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拍品专文
This work will be included in the forthcoming Pierre-Auguste Renoir Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
This work will be included in the second supplement to the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles de Renoir being prepared by Guy-Patrice and Floriane Dauberville.
The practice of still-life painting, especially when employing floral arrangements, afforded Renoir the welcome opportunity to extemporize freely in his technique. “When I am painting flowers,” he stated, “I can experiment boldly with tones and values without worrying about destroying the whole painting; I would not dare to do that with a figure” (quoted in Renoir, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, p. 183).
The opulent corporeality of Vase de roses, painted in 1906, stems from an evolution in style that Renoir initiated a quarter-century earlier. Renoir toured Italy in 1881; first-hand study of old master painting in Venice, Florence, and Rome inspired a growing awareness of classical form. “I have been to see the Raphaels in Rome,” he wrote to Paul Durand-Ruel. “This work is really beautiful and I should have seen it sooner. It is full of knowledge and wisdom” (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 115). Renoir began to distance himself from the purely color-driven, fleeting aspects of early Impressionism, and instead embraced a weightier, more robust, and solidly contoured conception of form in his painting. Vase de roses demonstrates how deeply engrained and essential this transformation had become in his art. Layered petals, heavy, drooping buds, and the glinting rotundity of the green earthenware vase project a sumptuous, sensual, and palpable presence.
The profusion of reddish hues evident in Vase de roses also reflects the influence of Renoir’s time in Italy. Around 1900, Renoir began to infuse his paintings with such warm tones in the hope that a glowing patina would emerge over time, resulting in the same tonal value he observed in the figures of Titian and the Venetian colorists—not perfect alabaster but plump, pink, living flesh. Vase de roses is blushing with these warm hues: “I paint flowers with the color of nudes,” he explained, “and I paint women in the same pink tones as the flowers” (quoted in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009, p. 294).
Roses of pink, cream, and yellow appear frequently in Renoir’s later paintings, tucked behind the ear of a female model, clutched to a breast, or occupying the decorative ambient space of a composition. “The rhymes and echoes between the objects,” John House was written, “create a series of metaphysical associations; no one object is simply equated with another, but all become part of a single chain of connections: the physical splendor of young women; the richness of materials and gilded surfaces; the lavishness of flowers… Painting becomes a vehicle for suggesting the correspondence of the senses” (op. cit., exh. cat., 1985, p. 290).
This work will be included in the second supplement to the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles de Renoir being prepared by Guy-Patrice and Floriane Dauberville.
The practice of still-life painting, especially when employing floral arrangements, afforded Renoir the welcome opportunity to extemporize freely in his technique. “When I am painting flowers,” he stated, “I can experiment boldly with tones and values without worrying about destroying the whole painting; I would not dare to do that with a figure” (quoted in Renoir, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, p. 183).
The opulent corporeality of Vase de roses, painted in 1906, stems from an evolution in style that Renoir initiated a quarter-century earlier. Renoir toured Italy in 1881; first-hand study of old master painting in Venice, Florence, and Rome inspired a growing awareness of classical form. “I have been to see the Raphaels in Rome,” he wrote to Paul Durand-Ruel. “This work is really beautiful and I should have seen it sooner. It is full of knowledge and wisdom” (quoted in B.E. White, Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 115). Renoir began to distance himself from the purely color-driven, fleeting aspects of early Impressionism, and instead embraced a weightier, more robust, and solidly contoured conception of form in his painting. Vase de roses demonstrates how deeply engrained and essential this transformation had become in his art. Layered petals, heavy, drooping buds, and the glinting rotundity of the green earthenware vase project a sumptuous, sensual, and palpable presence.
The profusion of reddish hues evident in Vase de roses also reflects the influence of Renoir’s time in Italy. Around 1900, Renoir began to infuse his paintings with such warm tones in the hope that a glowing patina would emerge over time, resulting in the same tonal value he observed in the figures of Titian and the Venetian colorists—not perfect alabaster but plump, pink, living flesh. Vase de roses is blushing with these warm hues: “I paint flowers with the color of nudes,” he explained, “and I paint women in the same pink tones as the flowers” (quoted in Renoir in the 20th Century, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009, p. 294).
Roses of pink, cream, and yellow appear frequently in Renoir’s later paintings, tucked behind the ear of a female model, clutched to a breast, or occupying the decorative ambient space of a composition. “The rhymes and echoes between the objects,” John House was written, “create a series of metaphysical associations; no one object is simply equated with another, but all become part of a single chain of connections: the physical splendor of young women; the richness of materials and gilded surfaces; the lavishness of flowers… Painting becomes a vehicle for suggesting the correspondence of the senses” (op. cit., exh. cat., 1985, p. 290).