Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir , was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir , filmmaker Jean Renoir and ceramic artist Claude Renoir . He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir , son of Pierre. Wikipedia  

✵ 25. February 1841 – 3. December 1919   •   Other names Пьер Огюст Ренуар
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: 44   quotes 6   likes

Famous Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

“The pain passes but the beauty remains.”

As quoted in: Instituto Nacional de Previsión (Spain) (1974). 6.o Congreso Internacional de Medicina Fisica: 2-6 julio 1974. p. 424
Renoir replied to Matisse, who had asked him why he persisted in painting at the expense of such torture.
undated quotes

“I can manage very well with the first grubby backside [of the model] which comes along – provided I find a skin which takes the light well.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 150 : a quote from Vollard's book

“For me, a painting must be a pleasant thing, joyous and pretty - yes, pretty. There are too many unpleasant things in life for us to fabricate still more.”

As quoted in: Faber Birren (1965) History of color in painting: with new principles of color expression. p. 284-5
Alternative translation:
To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.
As quoted in Luncheon of the Boating Party‎ (2007) by Susan Vreeland
undated quotes

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes about painting

“People will keep on taking them for theorists, when all they wanted was to paint in gay, bright colours, like the old masters.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 64 : Renoir's remark to Vollard referring to the Impressionist artists's Monet, Sisley and Pissarro.

“About 1883 a kind of break occurred in my work. I had wrung Impressionism dry, and had come to the conclusion that I knew neither how to paint nor how to draw. In a word, I was at an impasse”

Benicka (1980) commented:
The frescoes of Raphael and the Pompeian murals that he saw there definitely confirmed what Renoir had begun to feel about his own art; that it was becoming too amorphous in character and was weak in design.
undated quotes
Source: ‎'‎'Renoir‎'‎', by A. Vollard, Paris, 1920, p. 135; as quoted in: Corinne Benicka (1980) Great modern masters. p. 130;

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

“You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous.”

(before 1880) As quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 176
undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975

“What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found [back] in the museum of Naples – in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egyptians. These priestesses in their silver-grey tunics are just like Corot's nymphs.”

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 164 : quote from Renoir's letter to Durand-Ruell, 1882, referring to a small painting with trees of the landscape-painter Corot

“What a charming girl! And what a skin! She positively radiated light around her.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 150 : Recalling the model Jeanne Samary.

“What seems most significant to me about our movement is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.”

Quoted in: Charles Altieri (1989) Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American Poetry, p. 169: Talking about the movement of Impressionism.
undated quotes

“The so-called 'discoveries' of the Impressionists could not have been unknown to the old masters; and if they made no use of them, it was because all great artists have renounced the use of effects. And in simplifying nature, they made it all the greater.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 178 ; Renoir's remark to Vollard, criticizing the so-called 'new' discoveries by Impressionism.

“They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph.”

Quoted in [2001, Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father, New York Review of Books, New York, 9780940322776, https://books.google.com/books?id=RR8Mk2QrvyoC&pg=PA137, 137]
undated quotes

“Out-of-doors there is a greater variety of light than in the studio, where the light is always the same. But that is just the trouble; one is carried away by the light, and besides, one can't see what one is doing.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 176 : to Vollard. Renoir was referring to two of his landscapes, painted in the open air, having a different look in the studio light.

“I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts.”

Tibballs Geoff, ‎Geoff Tibballs (2012) The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes, p. 80
undated quotes

“Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and 'feminine' artists since Fragonard.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 175 : Renoir's remarks to Vollard, referring to the delicate painting-style of Berthe Morisot's, the only French woman-artist of Paris Impressionism.

“Give me that palette.... those two woodcocks.... turn this one's head to the left.... give me back my palette.... I can't paint that beak.... Quick, some paint.... change the position of those woodcocks…”

quote from a letter written by Félix Fénéon, published in 'Le Bulletin des artistes' 15th December 1919
this quote is expressing Renoir's last painter-remark, 30 November 1919, three days before he died.
after 1900

“He Corot was always surrounded by a crowd of fools and I didn't want to get caught up in it. I admired him from a distance.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 12 : Renoir's remark to Vollard referring to the pre-impressionist landscape-painter Camille Corot.

“One morning one of us had run out of black; and that was the birth of Impressionism.”

Klaus Honnef, ‎Ingo F. Walther, ‎Karl Ruhrberg (1998) Art of the 20th Century: Painting. p. 7
undated quotes

“The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination, will be the greatest!”

Quoted in: Giles Auty (1977) The Art of Self-Deception: An Intelligible Guide, p. 88
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“They've found fault with me enough, in all conscience, for putting violet shadows on bodies.”

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 80 : Renoir to Vollard, referring to his color-use.

“[ Bazille.. ] had not died romantically, galloping over a Delacroix' battlefield…. but stupidly, during the retreat, on a muddy road…. that pure-hearted gentle knight.. [quote, shortly after 1870, on the death of Bazille].”

as cited in Renoir, my Father, Jean Renoir; p. 124; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 83 + 94
1870's

“He [ Richard Wagner ] was very happy but very nervous [Renoir proposed him to paint his portrait]... In short, I think I spent my time well, thirty five minutes is not long, but if I had stopped sooner it would have been better, because my model [Wagner] ended up by losing some of his good humor, and he became stiff. I followed these changes too closely [in the portrait]... At the end Wagner asked to see it. He said 'Ah! Ah! It's true that I look like a Protestant minister.”

But I [Renoir] was very happy it wasn't too much of a flop: There is something of that admirable face in it'
Quote of Renoir, in his letter to a friend, 15 Jan. 1882; as cited in 'Pierre Auguste Renoir - Richard Wagner', text of museum D'Orsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/richard-wagner-11042.html?no_cache=1
At the beginning of 1882, Renoir was travelling in the south of Italy and visited Palermo where Wagner was staying. Renoir proposed a short sitting for the following day and Wagner agreed; he had just finished his 'Parsifal'.
1880's

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