Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we are immersing
ourselves in the world of an artist whose name
is synonymous with sun -drenched picnics, vibrant
dance halls, and, well, the abundant joy of the
female form, Pierre -Auguste Renoir. He really
is. When we talk about impressionism, we often
focus on the radical technical stuff, the broken
brushstrokes, the sort of scientific look at
light. Right. But Renoir is unique in that he
channeled those revolutionary tools towards something
profoundly traditional, almost primal. He was,
above all, the ultimate celebrator of life's
visible pleasures. And especially, I'd say. feminine
sensuality. It really sets him apart, doesn't
it? Our sources make this just astonishing kind
of sweeping claim about his position in art history.
They say he is the final representative of a
tradition which runs directly from Rubens to
Watteau. Wow. That places him at the very end
of this long celebrated European lineage. Heavy
stuff. It's a remarkable claim, yeah. But when
you really look at his body of work, you can
see why they'd say that. It holds up. What does
that lineage mean, though? Good question. it
means i think a rejection of that severe maybe
intellectual classicism that dominated so much
of european art it means prioritizing the celebration
of the flesh the texture of skin the warmth of
the body the sheer physical abundance of life.
Like Rubens. Exactly. Rubens did it with these
grand mythic figures. Watteau brought it into
those aristocratic gardens, you know, Fetz Galant.
And Renoir. Renoir brought it right into the
middle class Parisian dance halls, the cafes,
and the intimacy of family life. He made it modern,
accessible. It really speaks volumes about his
career's sheer breadth and duration, too. Born
in Limoges, 1841, died in 1919. He was right
there. a central figure through the whole development
of the Impressionist style. Almost seven decades
of continuous creativity. It's pretty staggering.
And just as important as the canvases he left
behind is, well, the cultural dynasty he started.
Before we even get into the paint and the palette
knives, we really have to highlight his family
legacy. It's incredible. Oh, absolutely. Renoir
wasn't just a painter. He was, in a way, the
patriarch of this whole line of modern arts figures.
Think about this. He was the father of Pierre
Renoir, the stage and film actor. He was the...
father of the legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir,
who gave us classics like Grand Illusion and
The Rules of the Game. And who wrote that incredibly
moving memoir about him, Renoir, My Father. Essential
reading if you're interested in Renoir the man.
Definitely. And then there was Claude Renoir,
the ceramic artist, his third son. But the talent
didn't even stop there. No. He was also the grandfather
of another filmmaker, Claude Renoir -Pierre's
son, who was a noted cinematographer. It's just
an incredible line of cultural achievement, all
flowing directly from this one Impressionist
painter. Really gives you a sense of the dynamic,
artistic environment he must have fostered at
home. It really does. So our mission today is
to trace this extraordinary journey for you.
We're going to unpack the sources, look at everything
from his beginnings as a tailor's son. who, you
know, sometimes couldn't even afford paint. Through
his pivotal, quite radical role in Impressionism,
then those dramatic, self -imposed style changes
he made in mid -career. The Angraise period.
Exactly. And finally, that incredible story of
his persistence, how he kept creating these masterpieces
despite decades of severe, crippling physical
disability. We want to give you the full picture.
Okay, let's start right at the beginning. Limoges,
1841. Renoir's origins were definitively humble.
His father, Leonard Renoir, was a tailor. The
family lived a very modest life. Yeah, their
economic situation really dictated things. By
1844, they moved to central Paris, settled on
the Rue d 'Argentoux. Now, this move was crucial
for a couple of reasons. Well, one, they hoped
for better tailoring prospects in the capital,
obviously. But two, it situated the young Renoir
remarkably close to the Louvre Museum. So that
visual education started early, even if it was,
you know, maybe unconscious at first. It's funny,
we often look back and sort of impose destiny
onto artists, don't we? Assume they were always
meant to paint. But the sources give us this
really surprising, almost alternate reality path
that Renoir nearly took. They absolutely do.
While he apparently showed a natural knack for
drawing, his earliest, most recognized talent
was actually for singing. Singing, yeah. He was
encouraged by Charles Gounod. Yes, that Gounod
who was the choir master at the Church of St.
