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Renoir landscapes at Art Museum (1st review)
The Renoir nobody knows
ANNE R. FABBRI
Pierre-Auguste Renoir should have stuck to painting landscapes instead of all those pink creampuff nudes he turned out ad nauseum. “I never thought it would happen,” I once heard a young male college student remark after touring the Barnes collection, “but I’m really sick of looking at all those nudes.” Renoir’s landscapes are different. They’re much more vital, and some are even exciting.
The first exhibition devoted to Renoir’s landscapes, now on view at the Art Museum, offers 61 Renoir paintings from museums and private collections throughout the world, plus a few photographs from the era, just to remind us of early documentation. It opened at the National Gallery in London, then traveled to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and Philadelphia is its only U.S. venue. Taken together, these works reveal a different view of the artist (1841-1919). Arranged thematically by subjects, such as “Pure Landscapes,” “Impressionism,” “By the Sea,” “The City” and even including a coda of three late paintings that seem subdued and sad, this exhibition tries to remove Renoir from his reputed saccharine view of life. By and large it succeeds.
You will become acquainted with an artist of humble origins, born and raised in the city, who is very much part of the industrial movement, social reforms and modernization of the 19th Century. Paris was being modernized. People were leaving the farms and flocking to the cities for jobs. The whole tenor of life was changing, and Renoir wanted to be part of the new way. He and his artist friends wanted the freedom to paint whatever pleased them. That meant no more history paintings. Forget mythology. Instead, look around and see how people are spending their leisure time. Gardens were for fun, not sustenance. Gas lights illuminated city streets and bridges. Railroads opened new vistas. The old ways were vanishing. And Impressionism was born.
The rich man’s wife
Looking at these oil paintings on canvas, you begin to feel as if you know the artist. You share his frustration over the rejection of his handsome portrait of a rich man’s wife, In the Rose Garden, at the entrance to the show. The portrait the client finally accepted, I’m sure, was just another prosaic exhibition of accumulated wealth (wife included).
The paintings show how Renoir’s brushstrokes and colors change. The early ones look smooth and settled, rather like the china he had been paid to paint on as a young artist. Then he started to add bright colors directly on the canvas, sometimes with a palette knife. He wasn’t painting objects; he was painting light. Renoir and his friend Claude Monet compared notes constantly, yet each pursued his own themes.
Several paintings invited closer inspection. Village Street, Louveciennes (1871-72, above) and Laundry Boat on the Seine, Near Paris (1871) are not the usual dappled reflections in a garden. They portray a reality that Renoir knew well. Claude Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil (about 1873) is an intimate scene of Renoir’s good friend at work. It’s far from spontaneous: It was preceded by a pastel portrait of Monet in his working clothes, plus various studies for the overall composition.
Who knew Renoir could paint pure light?
In the Woods (about 1877) stopped me cold and made me gasp. I never knew that Renoir could or did paint pure light, abandoning subject matter and creating a moment of spontaneous beauty. Ostensibly this is a painting of the sun filtering through the leaves of a forest, reflecting on the road disappearing into the distant mist. The subject matter is redundant. This is an abstract painting of colors fulfilling every tenet of art long before the abstract movement of the 20th Century. Savor it with your eyes and burn it into your mental CD. You cannot find anything better.
By 1881 Renoir finally had enough money to travel beyond France. You can see the difference in his palette, such as in the warmer tones he employed in the Banks of the Seine (1881). Although Impressionism was dead as a movement, it remained a vital language for him on occasion. While in Algiers, he painted The Arab Festival (1881). Using intense colors, a loaded brush and palette knife, he painted masses of spectators, musicians and dancers on an undulating landscape facing a portion of the Arab city and blue Mediterranean. It transcends Impressionism, anticipating the vitality of motion seen in the early art of the next century.
The Wave (1882) also belies any preconceptions you might have of Renoir’s paintings. It was difficult for me to believe that Renoir had painted such a subject— all movement and reflections. I left the exhibition feeling as if I had just met a painter whom I’d never really known.
A bad aftertaste in the gift shop
Unfortunately, the exhibition galleries lead irrevocably through the special gift shop dedicated to Renoir. Although I’m not sold on baseballs inscribed with his signature or scenes of his people paintings printed on skirts and jackets, at least I can ignore them. However, two multi-ruffled aprons (a child’s and adult’s) on upright forms were the ugliest things I've ever seen. When I inquired what relationship they had to Renoir, I was informed they were imported from France. That alone is difficult to believe— but if true, the French must have sent those aprons here because no French woman or child would be caught dead wearing such a tacky thing. Shouldn’t there be some aesthetic parameters for what is sold in an art museum?
To clear my mind, I crossed to the other side of the museum and walked through the Impressionist galleries so I could put Renoir in context. It worked, and I won’t say more.
Note: While I was at the museum I stopped at the admissions counter and asked about the availability of the timed tickets for the Renoir exhibition. I was told that, except for the first timed ticket opening at 11 a.m., tickets are usually available on demand, especially by 2 p.m. and after. For instance, 4 p.m. one rceent afternoon had very few reservations; and on Fridays the museum is open until 9 p.m.
To read a review by Victoria Skelly, click here.
