At first, it was closely related to the impressionist movement. His early works are typical impressionist works that record real life and are full of dazzling brilliance. However, in the mid-1980s (18th century), he split from the impressionist movement and turned to portrait painting and portrait painting, especially female portrait painting, to exert his more rigorous and formal painting techniques.
Among all impressionist painters, Renoir is probably the most popular one, because he painted beautiful children, flowers, beautiful scenery, especially lovely women. These will attract people immediately. Renoir expressed their pleasant feelings directly on the canvas. He once said, "Why can't art be beautiful? There are enough ugly things in the world. " He is also an admirer of female images. He said, "Only when I think I can touch the people in the painting can I complete the portrait of the human body."
Renoir is one of the younger impressionists, one year younger than Monet. Most of the artist's life works depict young women, especially their nude images, with bright and loud warm colors. He used special traditional techniques to describe the soft and elastic skin and plump figure of young women. Although he also painted many outdoor landscapes and innocent images of children, nude and female images occupied the mainstream of his life works. His body oil painting is different from the hypocrisy pursued by academic painters in the past. Renoir's female body is full of joy and youthful vitality. They are all like Eve who has never tasted forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. They are carefree and charming.
Renoir used the impressionist principle to create a beautiful dreamlike world, a new "Venus Island", and then sent it to Paris at the end of 19. This dance in Moulin Rouge Street embodies the most impressionist moment of his life. Although this painting depicts an ethereal fairyland, the people in it wear contemporary clothes. Men wear tall hats or straw hats, and women wear skirts with hoops around their waists. In this painting, an ordinary scene of outdoor Bohemian dance becomes a dream full of light and color for beautiful women and careful men. Bundles of light, flashing in the color form of the characters-blue, rose and yellow, details are blended into the romantic smoke, softening the aesthetic feeling of all these happy people and improving the value of this beauty.
Renoir first followed the painter Courbet, sympathized with and supported Courbet's opposition to academic art. He strictly followed real life and was good at combining the light and color of Impressionism with traditional European painting. Because I was an apprentice in a porcelain factory when I was young, I used this delicate technique in portrait creation. Before cooperating with impressionist painters, he exhibited a genre painting Esmeralda featuring Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris in the official salon, which showed her dancing and performing in Notre Dame Square. But later, I felt that it was too imitating the previous paintings and had no personality characteristics; Although praised by the salon, he was always ashamed of his artistic pursuit and quietly tore up the painting.
Since following Courbet's painting, his painting has been relaxed, but from the composition point of view, both the selected characters and the details of the painting still imitate Courbet's nature, although the goddess image in the painting was shaped by a folk woman and was later rejected by the salon. It is not what he wants to do to take the road that others have taken. Renoir learned a truth from Manet's painting "Lunch on the Grass", that catering to the official exhibition is always a dead end of his art. To seek a new path, you must dare to accept the challenge.
1870, Renoir was 29 years old, his career had not yet emerged and he was in financial difficulties. He had to go to the pawnshop from time to time and had to move from one attic to another many times. During this period, he went to Argenteuil, followed Monet in outdoor sketching, and learned and felt the effects of light and color in nature.
Frog Pond was painted when he followed Monet to a scenic spot on the outskirts of Paris. This frog pond is not far from the Seine. When Renoir and Monet painted there, people knew that there was a restaurant nearby for Uncle Founes, and Monet was a diner there. They painted together. Renoir must have frequented this restaurant. Renoir's painting Frog Pond completely follows Monet's suggestion and pays attention to the relationship between water and reflection. He painted two pictures with the same composition, trying to express the feeling of light and color with clear small strokes. The water surface is bright, the color is easy to reflect and the visual impression is strong. This painting has thus become the "entry" creation of Renoir Impressionism.
The box was one of Renoir's first exhibitions in the Impressionist Art Exhibition. He sent seven oil paintings at a time. According to his "impression" in the theater, he went back to the studio and hired a model to paint. The lady in a dress before the painting dressed up as a model named Nini Robles. The image of a middle-aged gentleman with a telescope on his back was created by a brother of Renoir. Interestingly, impressionist painting can also be carried out in the painting room, and he successfully painted the atmosphere in the corner of the theater. Especially the expressions of the two characters on the screen, there is no sign of posing. They seem to be absorbed in watching the drama and reveling in the stage performance at this moment. This plate, although the border has been cut off a lot, only highlights the image of the lady in the box. Because Renoir rendered the color atmosphere, the audience can feel the atmosphere of the audience in the theater. The lady's face with makeup is in sharp contrast to the gentleman behind her. The color of the box is warm. It is composed of rose, black and white. The black striped dress on this lady stands out. These thick black stripes and the light white color on her body just echo the gentleman's black coat and white shirt. The use of black in impressionist painters is taboo because it is difficult for external light to reflect pure black. Renoir may have gradually added it with a small brush stroke, so there is no sense of stubbornness.
