Pierre Auguste Renoir
Pierre Auguste RenoirPierre Auguste Renoir
Background Information
Pierre Auguste Renoir was born on February 25, 1841, in Limoges, France. In 1845, his father, a tailor by trade, moved his family to Paris in hopes of finding his fortunes in the capital. They moved into a small apartment building which has been part of a sixteenth century housing complex for the Palace Guard. He developed, throughout his childhood, an intense love of the city and its people (www.augusterenoir.com).
Renoir was not an exceptional student. Perhaps this was due to his generally shy and quiet personality. He had a terrible fear of drawing any attention to himself and retained this dislike throughout his career. Although Renoir had three brothers, he always felt much closer to his mother and Lisa, his sister.
As a child, Renoir was constantly doodling in his schoolbooks or drawing on the floors at home. He would quickly sketch anything in sight. During this same time, young Renoir joined the choir at the church of St. Eustache. At the age of thirteen, Renoir began work as an apprentice in the porcelain craft shop of Levy Freres et Compagnie (www.augusterenoir.com). At age of sixteen, Renoir unveiled his first oil painting. This critical moment met with praise from his city and his parents. However, it would be some time before Renoir would consider himself an artist. He continued to paint porcelain until automation rendered hand decoration obsolete.
Since his fans required different subject matters and themes than the porcelain, Renoir renewed his visits to Louvre in search of workable ideas. He discovered the sensuous, sometimes frivolous, works of Fragonard, Boucher, and Watteau. His taste in art was being formed. As he later started about Boucher's, "Diane au bain": "it was the first picture to thrill me, and I've continued to love it all my life as one does love one's first loves" (Tyler, 37).
In 1862, he had saved sufficient money to enable him to study full-time. "he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the same time, entered the studio of Charles Gleyre" (De Grada, 81). Here, Renoir met three painters were Claude Monet, Federic Bazille, and Alfred Sisley.
Artist's Major Works
Renoir painted many classic and major paintings. Many of which are located at museums around the world. One of Renoir's major works includes, "The Umberllas." "The Umbrellas," is located at the National Gallery in London. "The Umbrellas" has become for English audiences one of the most familiar and best loved of all Renoir's works. "The Umbrellas is also one of Renoir's most modern paintings in structural terms, and reveals a great deal about his changing styles between the beginning and middle of the 1880's" (Cogniat, 136).
Renoir used his future wife, Aline, for the model. The colors of this picture are full and varied. Each person in...
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