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拍品专文
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Renoir catalogue critique being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from the archive funds of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.
Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville have confirmed that this painting is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
Unlike his contemporaries, such as Monet, Sisley and Bazille, Renoir showed little interest in still-life at the beginning of his career. From around 1880, however, it began to occupy an increasing importance in his output, underlining the 'academic' approach that influenced his art. Renoir recommended to Manet's niece Julie to paint still-life 'in order to teach yourself to paint quickly' (quoted in J. Manet, Journal, 1893-1899, Paris, n.d., p. 190), and the numerous works, often elaborate and ambitious, which he executed in this genre over the course of his career attest to his sustained interest in still-life as an end in itself. Indeed, it was in his still-life compositions that Renoir pursued some of his most searching investigations of the effects of light and colour on objects and surfaces. Renoir told his biographer, Albert André, that it was in his small scale still-lifes such as the present work that 'he put the whole of himself, that he took every risk' (A. André, Renoir, 1928, p. 49).
Light pervades Nature morte aux pommes, suffusing the scene with an atmospheric radiance. The rich red and yellow hues of the apples are highlighted with luminous areas of white, while light plays across the tablecloth, animated with blue and pink shadows, which enrich its textural qualities. The left background is evoked in vertical brushstrokes of pinks, yellows and blues, while the greens and yellows to the right suggest a view onto a garden. The present work demonstrates how Renoir increasingly sought to reconcile the tenets of Impressionism with the structure and permanence of the classical tradition. The sophisticated light effects neither dissolve the contour of the objects nor mitigate their mass. Indeed the apples, plate and tabletop seem to gain in substance and clarity from the light filtering across the canvas.
Discussing Renoir's pictorial dialogue with Chardin, Charles Sterling's statement of Renoir's achievement in still-life which could well describe the present painting: 'Nurtured on the traditions of eighteenth-century French painting, Renoir...carried on the serene simplicity of Chardin. Pale shadows, light as a breath of air, faintly ripple across the perishable jewel of a ripe fruit. Renoir reconciles extreme discretion with extreme richness, and his full-bodied density is made up, it would seem, of coloured air. This is a lyrical idiom hitherto unknown in still life, even in those of Chardin. Between these objects and us there floats a luminous haze through which we distinguish them, tenderly united in a subdued shimmer of light (C. Sterling, Still Life in Painting from Antiquity to the Present Time, Paris, 1959, p. 100).
Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville have confirmed that this painting is included in their Bernheim-Jeune archives as an authentic work.
Unlike his contemporaries, such as Monet, Sisley and Bazille, Renoir showed little interest in still-life at the beginning of his career. From around 1880, however, it began to occupy an increasing importance in his output, underlining the 'academic' approach that influenced his art. Renoir recommended to Manet's niece Julie to paint still-life 'in order to teach yourself to paint quickly' (quoted in J. Manet, Journal, 1893-1899, Paris, n.d., p. 190), and the numerous works, often elaborate and ambitious, which he executed in this genre over the course of his career attest to his sustained interest in still-life as an end in itself. Indeed, it was in his still-life compositions that Renoir pursued some of his most searching investigations of the effects of light and colour on objects and surfaces. Renoir told his biographer, Albert André, that it was in his small scale still-lifes such as the present work that 'he put the whole of himself, that he took every risk' (A. André, Renoir, 1928, p. 49).
Light pervades Nature morte aux pommes, suffusing the scene with an atmospheric radiance. The rich red and yellow hues of the apples are highlighted with luminous areas of white, while light plays across the tablecloth, animated with blue and pink shadows, which enrich its textural qualities. The left background is evoked in vertical brushstrokes of pinks, yellows and blues, while the greens and yellows to the right suggest a view onto a garden. The present work demonstrates how Renoir increasingly sought to reconcile the tenets of Impressionism with the structure and permanence of the classical tradition. The sophisticated light effects neither dissolve the contour of the objects nor mitigate their mass. Indeed the apples, plate and tabletop seem to gain in substance and clarity from the light filtering across the canvas.
Discussing Renoir's pictorial dialogue with Chardin, Charles Sterling's statement of Renoir's achievement in still-life which could well describe the present painting: 'Nurtured on the traditions of eighteenth-century French painting, Renoir...carried on the serene simplicity of Chardin. Pale shadows, light as a breath of air, faintly ripple across the perishable jewel of a ripe fruit. Renoir reconciles extreme discretion with extreme richness, and his full-bodied density is made up, it would seem, of coloured air. This is a lyrical idiom hitherto unknown in still life, even in those of Chardin. Between these objects and us there floats a luminous haze through which we distinguish them, tenderly united in a subdued shimmer of light (C. Sterling, Still Life in Painting from Antiquity to the Present Time, Paris, 1959, p. 100).