Figure 1.--Renoir had three boys. This painting shows Pierre 11 and Jean 2 and an unidentified child in 1896.
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Figure 1.--Renoir had three boys. This painting shows Pierre 11 and Jean 2 and an unidentified child in 1896. |
The French impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir is one of the most prominent artists of our era. He is perhaps the best loved of all the impressionists, in part due to his vibrant colors and subjects such as flowers and young children. Renoir was one of the early impresionists, although he later brorke with them an adopted amore formalized style. Renoir has a unique place among the artists surveyed by HBC. His family was the center of his life. He enjoyed and was intreagued by his children. He painted them numerous times. He used them so often that they got a bit tiredof that, especially when a klittle older and someytimes had to be bribed. Imagine to have to be bribed to be painted by Renoir. Sometimes in their normal clothes which are of particular interest to HBC. Other times he outfitted them in costumes. Sometimes because he had no little girls he even outfitted them in dresses. As one of the great impressionists, he has left us some wonderful, if idealized views of French childhood at the turn of the century.
Pierre was born to a humble family in Limoges. His father was a tailor. When Pierre was only about 4 years old in 1845, his father moved the family to Paris. I'm not sure how he was dressed as a boy and do not yet have details on his boyhood. His humble beginning also left him eager to
successfully enter the French middle class. Some art historians suggest
his constant rendering of his family and children was, perhaps not
consciously, to demonstrate his affluent, middle-class life style.
Renoir was apprenticed at the age of 13 in 1854 to work as a painter in a Paris porcelain factory. He was taught to imitate the great
Rococo painters of the 18th century. It was in the factory factory that he gained experience with the light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work. It was at the factory that he learned the importance of good craftsmanship. While still an apprentice, Pierre would visit the Louvre where he carefully studied the paintings of the old masters. He used his skills to make a little money by copying 18th century paintings. He also began attending evening classes.
Figure 2.--Renoir painted his son Jean when the boy was about 5 or 6 years old in 1900. |
His predilection towards light-hearted themes was influenced by the great Rococo masters, whose works he studied in the Louvre. In 1862 he entered the studio of Gleyre and there formed a lasting friendship with Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. He painted with them in the Barbizon district and became a leading member of the group of Impressionists who met at the Cafe Guerbois. He took part in their first exhibition, in
the former studio of the photographer Nadar. (See photographs on the de Lessps page. Nadar had his famous studio at 35 boulevard des Capucines, Paris. The exhibition was on April 15, 1874. There Renoir and like minded artists, rejected by the juries of the Salon, offered their work for public view. Although some critics at the time appreciated the new style, most
subjected Renoir and the other artists in the group to ridicule, calling their work impressionistic rather than realistic. Reniors first serious paintings were classic typically impressionist vinettes of everyday life, full of color and light.
Renoir's work gradually evolved away from the impressionists He broken with the impressionist movement in the 1880s. His works began to show a more disciplined technique to portraits and figure paintings
The work of the Renoir and the other "Impressionists" would eventually lead to what is now recognized as Modern Art. Renoir as most of the impressionists eventuallty did exhibit at the Salon. His works appeared in 1879, 1881, 1883, and 1890.
Figure 3.--This painting of Jean at age 7 in 1901 was one of the family's favorites and hung in their home for years--much to Jean's embarrassment as he grew up. |
Renoir is best know for his charming portraits of every day life. Renoir is perhaps the best-loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects---pretty children, flowers,
beautiful scenes, above all lovely women---have instant appeal, and he communicated the joy he took in them with great directness. `Why shouldn't art be pretty?', he said, `There are enough unpleasant things in the world.'
Figure 4.--Jean in this painting appears to be wearing a smock and holds a flower-decked hat. The painting dates about 1900. |
Renoir excelled in rendering the artlessness, freshness, and awkwardness of childrenRenoir had three sons which came at rather wide intervals. He especially loved to paint his sons when they were young. He painted his own sons on numerous occasions, such as the attached portrait of Jean Renoir at about 5-6 years of age (figure ?).
Pierre (1885- ): I do not know of many major portraits featuring Pierre. I am not sure why. Perhaps Renoir's focus was not on children at this stage of his career. Pierre is seen in a sailor suit in the family part portrait (figure 1).
Jean (1894- ): His second son Jean, born in 1894, seems to hold pride of place among all his youthful models. With no other model did Renoir take such pleasure in observing the eyes and laughter of a little child as it gradually discovers life. Indeed as
we look at the many portraits of the boy we almost feel that we are watching him
grow. First we see him as a chubby-cheeked baby in the arms of his nurse Gabrielle.
Later we find him sewing, learning the alphabet, playing with his hoop. As
Jean grew older his father took more and more interest in rendering his attentive
gaze and recording his awakening intelligence. It is interesting to note in the portraits painted by his father little Jean very often looks like a girl. Renoir was fascinated by the freshness and bloom of a young complexion and was always ready to discover the woman in the child. Thus in this pastel, he amused himself by portraying his son with long locks reaching to his shoulders and clutching with clumsy hands a large flower-decked hat which keeps falling off his knees (figure 4).
