Paintings I love
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Port de pêche, Vue de Fontarabie depuis Hendaye
oil on canvas, 32.2 x 41.4 cm.
Painted in 1895
Private collection
Although Renoir is most often associated with his figurative works, landscape paintings represent an essential component of his oeuvre. Like fellow Impressionist Claude Monet, Renoir tackled nearly every aspect of the genre, from seascapes, snowscapes and townscapes to scenes of gardens, meadows, forests and fields. He painted landscapes in the parks and public squares of Paris, in the suburban towns of the Seine valley west of the capital, and during extended periods of travel both in France and abroad. Although landscape rarely featured in Renoir’s submissions to the annual, state-sponsored Salon, it played an important role both in his contributions to the Impressionist group exhibitions and in his sales to the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Renoir viewed landscape painting in part as a means of testing and refining his artistic skills; in a letter to Berthe Morisot from 1892, he referred to the genre as “the only way to learn one’s craft”. Consequently, his landscapes tend to be more varied and experimental in color and technique than his figure paintings.
In later years, Renoir would devote himself increasingly to non-figurative artworks. In this vein, John House has written: “around 1900 the patterns of Renoir’s life changed again: from then until the end of his life he and his family spent long periods each winter and spring on the Mediterranean coast and much of the summer at Essoyes, where they now owned a house, with only limited spells in Paris. From 1903 onwards, in the south they went always to Cagnes, just west of Nice, where in 1907 they bought land and began to build a house. The immediate reason for these changes was Renoir’s health…but they reflected a more general change in his art, towards the Classicism of the Mediterranean and, more particularly, towards ideas then associated with the revival of Provençal culture…Renoir first gained real fame during those years. He became Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1900, but it was the retrospective of his work included in the 1904 Salon d’Automne which sealed his reputation”.
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