The Impressionist

- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Recently we have seen an upsurge in interest in painting and sculpture with television programmes such as The Impressionists and Simon Schama’s The Power of Art. 2006 was a bumper year for art with London blockbuster exhibitions such as Velasquez at the National Gallery and Holbein.

The Pont des Arts, Paris - 1867.

The trouble with blockbusters is that they attract too many tourists intent on photographing their friends and relatives directly in front of the paintings, then the paintings themselves and, finally, the little descriptions written in a language they frequently cannot read or understand. So if you have a genuine interest in viewing the works in all their glory choose your viewing time carefully – usually first thing in the morning of a hot, sunny day to take advantage of the air-conditioning. More importantly, try not to go ‘blind’ to a big exhibition: always have at least a general idea of the style of the work on view and, if possible, some background information on the artist. Do not worry that you will be unduly influenced by outside opinions – trust your own eye to interpret what is before you while at the same time appreciating the artist’s intentions.

The next big London blockbuster is likely to be the Pierre-Auguste Renoir exhibition which opens at the National Gallery on February 21 and there is bound to be heightened media interest in this original Impressionist painter and do not be surprised if more than one television programme soon follows, even if they do concentrate on incidentals such as when he was nearly thrown in the river by an enraged mob during the 1870 Commune.

Renoir was born in Limoges in 1841 but moved to Paris at the age of five. He was sent to work painting in a porcelain factory where he learnt his trade, borrowing heavily from the great eighteenth century Rococo painters. At this time he also visited the Louvre learning much from the old masters. Later he joined the Charles Gleyre studio in 1862 where he met like-minded young artists Frederic Bazille, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet. Along with fellow artists Pissarro, Manet, Degas and Cezanne they came to be known as the Impressionists, although some of these were reluctant to embrace this term. Although Gleyre was a traditional teacher in the Classical tradition, he emphasised the importance of sketching and painting outdoors. A popular meeting place for painters and writers where technical questions were discussed was the Café Guerbois and Renoir and Monet encouraged each other when times were hard. At Bourgival on the Seine they made a study of light on water. After the closure of Gleyre’s studio in 1863 they decided to form their own studio in the forest of Fontainebleau.

The term Impressionism is attributed to a sarcastic remark made by Louis Leroy in the satirical magazine Le Chaviari when he referred to Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise, first shown in the studio of the photographer Nadar. This exhibition of the Cooperative society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors and Engravers was in direct opposition to the Salon de Paris where works were chosen by a jury and were awarded prizes which enhanced the reputation of the artists and led to valuable commissions. The jury had often refused to exhibit works by Monet and the others. Renoir took part in the first exhibition at Nadar’s which was a disaster but returned to the Salon in 1879. Out of loyalty to his friends, he showed his The Luncheon of the Boating Party at the sixth Impressionist of 1881.

There are three main strands to Impressionism which emerge from the various members of the group. The first strand is the emphasis on impressions. As Monet said of Impression, Sunrise: “I had sent something I had painted from my window in Le Havre, misty sunlight with a few ships’ masts emerging in the foreground… It could not pass for a view of Le Havre, so when I was asked to give a title for the catalogue. I replied, “Put Impression.”

The second strand is realism, a term probably preferred by Degas and refers to the fact that Impressionists dealt exclusively with subjects taken from the reality of their times. These included a country road with a cart, snowy landscapes or fields of poppies, the sea with its cliffs or the course of a river, a station with a train covered in smoke – in other words everyday life in the town or countryside. The third strand was independence: they defied the Salon and the jury and proved that they could sell their own work without relying on the artistic achievement.

Unlike Monet, Renoir never quite lost the effects of his Classical background which made his work the most accessible of the Impressionists. A trip to Italy in 1882 verified his suspicions of Impressionism and he went through a period of reconstruction, which involved an affirmation of his drawing. The end of his life was marked by a return to a broader, freer, more lyrical style. In his very last year in 1919 he painted The Bathers and wrote: “I’m perfectly happy and won’t die before finishing my masterpiece.” By this time rheumatism had so crippled him that he had to paint in a wheelchair with his brush strapped in his hand. Bathers were a recurring theme in Renoir’s work, especially at times when he was wondering about the direction his experiments should take. The Bathers is grotesque in a way that Renoir saw his own women: the huge thighs, the massive feet, the swollen belly, the strawberry colour of the flesh against the greens of the background. Renoir abandoned himself to his love of life, women’s bodies and nature.

The London exhibition looks set to concentrate on 70 of his landscapes and amongst Renoir’s 6,000 works they should find enough to enthral us all. The Avant-Garde patron Vollard once remarked, “Though Degas sometimes said of Renoir’s work, ‘He paints with balls of wool’, meaning he found the latter’s painting a little fluffy, at others he could be heard to exclaim: ‘Oh! What lovely work!”