figure seems to be sculpted from ornate purple strokes, which incredibly absorbed the entire possible color palette and at the same time retained the dominant red color. Renoir skillfully brings the viewer to the girl’s face, focusing on the drawn mouth, eyes and even strands of hair. The background imposes reflexes on the actress's face through a purple blush, which fits very harmoniously into the image of the diva. The actress’s body itself is filled with hasty brushstrokes characteristic of the Impressionists.

Technical features of Renoir's performance

Pierre Auguste Renoir, whose paintings radiate the spirit of impressionism, continued to work until last days life, not allowing illness to remove him from colors. In addition to his love for depicting female nature, the artist became famous for his ability to effectively use color and work with those paints that his colleagues in the craft rarely resorted to.

Auguste is one of the few who skillfully resorted to using a combination of black, gray and white flowers so that the paintings do not look “dirty”. The idea of ​​experimenting with this color scheme visited the artist when he once sat and watched the raindrops. Many art critics note that the artist can be called a master of depicting umbrellas, since he often resorted to this detail in his work.

For the most part, the master used white, Neapolitan yellow paint, cobalt blue, crown, ultramarine, kraplak, emerald green paint and vermilion, but their skillful combination gave birth to incredibly picturesque masterpieces. Closer to 1860, when Impressionism was gaining momentum, Renoir's color palette underwent changes and he began to resort to more bright shades, for example, red.

Monet's influence on Renoir's work

The incident led Renoir to a meeting with an equally significant French art painter, Their destinies were intertwined, and they lived in the same apartment for some time, constantly honing their skills, depicting each other on canvas. Some critics claim that the similarity between their paintings is so obvious that, if not for the signature in the lower left corner, it would be technically impossible to distinguish them. However, there are clear differences in their work. For example, Monet focused attention on the play of light and shadow, thanks to which he created his contrasts on canvases. Auguste valued color as such more, which is why his paintings are more rainbow and full of light. Another fundamental difference in the work of the painters was that Renoir’s paintings, whose names are certainly associated with women, always gravitated toward depicting human figures, while Claude Monet certainly relegated them to the background.