Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes (44 quotes)

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: 44 quotes6 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.
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“It was a perpetual holiday – and what an assortment of people. You could still enjoy yourself in those days! Machinery didn't take up the whole of life; there was time for living, and we made the most of it... I found as many magnificent girls to paint as I wanted; in those days one wasn't reduced to following a little model around for an hour and then being treated as a disgusting old man at the end of it.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 28 : Renoir's quote to Vollard referring to the Isle Grenouillere, where he painted in 1869, together with Claude Monet.

“.. to express himself well, the artist should be hidden... The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Quoted in: Raymond Durgnat (1974) Jean Renoir: Raymond Durgnat, p. 370
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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

“I am still going through an experimental stage. I'm not happy, and I keep scrubbing out and scrubbing out again. I hope this mania will pass... I'm like the children at school; the clean page has to be filled with good writing, and splash – a mess! I'm still making messes and I'm forty years old.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 169 : quote from Renoir's letter to his art-seller Durand-Ruel, 21st November 1881

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes about painting

“I went to see this picture [Raphael's painting 'Madonna della Sedia' which Renoir saw in Florence in 1882] just to have a good laugh – and I found myself in front of the most wonderfully free, solid, simple, alive painting it is possible to imagine – arms and legs of real flesh, and what a touching expression of maternal tenderness.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 161-162 : (1882), in a letter to Vollard

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

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.

“It gives my brain a rest, painting flowers. I don't feel the same tension as when I have a model in front of me. When I paint flowers, I put on colours and try out values boldly, without worrying about wasting a canvas. I wouldn't dare to do it with a figure; I'd be afraid of spoiling the whole thing. And the experience I gain this way is then applied to my pictures.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 196 : quote on painting flowers, to art-buyer George Riviere, who was watching a flower still-life of Renoir.

“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”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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;

“I wanted to tell you that in about 1883 there occurred a kind of break in my work. I had got to the end of 'Impressionism', and I had come to the conclusion that I didn't either how to paint or how to draw. In short, I had come to a dead end.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 175 : Renoir's remark to Vollard.

“I studied a good deal in the museum at Naples; the Pompeian paintings are extremely interesting from every aspect. So I am staying in the sun – not to paint portraits but while I am warming myself and looking hard at things I hope I will have acquired some of the grandeur and simplicity of the old masters. Raphael didn't work out-of-doors, but he studied the sunlight all the same – his frescoes are full of it. So, by looking around outside, I have finished by seeing only the broad harmonies, and am no longer preoccupied with the little details, which only extinguish the sunlight, instead of increasing its brilliance. I hope therefore, when I get back to Paris, to produce something which will be the outcome of all these general studies, and to give you the benefit of them”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

in a letter written during his three-weeks-stay, working with Paul Cezanne at l'Estaque, near Marseille
Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 169 in a letter to madame Charpentier, l'Estaque, January 1882

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

“. Here [ Guernsey ] people bath among the rocks which serve as cabins, since there's nothing else; nothing is more attractive than this mixture of women and men crowded on these rocks. One would belief oneself in a landscape by Watteau rather than in the real world. So I'll have a source of real and graceful motives which I will be able to make use of. Some enchanting bathing-costumes... Nothing is more amusing when one is strolling through these rocks, than to surprise young girls getting ready to bathe... Despite the small number of things that I'll be able to bring back [to Paris], I hope to be able to give you an idea of these charming things.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

In Renoir's letter to Paul Durand-Ruel, from Guernsey, 27 Sept, 1883; as cited in 'Renoir in Guernsey' (in 1883), text by John House http://museums.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=81297&p=0, Guernsey museum <br class="br">1880's

“I want to give something [a painting to museum The Luxembourg in Paris, c. 1910] I can't be sure of doing again. I could do ten more nudes like that one [a large nude painting, suggested by Georges Riviere], whenever I liked... This one turned out well. I don't think I'd be able to do that again.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

a remark to George Riviere, (c. 1910); as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 230
after 1900

“If I was accused of neglecting my art, or sacrificing my ideas for the sake of stupid ambition, then I would understand the critics; but as that isn't the case, there is nothing to be said. I sent a picture to the Salon for purely commercial reasons. Anyway, it is like some medicines – even if it does no good, it does no harm.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

other impressionist artists then refused to send in their work to the Salon
Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 128 : in a letter to art-dealer Durand-Ruel, March 1881

“Landscapes are useful to a figure painter, too; out-of-doors one uses colours one would never think of in the weaker studio light. But landscape painting is a thankless job; you waste half a day for the sake of one hour's painting. You only finish one painting out of ten, because the weather keeps changing. You start work on a sunlight effect and it comes on to rain – or you had a few clouds in the sky, and the wind blows them away. It's always the same story!”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: undated quotes, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 196 : on painting landscape in open air, to art-buyer George Riviere.