Roche at the time. Had finances been different,
Renoir might have ended up known today as like
a composer or maybe a celebrated opera singer.
Who knows? That's wild. But financial constraints
defined his early life, as you said, so that
promising musical path got cut short pretty abruptly.
It did. He had to stop the lessons and, at just
13, leave school entirely. He was sent off to
become an apprentice at a porcelain factory.
A porcelain factory. That sounds specific. It
was the reality for a working -class family then.
He was put to work decorating plates, cups, that
sort of thing, basically applying pre -designed
patterns onto commercial ceramics. It was probably
pretty monotonous, an early grind. But maybe
useful skills. Oh, definitely. It was also a
vital training ground in its own way. It taught
him precision, speed, and a real mastery over
small, delicate brushwork, skills that would
actually serve him later. Still, he found the
subject matter pretty tiresome, stuck in commercial
work. We know his refuge became the Louvre, just
nearby. Was this just a kid escaping boredom,
or was he actually studying? Seems like active
study. He was soaking up the old masters, you
know, the ones who had perfected the art of the
human figure long before the Impressionists came
along. And crucially, the owner of the porcelain
factory apparently recognized that Renoir's talent
went way beyond just commercial decorating. Ah,
so someone noticed. Yes, and he communicated
this to the family. This was the push they needed,
and it led Renoir to start taking drawing lessons,
specifically to prepare for the École des Beaux
-Arts, the main art school. But even this artistic
path wasn't straightforward, was it? The Industrial
Revolution kind of literally caught up with him.
It really did. In 1858, the porcelain factory
switched over to mechanical reproduction methods
for the decorative work. Suddenly, Renoir's hand
skills were obsolete overnight. Wow. So back
to square one. Pretty much. He was forced to
find other ways to make a living for about four
years before he could finally enroll in art school
in 1862. He was truly hustling, painting decorative
hangings for overseas missionaries, apparently.
Seriously? Missionaries? Yeah, and maybe a bit
more artistically relevant decorating fans. He
was basically a freelance commercial artist just
trying to stay afloat long enough to get into
proper training. You have to admire the persistence.
Finally, 1862, he enrolls, studies under Charles
Gleyre in Paris, and this is where he meets that
foundational group, the guys who had become the
Impressionists. Yes, this is the key moment.
He meets Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and
the man who would probably most radically alter
Renoir's direction, Claude Monet. The dream team.
This quartet started questioning the academic
orthodoxy together. They began developing this
shared vision that would, you know, pretty soon
break all the rules of French painting. But even
hanging out with this revolutionary group, the
financial struggle was absolutely constant. The
sources really stressed that throughout the 1860s,
Renoir often literally didn't have the money
to buy basic supplies, paint, canvas. It just
underscores the sheer dedication of that early
generation, doesn't it? They believed so strongly
in this new way of seeing light and color that
they just kept working, even when they were basically
destitute. Incredible. But despite the strain,
he did have a major, if maybe temporary, breakthrough.
His first real success at the official salon
in 1868 with Lise with a parasol. It's a lovely
portrait of his lover at the time, Lise Trejo.
But wider recognition was slow coming, partly
because of the turbulent political climate you
mentioned. The Franco -Prussian War, the Paris
Commune in 1871. Exactly. And that historical
context brings us to this remarkable, almost
unbelievable anecdote, the Seine Incident. Ah,
yes. Tell us about that. It sounds dramatic.
It perfectly captures the danger and chaos of
that year, 1871, during the Commune, when Noir
was out painting, doing a landscape on the banks
of the Seine River. During the Commune, paranoia
was absolutely rampant. Anyone sketching could
be suspected of mapping positions, spying for
the government side against the Communards. Oh,
I see where this is going. Yeah. He was surrounded
by a group of communards who decided he was a
spy. And they were literally preparing to throw
him into the river. Good grief. That's not just
a threat. That's immediate execution. How did
he get out of that? Pure dumb luck and personal
history. He was saved when one of the commune
leaders, a man named Raul Rigaud, happened to
recognize Renoir. Recognized him how? Apparently,
Rigaud was someone Renoir had helped or protected
in some capacity in the past. A prior connection.
a forgotten favor. Rigaud intervened and spared
his life. Wow. It's terrifying to think how close
Impressionism came to losing one of its core
founders right there in a moment of civil unrest.
