Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Renoir

In painting, as in the other arts, there's not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. You come to nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat.

I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.

There are some things in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential.

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.

Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.

An artist must eat sparingly and give up a normal way of life.

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.

The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion. It is the current which he puts forth, which sweeps you along in his passion

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished

Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be the indescribable, and second, it must be inimitable

I consider women who are authors, lawyers and politicians are monsters

It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks
- All from Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1841 - 1919

About:
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born at Limoges, France on 25 Feb 1841. He went to work painting designs on dinnerware in a porcelain factory at age twelve, and was soon running to the Louvre on lunch breaks to copy the Rococo masters. From 1862 he studied at Le Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he met Claude Monet. These two, along with Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille, were the founders of Impressionism. Renoir veered away from Impressionism after traveling to Spain and Italy in 1881 to study Renaissance art, and his work gained in realism. Perhaps because of his early production line experience, Renoir created several thousand paintings in his six-decade career. In his later years arthritis crippled his hands, so he had a brush strapped to his wrist so he could keep painting.

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