December 2, 2019

Tomorrow, December 3, marks 100 years since the death of the celebrated French artist Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1919. Renoir, an Impressionist painter, was 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 and frequently painted his wife and children.

The French artist Pierre Auguste Renoir died 100 years ago on Dec. 3, 1919. Credit: National Library of France

Art museums around the world highlighted their collections of Renoir works to mark the centenary of the artist’s death. In the United States, a special exhibit, “Renoir: the Body, the Senses,” was held at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts during the summer. The exhibit then moved to the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas, where it is showing until January 2020.

Madame Georges Charpentier and her Children by Pierre Auguste Renoir. Credit: Madame Georges Charpentier and her Children (1878), oil on canvas by Auguste Renoir; Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

The Swing, an Impressionist painting by Renoir, shows the effects of sunlight on figures set against an outdoor background. Credit: Oil painting on canvas (1876), Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Giraudon/Art Resource

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, which finally crippled 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’s three sons were also artists, the most famous of whom was the film director Jean Renoir.