Gives you chills, doesn't it? It really does.
Now, moving past that turmoil, in 1874, there
was another loss. Less life -threatening, certainly,
but still significant for his art. The end of
his 10 -year friendship with Jules Lecur. Right,
and this loss had a really direct impact on his
subject matter. Lecoeur owned property near the
forests of Fontainebleau, a really scenic area.
Where he'd painted before. Exactly. Lecoeur had
given Renoir access, and Renoir had spent years
painting these beautiful, lush, green landscapes
there. Losing that access, that location, basically
forced him to shift his focus. He turned much
more towards painting modern, urban life. figures,
portraits, which in turn propelled him straight
into the heart of core Impressionist themes.
So, having been repeatedly snubbed by the conservative
Salon, Renoir was really ready to commit fully
to the revolution, artistically speaking. By
this time, he was heavily inspired by the stylistic
innovations of Camille Pissarro, and also the
sharp social observations in the work of Edouard
Manet. And so, the revolution finally took physical
form in April 1874. After all those rejections
from the establishment, he joined Monet, Sisley,
Pissarro, Degas, Bertha Morisot, and others,
and they mounted their own show, the First Impressionist
Exhibition. He put in six paintings. And while
the critics were famously savage towards the
exhibition as a whole, that's where the term
impressionist was first used dismissively, like
their paintings were just mere impressions. Right,
unfinished sketches. Exactly. But Renoir's work
actually stood out. It was noted for its charm,
its skill. He received comparatively well -received
criticism, even amidst the general outcry. He
was now officially, publicly, part of this movement
challenging centuries of academic tradition.
And the core of that challenge, as we touched
on, came from their technical innovation, especially
that discovery they made painting en plein air
outdoors with Monet in the late 1860s. It fundamentally
changed how they treated color, didn't it? Oh,
completely. It was a visual, almost scientific
breakthrough about light. Specifically something
called diffuse reflection. Traditional painting
basically assumes shadows were just gray or black
or brown pigment. Lifeless. Okay. But the Impressionists,
painting outside, really looked. And they realized
that light, when it scatters, actually carries
the color of the surfaces it bounces off. Right.
Can you walk us through that again, like in painting
terms? Sure. Think about, say, a figure in a
white dress standing on a bridge. green lawn
under a blue sky. The shadow cast by that figure
isn't just a dark gray shape. It's actually filled
with the reflected green light bouncing up from
the grass and the cool diffused blue light coming
down from the sky. Ah, so the shadow itself has
color. Precisely. A shadow on that white dress
might actually contain subtle violets, blues,
maybe even hints of green. The shadow lives.
This single observation immediately made their
canvases vibrate with light and color in a way
that academic painting just couldn't replicate.
And we see this perfected in works like La Grenouillère
from 1869, which he actually painted side by
side with Monet, both of them exploring this
new phenomenon. Exactly. And this discovery leads
directly to the style we instantly recognize
as Impressionism. those quick, freely brushed
touches of color that suggest details rather
than outlining them rigidly. The figures and
the atmosphere kind of solidly fuse together,
capturing a momentary, vibrant reality. It's
all about the fleeting moment. And this revolutionary
style produced his great early masterpieces.
We absolutely have to talk about dance at Le
Moulin de la Galette from 1876. Le Moulin de
la Galette, yeah. That's arguably the definitive
statement of Renoir's early Impressionism. It's
a huge canvas, absolutely massive, yet it feels
completely spontaneous, like an instantaneous
snapshot. What's it depicting? It captures real
life at this popular outdoor dance garden up
in Montmartre. It's just full of bustling crowds,
sparkling color, dappled sunlight filtering down
through the acacia trees. It has incredible energy,
social observation. cure joy. He also did The
Swing around the same time, another classic of
that period. But despite this artistic high point,
Renoir never lost sight of the practical need
for financial stability. That kind of sets him
apart from some of his more bohemian peers, maybe.
I think so. He knew critical acclaim was great,
but it didn't pay the rent or buy the paint.
