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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue critique of Pierre-Auguste Renoir being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute established from the archives of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
Executed in 1905, most likely in the south of France, this vibrant landscape is a fine example of the plein-air works Pierre-Auguste Renoir produced towards the end of his career.
Although better known to the public as a painter of intimate scenes and portraits, this landscape painting reminds us to what extent the landscape was equally suited to Renoir's mature style. He viewed this genre in part as a means of testing and refining his artistic skills; in a letter to Berthe Morisot from 1892, he referred to it as 'the only way to learn one's craft' (quoted in Ecrits, entretiens et lettres sur l'art, Regards sur l'art, Paris, 2002, p. 144).
As a result, his landscapes tend to be more varied and experimental in colour than other works, revealing the artist's true fascination for natural light. Despite being afflicted by illness in the latter years of his career, Renoir's approach to painting remained firm and vigorous. The variegated brushwork consisting of swirling impasto and small dabs of applied paint highlight his desire to capture the transience of nature. The nuances of greens, blues and browns visible across the present painting testify to the painters observatory eye and his ability to transpose onto the canvas a richness of form and colour.
Unlike Claude Monet, who used his domestic garden in Giverny as subject matter for his art, Renoir chose to depict a more rugged, wild landscape. He painted nature in its rawest form, a nature that had not been altered or rearranged by man. Yet this unpredictable landscape proved challenging to paint, as Renoir once lamented Olivier 'what a nightmare! If only you knew my frustration. A tree filled with colour. Not just grey, but the whole spectrum. Its little leaves in the open spaces are just making me sweat! With even the smallest gust of wind, the colours and form are altered. I know nature, but I cant paint it. A painter cannot become well known if he doesn't know how to paint a landscape' (quoted in A. de Butler, Ecrits et propos sur l'art, Paris, 2009, p. 209).
Executed in 1905, most likely in the south of France, this vibrant landscape is a fine example of the plein-air works Pierre-Auguste Renoir produced towards the end of his career.
Although better known to the public as a painter of intimate scenes and portraits, this landscape painting reminds us to what extent the landscape was equally suited to Renoir's mature style. He viewed this genre in part as a means of testing and refining his artistic skills; in a letter to Berthe Morisot from 1892, he referred to it as 'the only way to learn one's craft' (quoted in Ecrits, entretiens et lettres sur l'art, Regards sur l'art, Paris, 2002, p. 144).
As a result, his landscapes tend to be more varied and experimental in colour than other works, revealing the artist's true fascination for natural light. Despite being afflicted by illness in the latter years of his career, Renoir's approach to painting remained firm and vigorous. The variegated brushwork consisting of swirling impasto and small dabs of applied paint highlight his desire to capture the transience of nature. The nuances of greens, blues and browns visible across the present painting testify to the painters observatory eye and his ability to transpose onto the canvas a richness of form and colour.
Unlike Claude Monet, who used his domestic garden in Giverny as subject matter for his art, Renoir chose to depict a more rugged, wild landscape. He painted nature in its rawest form, a nature that had not been altered or rearranged by man. Yet this unpredictable landscape proved challenging to paint, as Renoir once lamented Olivier 'what a nightmare! If only you knew my frustration. A tree filled with colour. Not just grey, but the whole spectrum. Its little leaves in the open spaces are just making me sweat! With even the smallest gust of wind, the colours and form are altered. I know nature, but I cant paint it. A painter cannot become well known if he doesn't know how to paint a landscape' (quoted in A. de Butler, Ecrits et propos sur l'art, Paris, 2009, p. 209).