“.. I have suddenly become a traveler, and I am afflicted with a fever for seeing Raphael's. So I am in the process of swallowing up Italy. Now, I will be able to say straight out: 'Yes, sir. I have seen some Raphael's, I have seen Venice the Fair, etc.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 159 : in a letter to madame Charpentier, Autumn 1881

“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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

(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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

“How wonderful the Doges' palace is! That pink and white marble must have been a bit cold at first, but it was magical for me, seeing it gilded by several centuries of sunlight! And the basilica of San Marco! That was what converted me from those cold Italian Renaissance churches.... as soon as one goes into San Marco one feels one is in a real place of worship – that gentle filtered light and those magnificent mosaics and the great Byzantine Christ with the grey aureole! If one hasn't been in San Marco it is impossible to imagine the beauty of heavy pillars and columns without any moulding!”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 161-162 : (1882), in a letter to Vollard

“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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

“What wonderful things [Renoir is reacting on Corot's painting 'Interior of Chartres Cathedral' and Delacroix's 'Interior of M. de Mornay’s house', – he saw in 1919 from his wheelchair, in the reopened painting-rooms of the Louvre]. There isn’t a single big picture worth any more than these two little ones... The Director [of the Louvre] was so charming to me. I wish I could have thanked him properly. If you meet him, tell him how much I enjoyed my visit. If I'd presented myself at the Louvre in my wheelchair thirty years ago, they'd have shot me out fast enough! You see, one has to live a long time to see such changes. I've been one of the lucky ones.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

December 1919, Renoir died
late quote of Renoir, c. 1919, in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 237
after 1900

“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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir book Renoir

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]
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“I'm struggling with flowering trees [in Spring 1881, shortly after his Algeria trip] and with women and children. I keep feeling regretful, all the same – I think of all the trouble I have given you for nothing, and I wonder how long you will put up with my womanish whims; and through all I keep seeing those pretty English girls [Duret invited him to visit England]. What a misfortune, always to be so undecided! But it's at the root of my character, and I'm too old to change.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, pp. 156-157 : a letter to Théodore Duret, March 1881

“Shall I tell you what I have seen in Venice? Right – here goes. Take a boat along the Seine to the Quai des Orfevres, or opposite the Tuileries [Paris] and you will see Venice. For the Museums, go to the Louvre, For Veronese, go to the Louvre,- but not for Tiepolo, whom I didn't know; only it is a bit dear at the price. No – that isn't true; it is very, very beautiful, when the weather is fine. The lagoon and San Marco – splendid; the Doges' palace, splendid. As for the rest, I'd rather have Saint German l'Auxerrois.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, p. 159-160 : in a letter to madame Charpentier, Autumn 1881

“.. not exactly prostitutes, but a class of unattached young women, characteristic of the Parisian scene before and after the Empire, changing lovers easily, satisfying any whim, going nonchalantly from a mansion in the Champs-Elyseées to a garret in the Batignolles. [describing the place w:Bain à la Grenouillère at Croissy-sur-Seine and the women there, where Renoir together with Monet painted in open air and used them as models in their paintings 'la Grenouillère', 1868-69]”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 59
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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Tibballs Geoff, ‎Geoff Tibballs (2012) The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes, p. 80
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“One day, while I was painting a landscape in the neighbourhood of Algiers [March 1881] I saw a man approaching who seemed to be dressed in purple and cloth-of-gold... When the traveler reached me, my illusion vanished; my emir was nothing but a flea-bitten beggar. The sun, the divine sun had enriched him with its light... It's always the same in Algeria. The magic of the sun transmutes the palm-trees into gold, the water seems full of diamonds and men become the Kings from the East.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, pp. 156-157 : quote, 1881 on the illusion by sunlight, from Renoir et ses amis, Georges Riviere.

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

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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…”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

“There is something in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is the essential. You come to Nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

As quoted in Masterpieces of painting from the National Gallery of Art (1944), p. 168
undated quotes

“It [his participating in the 7th exhibition of the Impressionists, combined with showing his work on the official Salon] isn't exactly a joy, but as I have said, it lets me out of the revolutionary side of the business, which I'm nervous of... It's a little weakness which I hope will be forgiven me [by the other impressionists]... Delacroix used to say, quite rightly, that a painter should win as many honours as possible.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Quote of Renoir's letter to Durand-Ruel, end of Feb. 1882; as cited in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 172
1880's

“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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Klaus Honnef, ‎Ingo F. Walther, ‎Karl Ruhrberg (1998) Art of the 20th Century: Painting. p. 7
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“Alas I shall very probably not be able to dine with you [madame Charpentier who frequently had receptions in Paris which Renoir frequently visited]. I began a portrait this morning; I begin another this evening, and it is extremely likely that I shall have a third to do afterwards. If I have to stay for dinner, and begin tomorrow, all these people will go away, and my head is in a complete muddle with them.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

in a letter to madame Charpentier, c. 1876; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates / Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 80
1870's

“There are scarcely fifteen art-collectors in Paris capable of liking a painter without the backing of the Salon. There are eighty thousands of them who wouldn't buy a thing from a painter who is not in the [Paris'] Salon. I am not going to be so foolish as to condemn a thing just because of where it happens to be. In short, I'm not going to waste my time bearing a grudge against the Salon – I don't even want to look as if I do. To my mind, one must simply paint as well as one possibly can – and that's all.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Source: 1880's, Renoir – his life and work, 1975, pp. 127-128 : in his letter to Durand-Ruel (1880's), explaining his choice to participate in the yearly official Salon as well as in the Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, on the same time.

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

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Quoted in: Giles Auty (1977) The Art of Self-Deception: An Intelligible Guide, p. 88
undated quotes

“They've found fault with me enough, in all conscience, for putting violet shadows on bodies.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

“What are we supposed to do [reacting furiously on art-critic Jules Castagnary who proclaimed the so-called new School of Impressionism, 29 April 1874 in the Paris journal 'Le Siècle'] about these stupid literary people who will never understand that painting is a craft! You make it with materials, not ideas! The ideas come afterwards, when the painting is finished.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

As quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe, Harper-Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, p. 127
1870's

“[ 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].”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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.”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

But I [Renoir] was very happy it wasn't too much of a flop: There is something of that admirable face in it' <br class="br">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 <br class="br">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'. <br class="br">1880's