Paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1874 painting La Loge is a fine example of artists such as Renoir and Edgar Degas pursuing the modern-life subject by portraying the night life of Paris. Here Pierre-Auguste Renoir presents a fashionable couple at the opera. In La Loge, the woman's accessories -- fresh flowers pinned to her dress, a painted fan, and gold opera glasses -- as well as the man looking through his glasses at an audience member in a balcony above reveals Renoir's sharp eye for contemporary detail.

In paintings such as La Loge, and the next one we'll see, Renoir made a name for himself as a chronicler of modern times.

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Completed in 1867, Lise with a Parasol by Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicts Lise Trehot in the natural setting of a public park. She appears to be on a summer stroll, enjoying the shade of the leafy trees and her parasol. Art critic Émile Zola saw Lise with a Parasol at the official Salon and praised its modernity because Renoir blended elements of fashion and pleasure in the distinctive style of the times.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir often used friends as his subjects. Next, we'll see another portrait of an acquaintance.

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Portrait of Frédéric Bazille Painting The Heron with Wings Unfurled by Pierre-Auguste Renoir was completed in 1867, several years before the first Impressionist exhibition.

In 1862 Frédéric Bazille enrolled in the studio run by Charles Gleyre. Along with his studio mates Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir embraced the newest directions in contemporary art: the realism of Edouard Manet and Gustave Courbet and the naturalism of plein air painting advocated by the Barbizon School. Over the years the aspiring painters shared several studios, bouncing ideas off one another and giving each other encouragement. In the background of Portrait of Frédéric Bazille Painting The Heron with Wings Unfurled, Renoir has replicated a snow scene by Claude Monet.

For another appearance by Claude Monet in the background of one of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's works, see the next page.

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir's The Garden in the rue Cortot, Montmartre, painted in 1874, resulted from a brief time when Renoir rented a studio in Montmartre. He chose it for its location near the Moulin de la Galette, where he was painting a scene of customers enjoying a warm afternoon in the beer garden. The studio also had a neglected garden, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted its profusion of flowering dahlias with pure, bright dabs of pigment. Although the features of the men in the background of The Garden in the rue Cortot, Montmartre are indistinct, they are believed to be Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley.

Montmartre was a productive place for Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Keep reading to learn about another Impressionist painting set in this town.

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1876 painting The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette is set in the northern outskirts of Paris, where the hilly district of Montmartre remained partly rural through the later decades of the 19th century. Old windmills dotted the landscape, and the Moulin de la Galette, a lively beer garden, attracted young clientele. In The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette's view of the café, Pierre-Auguste Renoir expresses the sensuous pleasure of drinking, dancing, and flirtation in the open air, with sunlight filtering through the trees on a warm summer day.

In paintings such as The Ball at the Moulin de Galette, Renoir established himself as a master of color. On the next page we'll find another example of this brilliant use of color.

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party, painted during the years 1880-1881, uses costume, color, and setting to convey the pleasures of a sunny afternoon among friends. Renoir's palette has a golden glow; for instance, the women's fair skin flushes in the warmth of the sun. The straw hats and bare arms of some members of the party signal the rising heat. Renoir set The Luncheon of the Boating Party at an establishment he knew well -- the upper terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise -- and he portrayed his friends and his future wife (in the lefthand corner) among the company.

In the next painting, we'll see Pierre-Auguste Renoir cover a subject that was a favorite of the Impressionists.

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­Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1879 painting Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenburg) marked Renoir's return to the Impressionist fold. After withholding his works from the Impressionist exhibitions since the third exhibition of 1877, Renoir submitted 27 works to the seventh exhibition. In Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenburg), Pierre-Auguste Renoir presents a sentimental anecdote as well as a subject from modern life. The girls have been identified as Francesca and Angelina Wartenberg, who juggled and performed gymnastics in their father's circus.

Continue reading to learn more about the paintings Pierre-Auguste Renoir submitted to the seventh Impressionist exhibition.

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The 1881 Pierre-Auguste Renoir work Two Sisters (On the Terrace), like The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-81), is set on the upper terrace of the Restaurant Fournaise. However, the time of the year is spring. The flowering plants and vines behind the terrace rail have just come into bloom, and in the distance Renoir's full cumulus clouds appear as bluish, glistening reflections on the river. The sitters in Two Sisters (On the Terrace), who in fact were not related, wear bright, strong colors in front of the more delicate palette of foliage and flowers.

The subject of young women was one Renoir returned to repeatedly. On the next page we'll see another example of this.

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1892 work, Young Girls at the Piano, demonstrated the continued interest by Renoir in the subject of middle-class entertainment. In Young Girls at the Piano, Pierre-Auguste Renoir has portrayed two young women involved in making music. This was a popular and highly respectable leisure activity for young women and, like the cozy, well-appointed interior, reflects a well-bred and comfortable bourgeois atmosphere.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff is an art historian and lecturer and the author of numerous books on nineteenth-century European and American paintings. She is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library.