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拍品專文
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's large-scale oil painting, La Famille, is an intimate domestic scene set in a lush green garden. A trio of brunettes gather close together, and one holds a plump baby in a white gown and bonnet on her lap. At first glance, the exact familial relationship between the women and the child is unclear, for all three women seem to delight equally in the baby. The fluid execution of the painting, soft and hazy as a memory, contributes to its sweet, nostalgic air.
Renoir's romantic vision of family life in La Famille paralleled his own experience of domestic bliss. The artist and his future wife, Aline Charigot, welcomed their first son Pierre in 1885, followed by sons Jean and Claude in 1894 and 1901. The household was also joined by Aline's cousin, Gabriele Renard, who helped care for the Renoir children. The experience of becoming a father was transformative for Renoir, both personally and professionally. As his second son, Jean, later wrote in his memoir, "The birth of my brother Pierre was to cause a definite revolution in Renoir's life...As he eagerly sketched his son...he concentrated on rendering the velvety flesh of the child; and through this very submission, Renoir began to rebuild his inner world" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1962, p. 233).
Renoir's family members often served as models in his paintings. In Maternité (1885, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), for example, Renoir pictured a voluptuous Aline breastfeeding an infant Pierre. About a decade later, he lovingly depicted his growing family in the courtyard of their home in Montmartre (1896, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia). Three of the figures in La Famille have similarly been identified as family portraits: baby Jean seated in Gabrielle's lap, with Aline wrapping her arm around the back of Gabrielle's chair. François Daulte thus dated the painting to the mid-1890s, soon after Jean's birth.
La Famille is thoroughly modern in its subject matter and composition; the women engage with one another casually and unselfconsciously, without any contrived narrative pretext. Yet Renoir's work also reflects his close study of more traditional Old Master paintings at the Louvre - notably, Italian Renaissance representations of the Holy Family. Works by Raphael or Leonardo da Vinci, for example, emphasize the feminine warmth between the Virgin and Saint Anne with the Christ Child and Saint John the Baptist. Renoir was no doubt influenced by the tender maternal embraces in those religious pictures - but in paintings like La Famille, he translated those caresses into a modern, secular visual language.
Renoir's romantic vision of family life in La Famille paralleled his own experience of domestic bliss. The artist and his future wife, Aline Charigot, welcomed their first son Pierre in 1885, followed by sons Jean and Claude in 1894 and 1901. The household was also joined by Aline's cousin, Gabriele Renard, who helped care for the Renoir children. The experience of becoming a father was transformative for Renoir, both personally and professionally. As his second son, Jean, later wrote in his memoir, "The birth of my brother Pierre was to cause a definite revolution in Renoir's life...As he eagerly sketched his son...he concentrated on rendering the velvety flesh of the child; and through this very submission, Renoir began to rebuild his inner world" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1962, p. 233).
Renoir's family members often served as models in his paintings. In Maternité (1885, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), for example, Renoir pictured a voluptuous Aline breastfeeding an infant Pierre. About a decade later, he lovingly depicted his growing family in the courtyard of their home in Montmartre (1896, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia). Three of the figures in La Famille have similarly been identified as family portraits: baby Jean seated in Gabrielle's lap, with Aline wrapping her arm around the back of Gabrielle's chair. François Daulte thus dated the painting to the mid-1890s, soon after Jean's birth.
La Famille is thoroughly modern in its subject matter and composition; the women engage with one another casually and unselfconsciously, without any contrived narrative pretext. Yet Renoir's work also reflects his close study of more traditional Old Master paintings at the Louvre - notably, Italian Renaissance representations of the Holy Family. Works by Raphael or Leonardo da Vinci, for example, emphasize the feminine warmth between the Virgin and Saint Anne with the Christ Child and Saint John the Baptist. Renoir was no doubt influenced by the tender maternal embraces in those religious pictures - but in paintings like La Famille, he translated those caresses into a modern, secular visual language.