Ausstellung "Renoir, Rococo Revival - Der Impressionismus und die französische Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts" im Städel Museum Frankfurt vom 2. März - 19. Juni 2022
Tags: Städel Museum Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Hessen Hesse Deutschland Germany Renoir Rococo Revival
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Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Jean Maillot, Banyuls-sur-Mer 1861 - 1944
Bronzebüste von Renoir - Bronze bust of Renoir
modeled probably 1906 or 1907, cast probably ca. 1907
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Maillol modeled the bust of Auguste Renoir while the painter worked in his summer studio at Essoyes in the Champagne region of France. He portrayed Renoir as an old man, wearing his favorite hat, an old one of white cloth, whose face records the ravages of the pain of incurable arthritis. The first edition in bronze was made in 1907 for the Paris art dealer Ambroise Vollard.
Tags: Aristide Maillol Bronzebüste bronze bust Pierre-August Renoir
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Limoges 1841 – Cagnes-sur Mér 1919
Der Spaziergang - The Promenade (1870)
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
In The Promenade, both figures are crucial to the scene, but they are treated very differently. Brightly lit and wearing a white dress, the woman is the dominant focus of the picture. Sporting a dark jacket and pressing back against the foliage, the man is a far more shadowy figure, only partially lit by scattered flashes of sunlight on his trousers, hands, collar, and hat. The trail into the depths of the wood may be well lit, but there is the hint, in the young man’s heavily shaded, almost caricatural features, that his intentions might be less than pure.
There is nothing in the painting that allows us to pinpoint the exact location of Renoir’s scene, but it’s clear from the dense, overgrown foliage and rough, uneven terrain that this is not the cultivated space of a park or garden.
The most telling clue is the figures’ relatively informal urban dress, which suggests that they are Parisian pleasure seekers on an excursion outside the city. The distinctive ribboned hat worn by the man identifies him as a canotier, or boater – a common sight along the Seine River valley to the west of Paris. Have these two just left their boat by the riverbank in a search for greater privacy?
The Promenade is considered a genre painting, meaning it depicts a familiar scene of everyday life whose characters are recognizable social types. The canotier can be imagined in his weekday life as a petit bourgeois, belonging to the lower-middle class and his companion as one of the legendary grisettes, the good-hearted girls common in the mythology of Parisian bohemian life who were interested in handsome young men for their charm, not their money. Together, these day-tripping Parisians evoke an easygoing, semi-bohemian world in which the pursuit of fleeting pleasures is paramount and social strictures are relaxed in the context of unbound nature.
The informality of the picture’s youthful, romantic subject is complemented by that of its lively, energetic technique. The Promenade rejects traditional notions of drawing and the imperative to clearly delineate and carefully model forms. Instead, Renoir works in a vibrant, painterly mode, animating the whole picture surface with fluid, broken brushstrokes and flecks and dashes of contrasting tone and color. Through brushwork and the modulation of light and color, he creates a dynamic interplay between the figures and their natural surroundings, responding in his way to one of the defining challenges of the Impressionist generation: how to depict large-scale figures outdoors in sunlight.
Despite the apparent informality and speed of Renoir’s loose, flickering technique, The Promenade is a work of great artifice, its composition is carefully framed and orchestrated. While dark foliage in the upper left corner sets off the woman in white, sun-dappled greens in the upper right corner set off the man’s dark figure.
In the bottom corners, the scene is framed by a delicate spray of leafy twigs and a massive tree trunk - contrasting natural elements that wittily echo the gendered opposition of Renoir's female and male figures.
And just as the man leads the woman up the path, so a sequence of pink and red touches lead the viewer’s eye across the composition from the woman's face and hat through the joined hands to the man's face and the remarkable red ribbon on his hat . and finally to his left hand, pointing to where he wishes her to go.
"I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.” Renoir
Source: "Taking a Stroll in Renoir's The Promenade" published online in 2021 via Google Arts & Culture, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Tags: Pierre-August Renoir Der Spaziergang The Promenade J. Pau Getty Museum Los Angeles
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Limoges 1841 - Cagnes-sur-Mer 1919
Frau mit einem Fächer - Woman with a fan (1879)
The Clark Institute of Arts, Williamstown, MA, USA
The actress Jeanne Samary may have posed for this painting in her cheerfully decorated dressing room at the Comédie-Française, a theater in Paris. Yet the image, as indicated by its title, was not intended as a portrait. The informal subject freed Renoir to experiment with composition - the figure occupies a compressed space, a vibrant bouquet competing with her features. She holds an uchiwa fan, reflecting a fascination with all things Japanese in late nineteenth-century France.
Source: The Clark Institute of Arts
Tags: Pierre-August Renoir Frau mit einem Fächer Woman with a fan The Clark Institute of Arts Williamstown
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Limoges 1841 – Cagnes-sur Mér 1919
Frau mit Sonnenschirm in einem Garten - Woman with a Parasol in a Garden 1875
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
In Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, Renoir’s language is wholly impressionistic: in a setting lacking a visible horizon, the flowers and shrubs are created with tiny dabs of colour, providing a constant interweaving of textures around the two small figures. The woman, whose parasol shades her from the sun, stands close to the man as he leans down, perhaps to pick a flower, hinting at an intimate relationship.
Contrary to what one may think, this canvas was not painted in the countryside but in the garden of Renoir’s new studio in Montmartre. His friend George Rivière recalled: ‘As soon as Renoir entered the house, he was charmed by the view of this garden, which looked like a beautiful abandoned park.
Source: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Tags: Städel Museum Frankfurt Renoir Rococo Revival Pierre-Auguste Renoir Impressionismus Impressionism Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid
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