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Lot Essay
There is in Renoir's figure paintings, landscapes and still-lifes done after 1900 a more modernistic flattening of space. This tendency is especially discernible in the present work, just as it may be observed in Monet's late paintings of his gardens. By doing away with a horizon and a conventional sense of distance, Renoir shifted to vertical compositions, which now functioned without a clearly-defined focal point. To use a term that is often applied to post-World War II abstraction, Renoir's paintings in this manner possess an "all-over" look. The present painting, with its alizarin red and viridian green tonality, and variegated, improvised brushwork, almost resembles a Willem de Kooning painting from the late 1970s.
In a remarkable passage from his memoir of his father, the celebrated film director Jean Renoir wrote: "During his later years he had seen new groups and schools arise; Kandinsky and his followers had pioneered an original kind of art. Renoir sympathized with the aims of abstract painting. At times he too had been tempted to dispense with a subject and renounce appearances altogether. Only his modesty held him back. He remained quite content to express his deepest feelings under recognizable forms, as a landscape or a bouquet of flowers or a young girl. So he strode with giant steps toward the summit where mind and matter become one, knowing full well that no man living can attain these heights. Each stroke of his brush bore witness to this intoxicating approach to revelation. His nudes and his roses declared to men of this century, already deep in their task of destruction, the stability of the eternal balance of nature" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1962, p. 421).
In a remarkable passage from his memoir of his father, the celebrated film director Jean Renoir wrote: "During his later years he had seen new groups and schools arise; Kandinsky and his followers had pioneered an original kind of art. Renoir sympathized with the aims of abstract painting. At times he too had been tempted to dispense with a subject and renounce appearances altogether. Only his modesty held him back. He remained quite content to express his deepest feelings under recognizable forms, as a landscape or a bouquet of flowers or a young girl. So he strode with giant steps toward the summit where mind and matter become one, knowing full well that no man living can attain these heights. Each stroke of his brush bore witness to this intoxicating approach to revelation. His nudes and his roses declared to men of this century, already deep in their task of destruction, the stability of the eternal balance of nature" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1962, p. 421).