This led to a very calculated, quite strategic
shift in focus. When the second Impressionist
exhibition opened in 1876, Renoir deliberately
chose to display mostly portraits. This wasn't
just artistic preference. It was an explicit,
almost business -minded move. Portraiture was
the traditional way artists detracted commissions
and secured a reliable livelihood. Smart. And
did it work? Brilliantly. By the late 1870s,
he successfully transitioned from being seen
as a struggling radical to becoming a genuinely
fashionable painter. The moment that really cemented
this status was the triumph of his large portrait,
Madame Charpentier and Her Children, at the official
Salon of 1879. Getting into the Salon after being
part of the Impressionist exhibitions, that's
interesting. It was huge. It signaled that his
skill, his charm, his way with paint was simply
undeniable, even to the establishment figures
he'd previously rejected or been rejected by.
The painting was adored. It was intimate, charming,
beautifully painted, and it depicted a prominent
cultured family of the time Georges Charpentier
was a major publisher. So that gave him social
currency. Instant social currency. It attracted
a wealthy clientele who now wanted their families,
their lives, captured with that same luminosity
and warmth that Renoir offered. And that success
then led directly to securing the patron who
would become absolutely central to his life for
years. Paul Berard. Indeed. In 1879, he met Berard.
who was a wealthy diplomat and an avid collector.
Burrard became his main patron, offering him
not just steady commissions, but also regular
invitations to stay and paint at his country
estate in Normandy by the seaside. So the days
of struggling to afford paint were finally over.
Definitely over. And this newfound financial
freedom, this security, is what directly enabled
the next pivotal shift in his career, a real
period of questioning and change, the Grand Tour.
Right. So with financial freedom finally achieved,
Renoir enters this period of pretty profound
artistic questioning. The year 1881 becomes a
major turning point and is defined by extensive
self -funded travel, his own version of the traditional
grand tour. He wasn't just taking a vacation,
though. This was a deliberate quest for knowledge,
wasn't it? He started in Algeria. Why Algeria?
He associated Algeria with the romantic master
Eugene Delacroix, whose use of color and light
he deeply admired. He was seeking. maybe a different
kind of light, a different understanding of color,
away from the Parisian grayness. Then he went
on to Spain, specifically to Madrid, to study
the work of the Spanish master Diego Velázquez.
Okay, so Delacroix, Velázquez. But the really
transformative destinations were in Italy, right?
Absolutely. Italy was the game changer. He traveled
to Florence to study the Venetian masters like
Titian, soaking up their rich color and handling
of flesh. And then he went to Rome to study the
ultimate classicist, Raphael. Raphael, that seems
like a different direction entirely. It was.
And seeing the monumental forms, the structural
integrity, the sheer permanence of the Renaissance
masters, it planted this deep seed of doubt in
his mind about his entire Impressionist project.
Really, a crisis of confidence, even after all
that recent success with portraits and patrons.
Absolutely. The rigor, the drawing, the sheer
longevity of that classical tradition felt staggering
compared to what he perhaps saw as the fleeting,
instantaneous nature of impressionism. He started
to feel that in chasing momentary light effects,
he had sacrificed fundamental skills. He actually
became convinced that impressionism was, in his
words, the wrong path. Wow. That's a strong statement
from a leading impressionist. This emotional
turmoil is captured in that extremely candid
quote we have from him about the movement. Yeah,
he stated it very plainly. I had gone as far
as I could with impressionism, and I realized
I could neither paint nor draw. Ouch. For a leading
figure of the movement to confess such a profound
sense of inadequacy after more than a decade
of groundbreaking work and growing success, that's
a proper existential crisis for an artist. He
felt he needed to relearn, to master the human
form and outline all over again. Before that
crisis fully hit the canvas, though, there was
this remarkable, almost absurdly brief historical
meeting he had while he was in Italy in January
1882. Oh, right. The meeting with the legendary
composer Richard Wagner. Yes. At Wagner's home
in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir somehow managed to
paint Wagner's portrait in just 35 minutes. 35
minutes, that's it. That's the story. It's a
stunning example of his speed and confidence
with a brush, even when faced with this giant,
formidable personality. Maybe a last burst of
that impression of spontaneity before the doubts
fully set in. Yet, later that same year, 1882,
the first major physical hurdle appears in his
life. Yeah, he contracted pneumonia quite badly.