Portrait painting has had a long period of prosperity in the history of European painting, and impressionist portrait works are more colorful and active. Renoir's portrait won the appreciation of later scholars. Renoir is famous for painting naked women. His love for women's bodies began as early as after the Franco-Prussian War. He joined the cavalry during the war. As soon as peace was announced, he immediately put down his carbine and returned to Paris to do his old job-sitting in front of an easel and creating his favorite portrait with a brush.
65438+The most famous portraits of Impressionism in 1970s are the three paintings to be appreciated here.
Madame Monet's portrait was created during the first Impressionist Art Exhibition. At that time, he followed Monet and co-founded the Impressionist Salon. In this painting, the pursuit of light and color almost fascinated Renoir. Mrs Monet and her son were sitting on the grass, completely bathed in the warm sunshine. Her dress was strongly reflected by the sun on the yellow grass, so the painter only used a faint rose color to spread the story, and the pen was quite concise.
The Portrait of Lady Samantha is the most wonderful of the two paintings of the same name. This famous actress who often appears in Paris Salon is also a social butterfly. Her name is Jenny Chamary. This bust adopts the impressionist approach, dealing with young beauty in the atmosphere of light and color. Her left hand supported her chin, facing the audience, and her plump chest was rendered by strong light, and the outline was not very clear. Renoir's background as a ceramic painter should not be underestimated, because his ability to express transparent colors has a great influence on his personal style. Renoir painted many portraits of people dressed and naked, but he never gave any thoughts to his portraits. He used the emotion of a sincere observer to explore new shaping forms. He used the principle of prism analysis spectrum to break down all the plastic details into countless small strokes and draw them side by side on the canvas.
The portrait of Madame Henrio (1876) shows the techniques he learned from pottery in his early years. Mrs. Henrio sat there quietly, with extremely soft colors, pure and transparent colors, giving people a feeling of foggy atmosphere, and everything around her was seamless. If you stay away from this lady a little, you will have an unpredictable color illusion, and you can't tell what kind of environment the characters are in. The background is almost mixed with this beautiful image, but the face is depicted in detail. The chest that gives people a sense of ups and downs is not made by plane painting, but by the harmonious colors of various fine strokes.
This is the modeling feature of painters in this period. Renoir is considered as an impressionist, but he has exhibited several paintings in the Impressionist Art Exhibition. In fact, when he entered Gray's studio at the age of 2/kloc-0, he fell at the feet of classicism. From 65438 to 0874, his basic inclination was decided after attending the first Impressionist Art Exhibition. Soon, he broke away from impressionism and turned to Sharon, where he succeeded. In all of Renoir's human works (estimated to be around 4,000), there is no gloomy tone. As an impressionist painter, he was attacked politically and put many obstacles in his way, which made his early experience full of pain.
He has been sick frequently since he was 4 1 year old. In the last 15 years of his life, he suffered from arthritis and could hardly live without a trolley. He had to tie the brush to his stiff hand to draw. Surprisingly, there is no trace of personal pain left in his works at this time. His art always affirms the beauty of life. He instinctively chooses the happy things he is familiar with: street life, the beauty of rural scenery, flowers or fruits, a leisure performer in front of the piano, and a healthy and youthful female body. He is particularly sensitive to the flower-like delicacy of children. He has an extraordinary feeling about the life around him. Shadow and sadness were excluded by him.
In his later years, his illness prevented him from expanding his horizons, and thus he entered a dead end in the painting of the human body. Nevertheless, it is inappropriate to make rash comments on his exploration. Renoir is not a frivolous artist. His art always shows people the happy and sweet side of life.
In Renoir's paintings, an important field is portrait. As we noticed when appreciating the Portrait of Madame Henrio, the purity and transparency of color is a main feature of Renoir's portrait. In the 1970s, Renoir painted several of the most successful portraits, namely, two portraits of Vito Xiao Kai (1876), two portraits of Shammari (1877) and a multi-character portrait of Mrs. Chabantier and her children. Renoir, who is entering the heyday of his artistic career, is not lucky in his personal life. Poverty forced him to grow potato fields with Monet and make a living by selling potatoes. After the first impressionist painting exhibition was ridiculed by the society, the next year he produced 14 genre paintings such as Pancake Workshop, which also attracted a lot of criticism. Someone wrote in le figaro with a lesson tone: "Remind Mr. Renoir that a woman's body is not a pile of rotten meat, and there are green and purple spots on her thoroughly rotting body." Of course, there are also many just people who defend him. But in order to make a living, he also had to paint many portraits for others.
