Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919) was a French artist who painted in the impressionist style.

The art of Renoir

Renoir's paintings show vibrant light and color, and harmony of lines. Unlike many impressionists who focused on landscapes, he painted not only landscapes, but people in intimate and candid compositions — sometimes applying paint with a palette knife rather than a brush. Characteristic of impressionism style, Renoir painted not the details of a scene, but instead his figures softly fuse with one another and the surroundings. In his late 1880s paintings the figures and scenery look more distinct from one another, but the paintings of his final years again display the softness.

Related Topics:
Impressionists - 1880s

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His initial paintings show the influence of the artistry of Eugène Delacroix, and of his friend Claude Monet with whom he developed the impressionist style. The influence of Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Camille Corot is also seen in his work.

Related Topics:
Eugène Delacroix - Claude Monet - Impressionist - Gustave Courbet - Édouard Manet - Camille Corot

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In the late 1860s, obsessed with painting light and water, he and Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them.

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One of the best known impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), which depicts an open-air scene, jammed with people, of a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre close to where he lived.

Related Topics:
Impressionist - 1876

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A prolific painter, he made several thousand paintings.

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The warm sensuality of Renoir's painting made his work some the best known and frequently reproduced work in the history of art.

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