Legacy s renoir biography
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10 things to know about Pierre-Auguste Renoir
A guide to the artist who was one of the founding fathers of Impressionism, and is famed today for his lush depictions of female sensuality — illustrated with works offered at Christie’s
Renoir’s early life was shaped by poverty
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in in Limoges in south-west France. His father was a tailor and his mother was a dressmaker, which is perhaps significant given that he would go on to become fascinated by fashion.
In his early life he was appreciated more for his singing than for his drawing. He took music lessons until his family encountered financial difficulties, which forced him to leave school and begin work as a painter in a porcelain factory.
As a young man Renoir moved to Paris, entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and later joined the studio of Charles Gleyre (). Although he sometimes didn’t have enough money to buy paint, he lived close to the Louvre, where he enjoyed studyi
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (–) emerges as a prominent figure in the annals of art, celebrated for his significant contributions to Impressionism. Born on February 25, , in Limoges, France, Renoir's artistic journey unfolded against the backdrop of a transformative period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Renoir's early years were marked by a passion for painting, leading him to pursue formal art education in Paris. There, he encountered fellow luminaries like Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, forging friendships that would shape the trajectory of his artistic development.
A pivotal member of the Impressionist movement, Renoir's paintings are characterised by their emphasis on capturing the effects of light and atmosphere. His brushstrokes, often delicate and vibrant, conveyed a sense of immediacy and spontaneity, a hallmark of the Impressionist style. Renoir's love for depicting scenes of leisure, particularly those featuring people enj
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Pablo Picasso (Spanish, ), Two Reclining Nudes, Oil on canvas, 76 3/4 × 51 1/8 in. Nahmad Collection
Throughout his long career, and particularly in his later years, Renoir used paint to utmaning the viewer’s understanding of volume and space.
The next generation of modern artists championed Renoir for this more abstract approach to the time-honored subject of figure painting. Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso, among others, revered him. Matisse proclaimed, with emotion in his voice, “I’ve always felt that recorded time holds no nobler story, no more heroic, no more magnificent achievement than that of Renoir.” Picasso was an equally ardent admirer; from his figurative paintings to his monumental and Neo-Cubist treatments of the nude, his work recalls Renoir’s bathers, which he knew intimately and venerated greatly.
When Picasso returned from Italy in April , he entered a “Renoirian crisis,” during which he attempted to meet the artist,