He regained his reputation in portrait painting. The small picture mentioned above is an example at that time. Vito Xiao Kai is an admirer of Renoir's art, and he is insightful, but he is only a civil servant in Paris. Renoir and Cezanne both painted his portrait. The Portrait of Shamali is two of the most beautiful portraits painted by the artist for actress Jenny Shamali. One is a full-length portrait; The other is a bust. In these portraits, color is full of passion and enthusiasm.
This painting "Madame Chabantier and Her Children" is his famous work in the 1970s.
Mrs. Chabantier is the wife of a famous publisher, a socialite and the hostess of a salon. She makes friends with celebrities in the literary and art circles. There are also writers Zola, Mo Bosang, Flaubert, Edmund Goncourt, Turgenev and others who often visit her salon. Artists include Henner, Carolus Durrant, etc. Renoir soon became a frequent visitor to her salon. It was there that the painter met the famous actress Jenny Chamary. This painting was ordered by this lady.
Give full play to his deep-rooted modeling skills, which he obtained from glaire Studio when he was young, and he is grateful for it. The spacious indoor environment sets off the mental state of the lady and her two naive daughters. The lady sat on the children's right and looked at her two daughters leisurely. The child's innocent expression is vividly portrayed, and the two seem to be talking whimsically. A girl on the left is sitting on the back of a big dog. The whole picture is permeated with the unique family interest of wealthy families. The background is reddish brown, and there is a strong contrast between the colors of clothes among the characters. The lady's black dress dominates the whole, making the sky blue and white skirts of the two children on the left even more abrupt.
This painting was well received at the Paris Salon in 1879. Renoir's life has become better. He received a reward of 65,438+0,000 francs, which was like dew falling from the sky for the poor artists at that time. Since then, customers who ordered his portraits have poured in, not to mention the economic transformation. Renoir not only painted the portrait of Madame Chabantier, but also painted the portraits of the lady's mother and daughter respectively. Therefore, it's not just this one "Madame Chabantier and Her Children" that was selected for the salon exhibition. Despite this, Renoir did not forget his set goals because of Sharon's appreciation. He cherishes this real life feeling, but also cherishes the color skills of external light he has gained through long-term efforts.
Renoir's eight years, from 188 1 to 1888, is the period of his style change. When he succeeded in the salon in 1879, he began to travel. Ordering portraits changed his life from poverty to wealth. In the first half of his life, he roamed the city of Paris and the banks of the Seine. This time, he wants to realize his long-cherished desire for travel and sightseeing. The first destination was the Normandy coast, and then it was west of Crova. 188 1 In the spring of, I went to Algiers. That summer, he went to Normandy, and in autumn, he went to Italy, Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, Pompeii and other places. The mechanism that prompted his style change was this trip to Italy. When Renoir visited the ancient Roman murals in Pompeii, he found that their colors were simple, dense and gorgeous. Those ancient murals are red, belonging to wealth and scarlet. In his later years, Renoir painted a portrait of a naked woman in this "Pompeii red" tone. Ancient murals generally used few colors, but the effect was extremely rich. This made him understand that the theme of a painting often plays a key role. 1883, he bought a book/kloc-On Painting written by Italian painter Chinino Cignini at the end of 0/4 century, which fascinated him. In addition, he learned the secret of color simplification in classical painting from Italy, which further aroused his enthusiasm for his predecessor Angel's classicism. Therefore, some researchers call the period from 188 1 to 1888 the "Anglian period" or neoclassical period. Later, when he talked to Vlal, the painter, about the reasons for the change of his artistic tendency, he said, "Around 1883, I was at the end of my rope for Impressionism. I finally have to admit that both oil paintings and sketches have been exhausted. In short, for me, impressionism is a dead end. "
This is the internal cause of his departure from impressionism when we appreciate his portraits such as Madame Henrio.
The two paintings here "Umbrella" and "Country Dance" are the representative works of this painter who changed his painting style.
