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RENOIR, Pierre-Auguste/
ARTISTS 1650 -1899/ART MAIN
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original
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(1841
- 1919)
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges on
February 25, 1841. His father was a tailor and his mother a dressmaker.
When Renoir was three, the family moved to Paris where he grew up and
lived most of his life. From 1854 to 1858, Renoir was apprenticed to a
decorator of porcelain. He also studied drawing in the evenings and,
from 1864, received permission to paint copies in the Louvre. In
1860-61, Renoir began his formal art training, studying in the studio of
Charles Gleyre and entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine
Arts) in 1862. At the art school, Renoir formed friendships with Claude
Monet (1840-1926), Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870), and Alfred Sisley
(1839-1899). The four artists, who had painted together outdoors during
their student years, later were founding members of the movement that
became known as Impressionism.
From the outset, Renoir consciously
constructed an epic painting about modern life to surpass the earlier
artistic achievement of Ball at the Moulin de la Galette
(1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Many art historians believe that Luncheon
of the Boating Party, begun in the summer of 1880, may have been
Renoir's response to a challenge from the famous writer and critic Emile
Zola (1840-1902) in a June review of the official Salon exhibition of
that year. Zola criticized the Impressionists for selling "sketches
that are hardly dry" and challenged the artists to create complex
paintings of modern life that were the result of "long and
thoughtful preparation" and would establish "a new
formula." With Luncheon of the Boating Party's ambitious
scale, lengthy process of execution, and complex composition and subject
matter, Renoir may have been striving to produce Zola's
"masterpiece that is to lay down the formula...."
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The Luncheon of the Boating Party
(Amazon UK)
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The Luncheon of the Boating Party, c.1881
Art Print
Renoir,...
Buy at AllPosters.com
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French cheese
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The Luncheon of the Boating Party
1881
Oil on canvas
129.5 x 172.7 cm (51 x 68 in.)
The Phillips Collection,
Washington
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DETAIL of glasses on table
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Renoir's reverence for the history of art,
particularly the paintings in the Louvre, provided a source of
inspiration throughout his career. In the case of Luncheon of the
Boating Party, he may well have looked at such works as Paolo
Veronese's lavish, banqueting scene, the Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-63,
Musée du Louvre, Paris) and the flirtatious Rococo fête galante,
Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717, Musée du Louvre, Paris) by Antoine
Watteau.
Renoir masterfully created Luncheon of
the Boating Party's mood of enchantment by capturing both the
immediacy and specificity of a moment of leisure on the Seine and the universal appeal of human celebration.
Moreover, he, in this canvas, combined several of the traditional
categories of painting: still life, landscape, portraiture and genre.
The result is a timeless painting that captures the atmosphere of an
idyllic place, where friends share the pleasures of food, wine, and
conversation.
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Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party not
only conveys the light-hearted leisurely mood of the Maison
Fournaise,
but also reflects the character of mid- to late-nineteenth century
French social structure. The restaurant welcomed customers of many
classes including bourgeois businessmen, society women, artists (Renoir
and Caillebotte), actresses, writers (Guy de Maupassant), critics and,
with the new, shorter work week - a result of the industrial revolution
- seamstresses and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a
new, modern Parisian society that accepted, as it continued to develop
and advanced the French Revolution's promise of liberté, egalité,
fraternité.
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The Maison Fournaise
Parisians would flock to Chatou's
Maison Fournaise to rent rowing
skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night. In 1857, the entrepreneur
Alphonse Fournaise bought land in Chatou to open a boat rental,
restaurant, and small hotel for the new tourist trade. From the mid
1870s, Renoir often visited the Maison Fournaise to enjoy its convivial
atmosphere and rural beauty. He painted scenes of the restaurant, as
well as several portraits of Fournaise family members and landscapes of
the surrounding area. In fact, Renoir occasionally traded paintings with
the Fournaise family for food and lodging.
by Donna McKee and Suzanne Wright
copyright
The Phillips Collection
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Girl with a Basket of Oranges
c. 1889
oil on canvas, 130.7 x 41.8 cm
Gift of William Robertson Coe
National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC
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Girl with a Basket of Fish
c. 1889
oil on canvas, 130.7 x 41.8 cm Gift of William Robertson Coe
National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC
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