Lot Essay
Renoir painted the present work circa 1882 upon his return from an October 1881 to January 1882 voyage through Italy. His travels there brought about a significant change in his painting. As the critic Georges Rivire wrote:
Renoir's pictures during the five or six years that followed his travels in Italy differed considerably from everything he had painted previously. The design of the figures, the color, and even the technique appeared different from the canvases painted between 1875 and 1881 (quoted in N. Wadley, ed., Renoir, A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 160).
The 1880s proved to be an experimental time for the artist, a transitional period in which he created some of his greatest works. The pictures that he executed at this time mark a fundamental departure from his previous output. Renoir's paintings of the 1880s are distinguished from his previous works by their lighter and warmer tone. This luminosity is one of the outstanding features of such masterpieces of the period as Les grandes baigneuses (fig. 1). His visit to Italy most certainly contributed to his move to a lighter palette. As he wrote to Madame Charpentier, one of his greatest patrons:
I studied the museum in Naples alot, the paintings from Pompeii are extremely interesting from all points of view, and so I stay in the sun, not to do portraits in broad daylight, but by warming up and doing alot of looking, I will, I think, have gained that grandeur and simplicity of ancient painters. Raphael, who didn't work outdoors, had nevertheless studied sunlight since his frescoes are so full of it. Thus having seen the outdoors so much, I ended up seeing only the great harmonies without caring anymore about small details that extinguish sunlight instead of making it blaze (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 115).
French painters of the eighteenth century, especially Fragonard, Boucher and Watteau, also influenced Renoir in this respect. In a letter to his dealer Durand-Ruel, Renoir wrote about his new direction:
I think you will be pleased this time. I have gone back to the old painting, the gentle light sort and I don't intend ever to abandon it again. I want to come back only when I have a series of canvases, because, now that I'm satisfied, I make progress with each one. My work is quite different from the last landscapes and that dull portrait of your daughter. More like the woman fishing or the woman with a fan, but with a subtle difference given by a tone that I was looking for and which I've found at last. It's not so much new as a continuation of eighteenth-century painting. I don't mean the very best of course, but I am trying to give you a rough idea of this new (and final) style of mine. (A sort of inferior Fragonard).
I've just finished a young girl sitting on a bank which I think you will like.
Please understand that I am not comparing myself to an eighteenth-century master, but it's important to try and explain to you the direction I'm moving in. These painters, who didn't seem to be working from nature, knew more about it than we do (quoted in ibid., p. 167).
Renoir looked to the French masters as well as to Ingres and Raphael, whose paintings he had admired during his Italian voyage. The artist was not only motivated by his ambition to rival the Old Masters and establish his place in the history of art, but also by his hope of creating a commercially viable alternative to the highly popular paintings of nudes by Bouguereau.
One result of Renoir's trip to Italy was a renewed interest in the painting of the nude, which he had virtually abandoned during the previous decade. As the present painting indicates, Renoir derived his compositions from the classical subjects of the Old Masters. The classical emphasis of the nude contrasts greatly with the looser, more supple handling of the rest of the painting. The nude figure, with her porcelain-like, silky-smooth skin, was surely executed first and the landscape was most likely painted around the figure in the artist's studio rather than outdoors. There is a particular delicacy and opulence to Baigneuse assise which is reminiscent, and clearly inspired by, the imagery and subject matter of the eighteenth-century Rococo masters. Renoir attempts to emphasize decorative qualities over representational accuracy and borrows from works he had admired when he had first visited the Louvre as a young boy, such as Watteau's Diane au bain (fig. 2) and Boucher's painting of the same title (fig. 3). At the same time, the ideas of Impressionism still manifest themselves in the light ground of the canvas and in Renoir's chosen palette.
The identity of the figure and her setting are not specified; nor is it clear whether the painting represents a contemporary event or a scene from mythology. This type of ambiguity is a feature almost exclusive to Renoir's paintings of bathers and not typical in the artist's oeuvre. In Baigneuse assise this ambiguity adds to the picture's appearance of timelessness and ideality, making it more seductive and poetic.
This painting was formerly in the collections of Leo Stein, Chester Dale and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(fig. 1) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Les grandes baigneuses, 1884-1887. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
(fig. 2) Jean-Antoine Watteau, Diane au bain, 1715-1716.
Muse du Louvre, Paris.