In Umbrella, we haven't completely got rid of the color description under the action of external light. This painting shows a spring in Paris. There was a shower in the bustling pedestrians, so the open umbrella group formed an interesting arc net. The painter realized the decorative interest of the umbrella itself in his paintings. He drew these overlapping arcs in the upper part of the painting. Through these curved umbrellas, the audience saw a complicated and lively scene: on the left side of the foreground was a beautiful young lady with a basket with several hats for sale. A gentleman-like man in the back stared at her with his eyes, trying to please the woman with an umbrella to keep out the rain. On the right side of the foreground, there are two little girls in the market. The younger one is holding a roller ring toy and staring at the audience. In the middle, there are two beautifully dressed women standing in the middle. The one in front seems to be interested in the little girl with a hoop in her hand; A woman in the back just opened her umbrella. There are not many people in this painting, but due to the overlapping treatment, the different directions of the arc of the umbrella and the overall tone atmosphere, the scenes in the painting are extremely vivid and rich, giving people a sense of crowding. Renoir adopted a keynote, that is, blue and purple, which made the picture full of simple rhythm. The scene is very touching. The street view of Paris with continuous spring rain adds a rhythm of life to this crowded market.
The picture "Country Dance" was cut out to highlight a few dancers. It is known that Renoir painted several oil paintings with the same theme and different compositions on the dancers. The gorgeous dress of the female companion is in sharp contrast with the solemn black dress of the male companion. The painter focused on the color of the female companion and the pleated satin evening dress. In order to draw this well-proportioned female companion, the painter asked Susan Valentine, a famous female model at that time, to pose (this female model was trained by impressionist painters for a long time and later became a painter). As far as the overall effect is concerned, Country Dance is more classical, which also annoys some impressionists. But Renoir was a man who was never satisfied with his achievements. When he gradually felt that the stable lines in classical painting conflicted with his strong sense of color, he wanted to change his painting style and even his subject matter.
Blonde Bath Girl (about 1882) The painting style here belongs to the period when his style changed during his study tour in Italy, and he is more inclined to the inherent color of the object. Bright and soft tones are close to objective reality. The air sense and light color sense of the object are desalinated. According to scholars' inference, the earliest creative motivation of this painting may come from a17th century bas-relief he saw at Versailles. This relief was made by Hiladon. Renoir drew several sketches and exercises for this relief. In addition, he paid more attention to classical painting at this time, and finally completed such a nude painting with strict composition and full of human texture in the studio. Judging from the slender and smooth blonde hair, bright complexion and precise and supple lines of the naked woman, this painting has always been regarded as Renoir's masterpiece in the neoclassical period.
Renoir's later paintings of women's bodies are much more and of high quality than those in the earlier period. The nude women he painted often have the radiant characteristics in Rubens' paintings, but also have rich functional beauty characteristics. Painters like to paint women's skin as soft and shiny as pearls. Sometimes, a woman's hair is fluffy and her brow still exudes youthful charm. Sometimes it looks childish, but it is healthy and mature. A few female body works also have some wild simplicity. In a word, his style of figure painting doesn't seem to match his personality and life. For example, the naked girl in this "Woman after Bath" (1888) has a ruddy complexion, which shows that the girl is strong and strong. The delicate brushwork constitutes the plump and smooth skin surface of this woman. Her elastic and seductive female body image could not be related to Renoir's own life at that time.
All the enthusiasm of this painter is devoted to his works. 1894, Renoir suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and the painter who was over 500 years old suffered from the disease. In the following years, he went from bad to worse. In 1903, he had to move to Carne in Provence, southern France, to recuperate for a while. The mild climate in the south may be beneficial to his illness. He also sought medical treatment in many ways, and had operations on his knees, feet and hands. At first, you can walk with crutches. 19 10 years later, his lower limbs were paralyzed and he had to be in a wheelchair for life. At 19 12, he was once paralyzed. After treatment, he was a little better and his upper body recovered its physiological function. However, in such an unfortunate period of illness, he tried to restrain his physical torture, sat in a wheelchair and drew a lot of nude paintings showing the beauty of women's youth and full of joy in life, which was really touching! Renoir's later female body can truly show the rich and delicate color and texture of the human body. Appreciating his figure paintings will make people feel that the blood under these skins is flowing, nourishing the skin color and showing a pink flesh color.
It is said that one of Renoir's favorite models in his later years was Gabriel. The painter sometimes makes her dress up as taking a bath and wiping her feet; Sometimes let her dress up as a woman with different identities and lead the children; Sometimes let her wear coarse clothes, or let her read books. As for the image of nudity, it is usually placed on a sunny day. The sunshine is abundant, showing the glittering and translucent and smooth skin of young women with soft natural colors.