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RENOIR : MASTERS OF ART SERIES
A critical assessment of Renoir's work together with copious full colour and black and white illustrations. There is also a biographical section by Bernard Zurcher.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1978
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About the author
Jean Leymarie
212 booksJean Leymarie (17 July 1919, Gagnac-sur-Cère, Lot – 9 March 2006) was a French art historian.
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August 8, 2018
'Painting is a trade like carpentry and ironmongery,' wrote Renoir and he had a never-ending passion for painting. Not a day went by when he did not have recourse to his palette and towards the end of his life he estimated that he had painted 4000 canvasses not to mention his many sketches.
In 1861 he enrolled at Gleyre's workshop where he met and worked with Manet, Bazille and Sisley with whom he was to later work with out of doors in the forest of Fontainebleau. He exhibited for the first time at the official Salon in 1864 but he subsequently destroyed his painting, Esmerelda. But his portrait of Lise earned him recognition at the 1868 Salon and in 1869 he assisted Monet with two versions of La Grenouillère (The Frog Pool), painted in the Impressionist style.
He took heed of other artists, such as Courbet, Manet, Delacroix and Veronese, and their influences can be seen in many of his works. He also brought forth a new type of feminine beauty that had Cezanne commenting, 'Renoir has painted the Parisian woman.' And Proust went so far as to write, '... women pass in the street, different now from those of other time, as they are Renoir's and from now on we see them not as women but as Renoir's'.
Having exhibited at three of their exhibitions, he disengaged himself from the Impressionists in 1878 and returned to more classical painting. He continued painting and drawing, doing the latter more regularly in later life, and, also in later life, he added sculpture to his repertoire. And Jean Laymarie has demonstrated his versatility with a splendid cross section of his work; Le Moulin de la Galette and the Luncheon of the Boating Party shows off his representation of crowd scenes admirably, his galaxy of nudes demonstrates his talent in that direction and his Madame Charpentier and Her Children, Two Girls at the Piano and Girls in a Meadow gives ample evidence of his sympathetic treatment of such subjects.
This is a gem of a book and there is plenty to admire and drool over. Gauguin said of him, rather contradictorily, 'A man who does not know how to draw, but who draws well.' I am afraid I cannot subscribe to the first part of this statement but wholeheartedly endorse the latter!
In 1861 he enrolled at Gleyre's workshop where he met and worked with Manet, Bazille and Sisley with whom he was to later work with out of doors in the forest of Fontainebleau. He exhibited for the first time at the official Salon in 1864 but he subsequently destroyed his painting, Esmerelda. But his portrait of Lise earned him recognition at the 1868 Salon and in 1869 he assisted Monet with two versions of La Grenouillère (The Frog Pool), painted in the Impressionist style.
He took heed of other artists, such as Courbet, Manet, Delacroix and Veronese, and their influences can be seen in many of his works. He also brought forth a new type of feminine beauty that had Cezanne commenting, 'Renoir has painted the Parisian woman.' And Proust went so far as to write, '... women pass in the street, different now from those of other time, as they are Renoir's and from now on we see them not as women but as Renoir's'.
Having exhibited at three of their exhibitions, he disengaged himself from the Impressionists in 1878 and returned to more classical painting. He continued painting and drawing, doing the latter more regularly in later life, and, also in later life, he added sculpture to his repertoire. And Jean Laymarie has demonstrated his versatility with a splendid cross section of his work; Le Moulin de la Galette and the Luncheon of the Boating Party shows off his representation of crowd scenes admirably, his galaxy of nudes demonstrates his talent in that direction and his Madame Charpentier and Her Children, Two Girls at the Piano and Girls in a Meadow gives ample evidence of his sympathetic treatment of such subjects.
This is a gem of a book and there is plenty to admire and drool over. Gauguin said of him, rather contradictorily, 'A man who does not know how to draw, but who draws well.' I am afraid I cannot subscribe to the first part of this statement but wholeheartedly endorse the latter!
Displaying 1 of 1 review