Renoir, Pierre Auguste << REHN wahr or ruh NWAHR, pyair oh GOOST >> (1841-1919), was a French Impressionist painter. He is famous for his pictures of young girls and children, and intimate portraits of French middle-class life. He loved to show lively groups in sensuous surroundings. He often used his friends as models. Renoir frequently painted his wife and children.
In the 1870’s, Renoir and Claude Monet together developed the broken color technique of the Impressionists. Instead of mixing paints completely, they left small dabs of color in a sketchy manner. But Renoir was more interested in rich color effects and a sense of volume than Monet. Renoir also preferred figure painting to landscapes. During the 1870’s, he painted a large number of portraits on commission. Perhaps his most famous is Mme. Charpentier and Her Children. Many Impressionists brought Japanese qualities into their work. However, Renoir revived the rococo style of such artists as Francois Boucher and Jean Honore Fragonard.
Renoir visited Italy in 1881 and 1882. His study of Renaissance painters there led him to a new appreciation of the importance of line. He returned to France, where he gave up his broad, coloristic manner and spent several years concentrating on drawing. Renoir painted a famous series, The Bathers, during this time.
The happy quality of Renoir’s later work does not show the agony he suffered from arthritis. The disease eventually made it extremely difficult for him to use his hands. He had brushes tied to his hands and developed a final style of painting in broad brush strokes and vivid colors.
Renoir was born in Limoges, France, on Feb. 25, 1841. He was apprenticed to learn porcelain painting after he showed an early talent for drawing. He painted window shades and fans in Paris. He studied at Charles Gleyre’s studio. There, he met Monet and other young painters who were to form the Impressionist group. He was influenced also by Édouard Manet and the color methods of Eugene Delacroix. Renoir died on Dec. 3, 1919.
See also Delacroix, Eugene; Impressionism; Manet, Édouard; Monet, Claude.