Claude (1901- ): There appear to be fewer paintingd of Claude. I am not sure why. We do know that Renoir began to suffer the effects of rheumatism in the 1890s. This was part of the reason he moved to warmer, southern France. The rheumatism was becoming increasingly severe in the 1900s. He continued painting, but may have found it more difficult to work with a young child. Perhaps the most famous portrait of Claude is as a clown in 1909. The rheumatism eventually crippled him and by 1912 he was confined to a wheelchair.
Renoir also painted other children. He painted Jean and Genevieve
Caillebotte, the son and daughter of Martial Caillebotte in
1893. (See the hair bow page.) Renoir also used is nephew Eduard in some of his paintings.
A well-informed reader tells me that the three children in the painting above are not all Renoirs (figure 1). The oldest boy in the picture is Pierre (b. 1885). The baby is Jean (b. 1894), who also appears by himself in the other painting. Renoir's third son Claude (b. 1901) had not yet been born so he couldn't be in this painting. The pose of the other child
would lead him to suspect that it is a girl. The fact the child has a ball, however,
suggests that the child is a boy. Renoir's children also didn't, as a rule, wear dresses, but did wear long hair with ribbons. Another character in this drama is Renoir's nephew Edouard. A child looking like a young girl in the "Apple Seller" is actually
Edouard. (View the "Apple Seller" on the park
outing page.) There are
several pictures of Edouard in a book by Daulte (Johns Hopkins
University Library) with waist length hair and wearing a dress with long
stockings.
Figure 5.--Jean was a model for this painting. He was age 6-7. Notice his long hair is uncurled in the French style. He wears a sailor suit with knickers. He is in the park playing with his hoop. |
Another Renoir painting shows his 7 year old son Jean holding a hoop, wearing a smock-like dress with lace collar and cuffs, and long curled hair tied with a white ribbon (figure 3). Jean remarked in his autobiography that in this picture, which he posed as a little girl, was displayed prominently in their home for many year and caused him much embarrassment.
One of the most beautiful Renoir paintings is "The Apple Sellers". You can view the painting on the park outing page, as it shows how middle class French children were dressed for an outing to the park in 1890. The painting is of Aline (Mrs. Renoir), Renoir's nephew Eduard (who is 6 years old born 1884),
and his son Pierre (who is 5 years born in 1885), and an unidentified
French peasant woman who is pictured selling apples to a middle class
family. At the time of the painting, Renoir was still establishing his
reputation and working himself into the middle class. Some of his
critics charge that the painting is meant to emphasize his recent
success. This painting shows the latitude mothers exercised in clothing
French boys at the time. The older boy, Eduard is dressed in typical
little boy fashions of the day in a red dress,
long stockings (probable silk), matching red
strap shoes.
His uncurled hair is nearly waist length and tied with a matching hair
ribbon. In contrast the younger boy, Pierre, appears to be wearing a
smock, shorts,
dark socks, plain shoes, shoulder-length
long curly hair, and a
straw hat with a ribbon band. These outfits show some differences
between French and Anglo-American clothing styles and child rearing
patterns. The differences are discussed on the
park outings page.
The differences in dress between these two boys obviously reflects their mother's preference, but also may be related to their own personalities. Pierre was an active boy, whereas, Edmond was a quiet thoughtful child who liked to read, etc. Jean described Eduard later as a young man:
Eduard would read aloud to Helene (his future wife). He was just discovering the pleasures of study, which were to become the great passion of his life. He had passed his examinations with the highest honors and had thought of becoming a monk. He was never to cease studying, and now yet goes on steeping himself in the beauties of the world's great literature, going without difficulty from Arabic to Russian, from Italian to Scandinavian, and learning in the process many disparate languages. Edmond and Helene were the intellectuals of our little group.High praise from a future movie director.
Sometimes Renoir dressed the children as "pierrots", a kind of French clown. (A typical male character in French pantomime with a whitened face and wearing a loose white fancy costume.) Renoir liked painting clowns, perhaps in part because he could frrly use color. One of the most famous of these clown paintings was of Claude painted in 1909.
Renoir's painted "Sailor Boy", a portrait of Robert Nunes. We do not yet have detailson the portrait. I donot yet have information on just who he was. It is a wonderful image of a French boy wearing a kneepants sailor suit. It is easily identifiable as a French image because of the red pom on the boy's cap.
Figure 6.--Renoir's youngest boy Claude is pictured here in 1906? Note the curls and hairbow in an otherwise boyish looking sailor suit. |
Renoir is perhaps the best loved of all the impressionists, in part due to his vibrant colors and subjects such as flowers and young children as well of course beautiful women. He loved to paint young girls and children and his sons made pretty and convenient models. The boys were dressed in dresses when they were little and often smocks when they were a bit older. Often it is difficult to identify the gender of the children he painted without knowing just who was being painted. Renoir's sons all had long hair as boys. After their long hair was cut, he never painted them as older boys.
Renoir provides us a wonderful complete view of how prosperous French children were dressed at the turn of the century, primary through portraits of Jean. Jean when he was very young wore bonnets and dresses. A few years later he commnly wears smocks. The smocks Jean wears are very colorful. I am not sure if they were painted in these brights reds for artistic affect or if Jean really did wear bright red smocks. Jean also wore Fauntleroy suits and all of Renoirs children appear to have worn sailor suits. Pierre looks to have worn sailor suits into his eraly teens. Renoir also shows us views of hair styles. Jean's hair was worn long, but not curled. In many portraits he also wire hair bows.
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