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拍品专文
“A painter can't be great if he doesn't understand landscape”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
“Renoir more and more loves the canvas being full and sonorous. He detests empty spaces. Every corner in his landscapes offers a relationship of colours and values chosen with a view to the embellishment of the surface”
J.F. Schnerb
Capturing the sun-drenched, sonorous beauty of the countryside at the height of summer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Paysage is an ode to plein air painting—a celebration of the deep peace and joy the artist found working beneath boundless blue skies. In this idyllic Arcadia, surrounded by tall trees and lush, verdant foliage, time seemed to stand still for the artist, as the delicate rhythm of nature gently slowed the pace of daily life into a harmonious symphony of colour and light.
Certainly it was here, amid the shimmering trees and expansive fields—far from the city and the need to please patrons—that Renoir was at his most elemental, his most authentic. As his son Jean would explain, “he was radiant, in the true sense of the word, by which I mean that we felt there were rays emanating from his brush, as it caressed the canvas. He was freed from all theories, from all fears” (J. Renoir, Renoir, My Father, trans. R. & W. Weaver, London, 1962, p. 394).
Indeed, Renoir’s appreciation for the grandeur of nature and his desire to immortalize it on canvas stemmed largely from his deep respect for the French landscape tradition, and in particular from the 18th Century artists he so revered. As he explained to Gimpel, “I’m one with the eighteenth century. With all modesty, I consider not only that my art descends from a Watteau, a Fragonard, a Hubert Robert, but also that I am one with them” (Renoir, quoted in M. Raeburn, ed., Renoir, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, p. 277).
Yet his genius lay not simply in adhering to the traditions of the canon, but—like his contemporaries Monet, Pissarro and Sisley—in expanding upon them. Carefully structuring his composition in a manner that undoubtedly pays tribute to the legacy of Claude, Paysage stands in homage to the Classical tradition. Firmly planting the work within the heritage of the Impressionist vision, however, rapid, sketch-like handling of paint and spontaneous brushwork combine to create a sense of immediacy and vigour, while the rhythmic repetition of rich greens, reds and yellows—at times applied in direct touches of pure, undiluted colour—echo the harmony of nature itself.
Combining a deep reverence for the beauty of the natural world with the vivacity and spontaneity of the Impressionist movement, Renoir came to embody the perfect “integration of Classicism and Impressionism,” where “Classical feelings of weightiness and universality were blended with Impressionist feelings of movement and joyfulness” (B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 219).
In their novel departure from the Classical tradition, the Impressionists championed landscape as an autonomous subject worthy of study and celebration. Thus, without the pretext of a grand pedagogical, biblical or historical narrative, in the present lot the two figures at the far centre of the canvas—tenderly interpreted as a strolling mother and child—come into focus as an ornament to the idyllic setting, rather than the precursors or protagonists to it. Their graceful silhouettes, elegantly dressed, lend a soft femininity to the work, rewarding the viewer with their unassuming charm.
A celebration of the beauty and harmony of the natural world, in Paysage, Renoir’s understanding of composition and masterful handling of paint enabled the artist to create a vision of considerable depth and freshness. As John Rewald so aptly praised, he was, perhaps better than any of his contemporaries, able ‘to build with brilliant and strong colours an image of life in almost supernatural intensity [that] was exalted in colour, subtle rhythm, forceful in volumes and rich in invention, progressing from the canvas with fertile imagination and happy rendition’ (J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, London, 1973, p. 584).
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
“Renoir more and more loves the canvas being full and sonorous. He detests empty spaces. Every corner in his landscapes offers a relationship of colours and values chosen with a view to the embellishment of the surface”
J.F. Schnerb
Capturing the sun-drenched, sonorous beauty of the countryside at the height of summer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Paysage is an ode to plein air painting—a celebration of the deep peace and joy the artist found working beneath boundless blue skies. In this idyllic Arcadia, surrounded by tall trees and lush, verdant foliage, time seemed to stand still for the artist, as the delicate rhythm of nature gently slowed the pace of daily life into a harmonious symphony of colour and light.
Certainly it was here, amid the shimmering trees and expansive fields—far from the city and the need to please patrons—that Renoir was at his most elemental, his most authentic. As his son Jean would explain, “he was radiant, in the true sense of the word, by which I mean that we felt there were rays emanating from his brush, as it caressed the canvas. He was freed from all theories, from all fears” (J. Renoir, Renoir, My Father, trans. R. & W. Weaver, London, 1962, p. 394).
Indeed, Renoir’s appreciation for the grandeur of nature and his desire to immortalize it on canvas stemmed largely from his deep respect for the French landscape tradition, and in particular from the 18th Century artists he so revered. As he explained to Gimpel, “I’m one with the eighteenth century. With all modesty, I consider not only that my art descends from a Watteau, a Fragonard, a Hubert Robert, but also that I am one with them” (Renoir, quoted in M. Raeburn, ed., Renoir, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1985, p. 277).
Yet his genius lay not simply in adhering to the traditions of the canon, but—like his contemporaries Monet, Pissarro and Sisley—in expanding upon them. Carefully structuring his composition in a manner that undoubtedly pays tribute to the legacy of Claude, Paysage stands in homage to the Classical tradition. Firmly planting the work within the heritage of the Impressionist vision, however, rapid, sketch-like handling of paint and spontaneous brushwork combine to create a sense of immediacy and vigour, while the rhythmic repetition of rich greens, reds and yellows—at times applied in direct touches of pure, undiluted colour—echo the harmony of nature itself.
Combining a deep reverence for the beauty of the natural world with the vivacity and spontaneity of the Impressionist movement, Renoir came to embody the perfect “integration of Classicism and Impressionism,” where “Classical feelings of weightiness and universality were blended with Impressionist feelings of movement and joyfulness” (B.E. White, Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 219).
In their novel departure from the Classical tradition, the Impressionists championed landscape as an autonomous subject worthy of study and celebration. Thus, without the pretext of a grand pedagogical, biblical or historical narrative, in the present lot the two figures at the far centre of the canvas—tenderly interpreted as a strolling mother and child—come into focus as an ornament to the idyllic setting, rather than the precursors or protagonists to it. Their graceful silhouettes, elegantly dressed, lend a soft femininity to the work, rewarding the viewer with their unassuming charm.
A celebration of the beauty and harmony of the natural world, in Paysage, Renoir’s understanding of composition and masterful handling of paint enabled the artist to create a vision of considerable depth and freshness. As John Rewald so aptly praised, he was, perhaps better than any of his contemporaries, able ‘to build with brilliant and strong colours an image of life in almost supernatural intensity [that] was exalted in colour, subtle rhythm, forceful in volumes and rich in invention, progressing from the canvas with fertile imagination and happy rendition’ (J. Rewald, The History of Impressionism, London, 1973, p. 584).