It apparently permanently damaged his respiratory
system. He had to go back to Algeria, actually,
to convalesce for about six weeks. This was really
a prelude, maybe a warning shot, regarding the
much more severe physical struggles that would
unfortunately come to dominate the later part
of his life. But before that really took hold,
there was another burst of creativity in 1883,
the Guernsey summer. Yes, he spent the summer
on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel.
And he was incredibly productive, created 15
paintings in just over a month. Many of them
feature the picturesque bay called Mulinhue.
And these Guernsey paintings are quite well known.
They are. They're so distinctive and important
to the region's heritage that they were actually
commemorated on a set of postage stamps by the
bailiwick of Guernsey back in 1983. It shows
his enduring appeal. Definitely. But then, after
that summer, the artistic pendulum really swung
hard. Influenced by that trip to Italy, he shifted
dramatically into what art historians often call
his Ingres period in the mid -1880s. Right. Named
after the French academic painter Jean -Auguste
Dominique Ingres, the master of line. This was
basically a total rejection of the Impressionist
blurring and fusing of forms. For several years,
Renoir worked in a much more severe, almost dry
style. He was attempting this rigorous return
to classicism. So what did that look like? What
was the focus? The focus shifted intensely to
precise drawing, emphasizing hard, crisp outlines
around the figures, discipline over spontaneity.
The result must have looked jarringly different
from the soft, diffused light of something like
Moulin de la Galette. Oh, almost antithetical.
You see it. very clearly in works like the later
versions of the blonde bather and especially
in the big ambitious painting the large baiters
which he worked on from 1884 to 1887. how are
the figures different The figures become quite
rigid, very highly modeled, almost sculptural,
and they seem encased in these hard outlines.
It actively rejects the spontaneity and the atmospheric
effects that had made him famous. It feels like
an intellectual exercise, him trying to prove
to himself, maybe, that he could draw in that
academic sense. But it often sacrificed the warmth
and the sheer lifelikeness that his audience
loved. And he used some significant figures as
models during this period, didn't he? He did.
Suzanne Valadon, for instance, modeled for key
pieces like The Large Bathers and also Dance
at Boucherval. Valadon is a fascinating figure
herself. She was an aspiring artist who also
modeled for Degas and Toulouse -Lautrec. She
clearly absorbed techniques from all of them,
including Renoir's new focus on structure and
line. And she went on to become a really significant
painter in her own right, a major female artist
of the period. That's incredible. And the woman
who would become his wife and life partner also
features prominently in his work from around
this time or slightly earlier, Aline Chergo.
Yes, Aline. She modeled for the very famous luncheon
of the boating party back in 1881, just before
the big Italian trip. She's the woman on the
left looking right out at us, playing with a
little dog. So she was already central to his
world, both domestic and artistic, even before
the marriage. Okay, so after these years spent
in this self -imposed classical severity, trying
to master line like Ingres, he shifts again around
1890. He finds his final, perhaps most recognizable
style. How did he manage to synthesize these
two extremes, the rigor of Ingres and the color
and light of Impressionism? Well, this synthesis
is really the brilliance of his late career,
I think. He essentially eased off the severe,
hard Ingres outline. He wasn't trying to encase
the figures anymore. He returned to using thinly
brushed, vibrant color. So back towards Impressionism.
Sort of, but not entirely. He retained the monumental
solidity, the sense of volume and form that he
had painstakingly rediscovered during his Ungerist
period and his study in Italy. So the figures
in his late work possess the weight and presence
of classicism, but they're bathed in the shimmering
light and the rich, saturated color derived from
his Impressionist discoveries. It's a fusion.
And the result was the main focus of his late
career. Those monumental nudes and also those
very warm, intimate domestic scenes. Works like...