(fig. 3) Franois Boucher, Diane au bain, 1742.
Muse du Louvre, Paris.
Renoir's pictures during the five or six years that followed his travels in Italy differed considerably from everything he had painted previously. The design of the figures, the color, and even the technique appeared different from the canvases painted between 1875 and 1881 (quoted in N. Wadley, ed., Renoir, A Retrospective, New York, 1987, p. 160).
The 1880s proved to be an experimental time for the artist, a transitional period in which he created some of his greatest works. The pictures that he executed at this time mark a fundamental departure from his previous output. Renoir's paintings of the 1880s are distinguished from his previous works by their lighter and warmer tone. This luminosity is one of the outstanding features of such masterpieces of the period as Les grandes baigneuses (fig. 1). His visit to Italy most certainly contributed to his move to a lighter palette. As he wrote to Madame Charpentier, one of his greatest patrons:
I studied the museum in Naples alot, the paintings from Pompeii are extremely interesting from all points of view, and so I stay in the sun, not to do portraits in broad daylight, but by warming up and doing alot of looking, I will, I think, have gained that grandeur and simplicity of ancient painters. Raphael, who didn't work outdoors, had nevertheless studied sunlight since his frescoes are so full of it. Thus having seen the outdoors so much, I ended up seeing only the great harmonies without caring anymore about small details that extinguish sunlight instead of making it blaze (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 115).
French painters of the eighteenth century, especially Fragonard, Boucher and Watteau, also influenced Renoir in this respect. In a letter to his dealer Durand-Ruel, Renoir wrote about his new direction:
I think you will be pleased this time. I have gone back to the old painting, the gentle light sort and I don't intend ever to abandon it again. I want to come back only when I have a series of canvases, because, now that I'm satisfied, I make progress with each one. My work is quite different from the last landscapes and that dull portrait of your daughter. More like the woman fishing or the woman with a fan, but with a subtle difference given by a tone that I was looking for and which I've found at last. It's not so much new as a continuation of eighteenth-century painting. I don't mean the very best of course, but I am trying to give you a rough idea of this new (and final) style of mine. (A sort of inferior Fragonard).
I've just finished a young girl sitting on a bank which I think you will like.
Please understand that I am not comparing myself to an eighteenth-century master, but it's important to try and explain to you the direction I'm moving in. These painters, who didn't seem to be working from nature, knew more about it than we do (quoted in ibid., p. 167).
Renoir looked to the French masters as well as to Ingres and Raphael, whose paintings he had admired during his Italian voyage. The artist was not only motivated by his ambition to rival the Old Masters and establish his place in the history of art, but also by his hope of creating a commercially viable alternative to the highly popular paintings of nudes by Bouguereau.
One result of Renoir's trip to Italy was a renewed interest in the painting of the nude, which he had virtually abandoned during the previous decade. As the present painting indicates, Renoir derived his compositions from the classical subjects of the Old Masters. The classical emphasis of the nude contrasts greatly with the looser, more supple handling of the rest of the painting. The nude figure, with her porcelain-like, silky-smooth skin, was surely executed first and the landscape was most likely painted around the figure in the artist's studio rather than outdoors. There is a particular delicacy and opulence to Baigneuse assise which is reminiscent, and clearly inspired by, the imagery and subject matter of the eighteenth-century Rococo masters. Renoir attempts to emphasize decorative qualities over representational accuracy and borrows from works he had admired when he had first visited the Louvre as a young boy, such as Watteau's Diane au bain (fig. 2) and Boucher's painting of the same title (fig. 3). At the same time, the ideas of Impressionism still manifest themselves in the light ground of the canvas and in Renoir's chosen palette.
The identity of the figure and her setting are not specified; nor is it clear whether the painting represents a contemporary event or a scene from mythology. This type of ambiguity is a feature almost exclusive to Renoir's paintings of bathers and not typical in the artist's oeuvre. In Baigneuse assise this ambiguity adds to the picture's appearance of timelessness and ideality, making it more seductive and poetic.
This painting was formerly in the collections of Leo Stein, Chester Dale and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(fig. 1) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Les grandes baigneuses, 1884-1887. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
(fig. 2) Jean-Antoine Watteau, Diane au bain, 1715-1716.
Muse du Louvre, Paris.
(fig. 3) Franois Boucher, Diane au bain, 1742.
Muse du Louvre, Paris.