Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Little-Known Facts from the Life of the Renowned Impressionist

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Pierre-Auguste Renoir is considered one of the leading figures in Impressionism. For all the time he created more than a thousand paintings. The artist was so devoted to painting that even being confined to a wheelchair, he painted pictures with a brush tied to his hand.

Renoir might not have become an artist. As a boy, he sang in the church choir, and the teacher seriously insisted that he be sent to study music. However, when the parents noticed how beautifully their son was drawing with charcoal on the walls, they sent him to an apprentice. He painted porcelain in the workshop of Mr. Levy.

Renoir, 13, worked incredibly quickly and efficiently. The owner of the workshop did not know whether to be happy or upset. he sighed. Monsieur Levy lowered the rate of the young talent and transferred it to piecework, but still Pierre Auguste worked at such a speed that he soon earned so much money that it was enough to buy a house for his parents.

When Auguste Renoir was in the house of Richard Wagner, he was able to paint a portrait of the famous composer in just 35 minutes.

Despite the fact that Renoir's work is attributed to impressionism, the artist did not drive himself into the clear framework of a particular style. He experimented. After studying Renaissance painting, the artist's manner of work was influenced by paintings by Raphael and other masters of that era. This period of his work is called "Ingres" (derived from the name of the leader of European academicism of the 19th century Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres).

Art critics define the last 10 years of the 19th century as the "mother-of-pearl" period of Renoir. It was then that the painter actively experiments with color transitions, while maintaining his individual style. His paintings are filled with a kind of play of light and special charm.

In 1897, the artist unsuccessfully fell off his bicycle, breaking his arm. Against this background, he developed rheumatism. After another 13 years, Renoir suffered a paralysis attack, which confined him to a wheelchair. But the desire to create pictures helped the artist live. He asked the servant to tie a brush to her hand and continued to create.

Glory and universal recognition came to Renoir only in the last years of his life. When in 1917 the painting "Umbrellas" was exhibited at the London National Gallery, the artist began to receive hundreds of letters. People who saw his canvas congratulated Renoir on his success:

In 1919, a few months before his death, the already paralyzed Renoir arrived at the Louvre only to see his painting in an art museum.

Renoir continues to make headlines even into the 21st century. In 2009, at a flea market, a woman bought a painting for $ 7. Later it turned out that "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine" belongs to the brush of Renoir and is estimated at between 75 and 100 thousand US dollars.

Not only the painting by Auguste Renoir, but also other works of art, ironically, fell on flea markets. These priceless masterpieces were sold literally for a penny.