Girls at the Piano from 1892 or the later versions
of the Grande Binews, The Bathers, the family
unit really seems to solidify and become the
absolute artistic epicenter of his life in this
final phase. In 1890, he married Aline Victorine
Charigot, who was, what, about 20 years younger
than him? That's right. And by that point, they
already had their first son, Pierre, who was
born in 1885. Their two younger sons, Jean, the
future filmmaker, and Claude, the future ceramicist,
soon followed. And they all became subjects for
his paintings. Constantly. Aline, the children
Pierre, Jean, Claude, and also Aline's cousin,
Gabrielle Renard, who came to live with them
and served as the children's nurse and Renoir's
frequent model. They became his absolute favorite
subjects. This period gave us those really beautiful,
warm, unguarded scenes of daily family life.
Some of his most cherished and personal works
come from this time. It sounds like a period
of real domestic and artistic harmony. But tragically,
it coincided almost exactly with the onset of
the defining physical struggle of his later life.
Yes, it's a cruel irony. Around 1892, Renoir
began developing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.
And this wasn't just minor aches and pains. No,
not at all. This was a progressive, degenerative,
and incredibly painful condition. The sources
note that by 1907, the pain and stiffness, particularly
aggravated by the damp northern climate, became
so bad that he decided to move. He relocated
the family south to Le Colette, a farm in Cagnes
-sur -Mer, down in Provence near the Mediterranean
coast, seeking the warmth. It's truly astonishing
when you consider the sheer volume and the quality
of the work he produced during his final two
decades. The arthritis led to progressive...
quite severe deformities in his hands, limiting
the mobility in his joints, and specifically
ankylosis, which is the fusion of joints in his
right shoulder. That must have severely restricted
his ability to even lift his arm or maneuver
a canvas. The physical constraint was immense,
almost unimaginable for a painter. Yet somehow,
he continued to paint, often on a large scale.
And this is where we need to address that very
pervasive myth in our history, the one about
the brush being strapped to his hand. Right.
It's such a powerful, almost cinematic image,
isn't it? The determined artist overcoming paralysis.
But our sources clarify that this widely reported
story isn't actually accurate. That's right.
The idea that the brush was literally physically
strapped to his paralyzed fingers is erroneous.
He actually retained the ability to grasp a brush,
albeit. perhaps weekly, and with great difficulty.
So what was the reality then? The reality was
that the immense pain and the lack of mobility,
especially in his shoulder and arm, meant he
often couldn't lift his arms efficiently or position
the brush himself. He absolutely required an
assistant, often Gabrielle or one of his sons,
to gently place the brush into his hand for every
painting session. And the bandages we see in
those late photographs? Those weren't for strapping
the brush on. There are actually protective wrappings,
used primarily to prevent skin irritation and
sores caused by the constant friction of holding
the brush and painting for hours with deformed
joints. not to anchor the brush itself. That
distinction, knowing he could still grasp but
needed help placing the brush, somehow that makes
the story even more profound. It wasn't just
about fighting physical limitation. It was about
profound daily dependence on others just to begin
the act of creation, a complete reversal for
a man who had been so fiercely independent. It
speaks volumes about the sheer internal compulsion
to create, doesn't it? It just had to come out.
And he found remarkable ways to adapt his methods,
too. Like what? Well, because of his limited
joint mobility, not being able to move his elbow
or shoulder very much, he utilized this unique
creative setup, a moving canvas or picture roll.
It was like a long scroll of canvas on rollers.
How did that help? It allowed him to work on
large paintings section by section. He could
have a section rolled into view. painted, and
then have his assistant crank the scroll to bring
the next section up or down, without him having
to physically move his body or stretch his painfully
limited arm across a huge surface. Very ingenious.
Absolutely. And then when the arthritis progressed
to the point where holding even a brush became
nearly impossible sometimes, he turned to a medium
that seems even more physically demanding, sculpture.
This is perhaps his most resourceful adaptation,
and maybe the most surprising. Since he obviously
could no longer manipulate clay directly with
his severely deformed hands, he formed a collaboration
with a young, skilled sculptor named Richard
Guino. So Guino is his hands? Essentially, yes.
Renoir would direct the design. dictating the
forms, the pose, the overall composition, maybe
making gestures or pointing with a stick, and
Guino would execute these instructions in the
clay. This collaboration allowed Renoir to continue
exploring the three -dimensional female form,
which he had loved since his classical studies,
long after his own physical body had effectively
failed him in that regard. It's just a sheer
testament to his creative will absolutely triumphing
over physical failure. Incredible resilience.
