Renoir, Jean. Renoir, My Father. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1958.
I can find no arguments to raise about this book other than it wasn't long enough and found I wanted more when I finished reading it! This book is an intimate look into the life of the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It must be a major source book for other written material about the artist because I've already read many of the quotes, phrases, and stories in this book before in other books.
I can't really say anything other than this was a fantastic book and pull the important quotes from it to show how revealing Jean Renoir is in describing his father's personality and beliefs. As a first introduction to his father, Jean Renoir writes:
What struck outsiders at first meeting were his eyes and his hands. His eyes were light brown, bordering on amber; and they were sharp and penetrating.... As for their expression, they had a look of tenderness mixed with irony, of merriment and sensuousness. They always seemed to be laughing, perceiving the odd side of things. But it was a gentle loving laughter. Perhaps it served as a mask. For Renoir was extremely shy about his feelings and never liked to give any sign of the emotion that overpowered him when he looked at flowers, women, or clouds - other men touch a thing or caress it. (27)
Here Jean Renoir reveals a part of his father's beliefs about what a "true" artist is, he writes:
There is no doubt that in Renoir's eyes to be a mere observer of humanity was both pretentious and sterile. He believed that the unconscious desire of the artist to drink at the very springs of life should be entirely unconscious. For him, the problem was not so much in understanding men as mingling with them: in being a part of the crowd, as a tree is part of the forest. Every creative genius has a message to give to the world. Yet the minute he is aware that he is uttering it, by a strange contradiction the message sounds hollow and loses its value. (31)
I totally agree with the above statement. There are times when I feel like I don't fit in with the crowd of the Army as an artist. When I'm deployed to gather information in the field by sketching and taking photographs, I meet many people who misunderstand me and immediately feel that I'm an "outsider" looking in and don't belong. Sometimes these encounters can get quite out of hand. I don't have to prove anything to these people, but it does help for them to understand my purpose. My job is that much easier when I'm accepted as part of the crowd and can wander freely throughout without obstacles that take away from my "focus".
The views Renoir had about life in general were revealed in the following two quotes:
The concept of having a purpose in life, of success and failure, of reward and punishment, was entirely foreign to Renoir. I am speaking, obviously, of "material" purpose. His total acceptance of the human condition led him to consider life as a whole, the world as a single entity. (37)
In the second quote:
Renoir's life makes me think of the flight of migrating birds, that incomprehensible achievement which far exceeds any human invention. There exists no compass, radar or teleguided apparatus to surpass a wild duck's instinct and fixity of purpose. (95)
I find both of these quotes interesting, especially the second. The second quote really describes the life of any artist in my opinion.
The following is Renoir's defense of museums. Many of his Impressionist friends, Pissarro in particular, said many times that the Louvre should be burned to the ground. Whether this statement is true to Pissarro's feelings is not proven. This statement my have been made out of frustration for the Impressionist's art not being accepted by the establishment as "serious" art. Renoir says,
What concerns us here is the whole question of knowledge of works of art. Only those who can rise to the level of the artist can communicate with him. Their number is, of necessity, limited. Then why are the museums thrown open to a largely ignorant public? The best way to learn a foriegn language is to go to the country where it is spoken and hear it. The only way to understand painting is to go and look at it. And if out of a million visitors there is even one whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums. (64)
The following is a problem that I am facing as an artist. It is interesting to see that Renoir, a master artist, was faced with the same problem. Jean Renoir writes:
Even before he left the art school, Renoir was faced with the dilemma of his whole existence. Two contrary propositions which were to evolve later already troubled him and kept him awake at night. The choice was between the excitment of the direct perception and the austere ecstacy found in the study of the old masters. This choice was presently to assume a more definite character. One would be forced either to work from nature, with all uncertainties that implied, including the tricks played by the sunlight, or else to work in the studio under the cold precision of controlled light. The real dilemma which can be considered the central theme of his life - the contest between subjectivism and objectivism - Renoir always refused to put to himself in the form of a direct question. (110)
I believe that Renoir was able to marry both of these principles into a single style that became unique among the Impressionists. None of the other Impressionist's works look similar to Renior's in technique and application of paint. Renoir's works seem to have a slick, hazy look to them which may be from applying his paints in thin, broken layers, similar to the old masters, instead of in thick impastoed dabs like the other Impressionist artists.
The following is a characteristic of the Impressionist painters that also reminds me of how lazy we have become as artists in the twentieth century. Renoir writes:
Luckily for them, painters in those days had good legs as well as good stomachs. The kilometers Renoir and his friends used to walk are really incredible. My father, for instance, would walk all the way from Paris to Fontainbleau - thirty-eight-odd miles. It would take him two days, stopping overnight at Essonnes. (126)
Renoir was against the waste that he saw with the growth of factories and mass production as a result of the Industrial Revolution. He was a very economical in his beliefs toward everything from painting to cooking. The following is a quote that relates to Renoir's economical method of laying out his palette. Jean Renoir writes:
There are painters who pile up the paint on their palettes. Each nuance is obtained by using paints from different tubes. Thanks to modern chemistry the colors have a vividness and richness which the old masters never even dreamed of. Yet the result of all this expense and scientific knowledge is rather lifeless. Renoir only used eight or ten colors, at most. They were ranged in neat little mounds around the edge of his scrupulously clean palette. From this modest assortment would come his shimmering silks and his luminous flesh tones. (149)
The entire book is filled with descriptions and quotes that were valuable to my study of Renoir and Impressionism. It would be a great resource there were more books as descriptive as this on the other Impressionist artists.