Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Work

“.. 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 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

Hope , Study , Sun , Painting

“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.

Thinking , Light , Change , Painting

“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

Nature , Thinking , Time

“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

Tree

“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.

Drawing , Painting , Dead

“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;

Drawing , Painting

“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

Hope , Business , Joy