His final major public recognition came... Very
fittingly, in the year of his death, 1919. Yes.
He made a visit to the Louvre Museum in Paris.
And there he saw his own paintings hanging on
the walls, displayed alongside those of the old
masters Titian, Rubens, Raphael, the very masters
who had caused his existential crisis decades
earlier. That must have been quite a moment.
The ultimate validation, surely. confirmation
that his synthesis of classicism and impressionism
had indeed secured his place within that great
tradition he so admired. He died shortly thereafter,
back in Cagnes -sur -Mer, at the age of 78. And
his philosophy for continuing through all that
agonizing pain is perfectly captured in that
famous maxim his family continues to celebrate.
It was the inspiration for his great grandson,
Alexandre Renoir's exhibition title, Beauty Remains.
Right. When people asked him inevitably why he
persisted, why he kept painting through the chronic
suffering, his response became the essence of
his late career. The pain passes, but the beauty
remains. That quote really is the perfect lens
through which to look at his massive legacy.
Ranwar was extraordinarily prolific, wasn't he?
Creating several thousand paintings over his
long career. Thousands. His core characteristics,
though, persisted despite all those stylistic
shifts we talked about. That vibrant light, the
saturated color, the focus on intimate, often
candid compositions. And as we established right
at the start, the female nude remained his definitive
primary subject right to the end, a continual
homage to the joy and abundance of the body.
It's fascinating, though, to contrast that enduring
focus on beauty with how his radical style was
initially received. We mentioned the critics
were harsh. Let's maybe revisit the brutal specifics
of that 1876 review in Le Figaro you mentioned
earlier. Oh, that quote. It's hard to forget.
It's so visceral. The reviewer dismissively wrote
that a woman's torso in one of Renoir's paintings
had, quote, a mass of decomposing flesh with
those purplish green stains that denote a state
of complete putrefaction in a corpse. Good Lord.
That is violent imagery. But if we break that
down, those purplish green stains the critics
saw as decay, those were actually the colors
of diffuse reflection we discussed earlier, right?
Precisely. That was a reflection of the green
landscape and the ambient blue light from the
sky appearing in the shadows on the skin. The
critic was expecting the smooth, idealized, almost
porcelain flesh tones and the predictable brown
shadows taught in the academies. And Renoir gave
them something different. He was giving them
living flesh rendered in the complexity of modern
outdoor light and a conservative eye unprepared
for it. interpreted that vibrancy, that broken
color as decay. It just shows how profoundly
misunderstood, how truly radical the Impressionists
were initially. Of course, his style didn't just
arrive fully formed overnight. The sources point
to earlier works like Diana from 1867 as showing
some of his formative influences. Yeah, Diana
is a great example from before his fully Impressionist
phase. It clearly shows the influence of Gustave
Courbet's realism, especially in the solid handling
of the figure and the luminosity. And it features
his early mistress, Lise Trejo, again. But even
in this early work, you can see Renoir is already
injecting his own heightened personal response
to female sensuality. His figures feel different,
maybe warmer, than Courbet's more objective realism.
Now, in terms of collections, if our listeners
want to really absorb the full weight and range
of his career today, where should they go? Well,
interestingly, the single largest collection
of his work isn't in France, but in the United
States. A truly staggering 181 paintings are
housed at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
181. Wow. Why such a concentration in one place?
Was the collector, Dr. Barnes, particularly focused
on Renoir? He was. Dr. Albert Barnes was one
of the earliest and most aggressive collectors
of modern European art, especially Impressionist
and Post -Impressionist works. He bought them
at a time when many traditional museums still
undervalued them. Barnes in particular saw the
continuity between Renoir's late monumental nudes
and the great tradition of painting, maybe linking
them back to Titian and Rubens. So he made a
very deliberate effort to acquire works spanning
the depth and range of Renoir's entire career.
That makes sense. Now, regarding that massive
output, several thousand paintings, the whole
process of authenticating them must be ongoing
and complex. We should probably mention the catalog
raisonne. Right. A catalog raisonne. is essentially
meant to be a complete, annotated listing of
all the known authentic works by an artist. Renoir's
major five -volume catalog was published over
many years by the dealership Bernheim -Jean.