To read another review by Andrew Mangravite, click here.
ANNE R. FABBRI
Pierre-Auguste Renoir should have stuck to painting landscapes instead of all those pink creampuff nudes he turned out ad nauseum. “I never thought it would happen,” I once heard a young male college student remark after touring the Barnes collection, “but I’m really sick of looking at all those nudes.” Renoir’s landscapes are different. They’re much more vital, and some are even exciting.
The first exhibition devoted to Renoir’s landscapes, now on view at the Art Museum, offers 61 Renoir paintings from museums and private collections throughout the world, plus a few photographs from the era, just to remind us of early documentation. It opened at the National Gallery in London, then traveled to the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and Philadelphia is its only U.S. venue. Taken together, these works reveal a different view of the artist (1841-1919). Arranged thematically by subjects, such as “Pure Landscapes,” “Impressionism,” “By the Sea,” “The City” and even including a coda of three late paintings that seem subdued and sad, this exhibition tries to remove Renoir from his reputed saccharine view of life. By and large it succeeds.
You will become acquainted with an artist of humble origins, born and raised in the city, who is very much part of the industrial movement, social reforms and modernization of the 19th Century. Paris was being modernized. People were leaving the farms and flocking to the cities for jobs. The whole tenor of life was changing, and Renoir wanted to be part of the new way. He and his artist friends wanted the freedom to paint whatever pleased them. That meant no more history paintings. Forget mythology. Instead, look around and see how people are spending their leisure time. Gardens were for fun, not sustenance. Gas lights illuminated city streets and bridges. Railroads opened new vistas. The old ways were vanishing. And Impressionism was born.
The rich man’s wife
Looking at these oil paintings on canvas, you begin to feel as if you know the artist. You share his frustration over the rejection of his handsome portrait of a rich man’s wife, In the Rose Garden, at the entrance to the show. The portrait the client finally accepted, I’m sure, was just another prosaic exhibition of accumulated wealth (wife included).
The paintings show how Renoir’s brushstrokes and colors change. The early ones look smooth and settled, rather like the china he had been paid to paint on as a young artist. Then he started to add bright colors directly on the canvas, sometimes with a palette knife. He wasn’t painting objects; he was painting light. Renoir and his friend Claude Monet compared notes constantly, yet each pursued his own themes.
Several paintings invited closer inspection. Village Street, Louveciennes (1871-72, above) and Laundry Boat on the Seine, Near Paris (1871) are not the usual dappled reflections in a garden. They portray a reality that Renoir knew well. Claude Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil (about 1873) is an intimate scene of Renoir’s good friend at work. It’s far from spontaneous: It was preceded by a pastel portrait of Monet in his working clothes, plus various studies for the overall composition.
Who knew Renoir could paint pure light?
In the Woods (about 1877) stopped me cold and made me gasp. I never knew that Renoir could or did paint pure light, abandoning subject matter and creating a moment of spontaneous beauty. Ostensibly this is a painting of the sun filtering through the leaves of a forest, reflecting on the road disappearing into the distant mist. The subject matter is redundant. This is an abstract painting of colors fulfilling every tenet of art long before the abstract movement of the 20th Century. Savor it with your eyes and burn it into your mental CD. You cannot find anything better.
By 1881 Renoir finally had enough money to travel beyond France. You can see the difference in his palette, such as in the warmer tones he employed in the Banks of the Seine (1881). Although Impressionism was dead as a movement, it remained a vital language for him on occasion. While in Algiers, he painted The Arab Festival (1881). Using intense colors, a loaded brush and palette knife, he painted masses of spectators, musicians and dancers on an undulating landscape facing a portion of the Arab city and blue Mediterranean. It transcends Impressionism, anticipating the vitality of motion seen in the early art of the next century.
The Wave (1882) also belies any preconceptions you might have of Renoir’s paintings. It was difficult for me to believe that Renoir had painted such a subject— all movement and reflections. I left the exhibition feeling as if I had just met a painter whom I’d never really known.
A bad aftertaste in the gift shop
Unfortunately, the exhibition galleries lead irrevocably through the special gift shop dedicated to Renoir. Although I’m not sold on baseballs inscribed with his signature or scenes of his people paintings printed on skirts and jackets, at least I can ignore them. However, two multi-ruffled aprons (a child’s and adult’s) on upright forms were the ugliest things I've ever seen. When I inquired what relationship they had to Renoir, I was informed they were imported from France. That alone is difficult to believe— but if true, the French must have sent those aprons here because no French woman or child would be caught dead wearing such a tacky thing. Shouldn’t there be some aesthetic parameters for what is sold in an art museum?
To clear my mind, I crossed to the other side of the museum and walked through the Impressionist galleries so I could put Renoir in context. It worked, and I won’t say more.
Note: While I was at the museum I stopped at the admissions counter and asked about the availability of the timed tickets for the Renoir exhibition. I was told that, except for the first timed ticket opening at 11 a.m., tickets are usually available on demand, especially by 2 p.m. and after. For instance, 4 p.m. one rceent afternoon had very few reservations; and on Fridays the museum is open until 9 p.m.
To read a review by Victoria Skelly, click here.
To read another review by Andrew Mangravite, click here.
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