Why them specifically? They were really the only
surviving major dealers who had worked extensively
and directly with Renoir during his lifetime.
But, as you can imagine, with such a massive,
valuable body of work, the existence of a catalog
doesn't stop contention. And we know this has
actually become a matter of public interest,
right? Through TV shows and things. Exactly.
The sources note there's ongoing disagreement
sometimes over authentication standards and specific
attributions. For instance, between the holders
of the Bernheim Schoen Archive and other organizations
like the Wildenstein Institute, which was famously
featured on the BBC television show Fake or Fortune,
several times regarding Renoir works. Why is
it so complex with Renoir? Well, the sheer volume
of his output. Combined with perhaps less rigorous
documentation practices during the early struggling
Impressionist years means the art market is constantly
working to establish provenance and confirm authenticity
even over a century after his death. It's a minefield
sometimes. But despite those occasional contentions,
the value of the unquestionably authenticated
work remains immense. Astronomical, even. Oh,
staggering. Yeah. The monetary value is probably
best exemplified by the sale of a smaller, earlier
version of the iconic Belle Moulin de la Galette.
It sold for $78 .1 million back in 1990 at Sotheby's
in New York, still one of the highest prices
ever paid for an Impressionist work at option.
Incredible. And finally, there's an anecdote
that really shows the strange life these masterpieces
can lead once they leave the artist's studio
and enter the world. Ah, yes, the intriguing
incident surrounding the painting Passage Boards
the Seine. landscape on the banks of the Seine.
In 2012, an auction house was preparing to sell
this small landscape, which had turned up, apparently,
at a flea market. A flea market find. Seriously.
That was the story. But the sale was abruptly
canceled just before the auction when research
revealed that the painting had actually been
stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art way back
in 1951 and had been missing ever since. No way.
Sixty years later. Sixty years later. It just
highlights how these objects, these symbols of
beauty and culture, can sometimes get caught
up in these decades -long hidden sagas of theft,
loss, and human mystery. It's a wild story. But
the core of the man himself, Renoir, was never
really about the market value or the intrigue,
was it? It was always about that compulsion to
capture light, life, and pleasure even, or maybe
especially. when facing darkness and pain. Renoir's
life, when you look back at it, truly was this
narrative of constant transformation, but also
incredible resilience. He started in poverty,
jumped into radical impressionism, then consciously
rejected that for a period of rigorous classicism,
and finally achieved this amazing synthesis as
the master of the monumental robust nude in his
later years. And the greatest drama of his life,
I think, really rests in that final phase, that
stark, almost unbelievable contrast between the
physical reality he inhabited every day and the
sheer physical joy he chose to put on the canvas.
Absolutely. For 20 years, Renoir's daily existence
was defined by acute chronic pain, by increasing
dependence on others, by progressive physical
deformity. Yet the work he produced during that
exact same time, those great late nudes, the
scenes of domestic harmony at late... Colette,
are arguably his most joyous, most abundant,
most sensual celebrations of life, light, and
the physical world. He absolutely did not paint
the suffering. He painted the antidote to it.
He focused on this vibrant, robust beauty, even
as his own body was failing him. He was literally
living out the truth of his own philosophy. The
pain passes, but the beauty remains. It forces
you to look again at those late, almost aggressively
joyful bathers from around 1918 near the very
end. You see them not just as simple defections
of the female figure, but as this powerful assertion
of enduring vitality, of pleasure, of life itself.
Renoir was essentially performing an act of creative
defiance against his own physical agony every
time he picked up that brush, or directed Guino
with the clay. So what does this all mean for
you, the listener, thinking about Renoir today?
We've traced his journey from those early naturalistic
studies of youth and vitality, like Lys with
the parasol, all the way to the final, abundant,
almost overwhelming celebration of the flesh
in his late batters. Given his famous maxim,
the pain passes, but the beauty remains, what
does it truly signify that Renoir chose to dedicate
his last two decades, decades defined by acute,
constant physical pain, to painting the most
robust, the most physically joyous, the most
seemingly untroubled representations of life's
physical pleasure. When things feel difficult
or temporary or painful in your own world, what
enduring beauty are you choosing to focus on?