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拍品專文
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.
The young model in the present work is Fernande-Gabrielle Renard (fig. 1), the best-known of the models who appeared in Renoir's late paintings—she features in about two hundred of his works, far more than any other. Known as Gabrielle, she was a country girl from the town of Essoyes, which was also the birthplace of Renoir's wife, Aline. Gabrielle provided indispensable support in the Renoir household, and her warm, glowing presence enlivens many of the artist's most charming domestic scenes of the 1890s. It was around the turn of the century that Renoir began to paint Gabrielle in the nude, when he rented a summer house in Magagnosc, near Grasse. As his son, Jean Renoir, recalled: “It was in that house that Gabrielle began posing in the nude for the first time. La Boulangère [Marie Dupuis, a servant who joined the Renoir household in 1899 and served as his model] had a cold, and Renoir had tried in vain to get a model from Grasse. It was the rose gathering season for the perfume industry, and all the young people in the vicinity were employed. At the same time, it is possible that the prospect of appearing naked in front of a gentleman frightened many of the girls...My mother finally had the idea of getting Gabrielle as a substitute. She had just turned twenty and she was in the flower of youth. She was accustomed to seeing her friends pose in the nude that she took the suggestion as a matter of course. She had already appeared in countless pictures, but always fully clothed and always with me" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1958, pp. 365-366).
With her full, voluptuous figure and velvety, soft skin, Gabrielle represents one of the key obsessions that occupied Renoir during the final three decades of his life—the nude female body. Berthe Morisot, recalling a discussion she had with Renoir about his fascination with the nude female figure, explained that “the nude seemed to him to be one of the most essential forms of art” (quoted in M. Lucy and J. House, eds., Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven, 2012, p. 10). Indeed, Renoir had begun to explore the theme of the nude female bather in the 1880s, and returned again and again to the subject throughout the rest of his career, painting figures both standing and seated, in interior and exterior locations, and in various states of undress. In the present work, Gabrielle’s torso is revealed, with a robe around her waist, as if about to go into or having just finished her bath. She is set against an abstracted background, which could be indoors or out, and is lost in contemplation, unaware of the viewer.
Describing his aims as a colorist in his painting of flesh tones, Renoir stated: “I look at a nude; there are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver” (quoted in W. Pach, “Pierre Auguste Renoir,” Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 51, no. 5, May 1912, pp. 606-612). In the present work, the artist’s layering of paint and tiny brushstrokes allowed these “tints” to mix and combine, achieving a lively, vibrant surface which suggests the flutter of living flesh. This treatment is juxtaposed with the loose and fluid handling of the background, further enhancing the soft, supple appearance of the skin.
The young model in the present work is Fernande-Gabrielle Renard (fig. 1), the best-known of the models who appeared in Renoir's late paintings—she features in about two hundred of his works, far more than any other. Known as Gabrielle, she was a country girl from the town of Essoyes, which was also the birthplace of Renoir's wife, Aline. Gabrielle provided indispensable support in the Renoir household, and her warm, glowing presence enlivens many of the artist's most charming domestic scenes of the 1890s. It was around the turn of the century that Renoir began to paint Gabrielle in the nude, when he rented a summer house in Magagnosc, near Grasse. As his son, Jean Renoir, recalled: “It was in that house that Gabrielle began posing in the nude for the first time. La Boulangère [Marie Dupuis, a servant who joined the Renoir household in 1899 and served as his model] had a cold, and Renoir had tried in vain to get a model from Grasse. It was the rose gathering season for the perfume industry, and all the young people in the vicinity were employed. At the same time, it is possible that the prospect of appearing naked in front of a gentleman frightened many of the girls...My mother finally had the idea of getting Gabrielle as a substitute. She had just turned twenty and she was in the flower of youth. She was accustomed to seeing her friends pose in the nude that she took the suggestion as a matter of course. She had already appeared in countless pictures, but always fully clothed and always with me" (Renoir, My Father, New York, 1958, pp. 365-366).
With her full, voluptuous figure and velvety, soft skin, Gabrielle represents one of the key obsessions that occupied Renoir during the final three decades of his life—the nude female body. Berthe Morisot, recalling a discussion she had with Renoir about his fascination with the nude female figure, explained that “the nude seemed to him to be one of the most essential forms of art” (quoted in M. Lucy and J. House, eds., Renoir in the Barnes Foundation, New Haven, 2012, p. 10). Indeed, Renoir had begun to explore the theme of the nude female bather in the 1880s, and returned again and again to the subject throughout the rest of his career, painting figures both standing and seated, in interior and exterior locations, and in various states of undress. In the present work, Gabrielle’s torso is revealed, with a robe around her waist, as if about to go into or having just finished her bath. She is set against an abstracted background, which could be indoors or out, and is lost in contemplation, unaware of the viewer.
Describing his aims as a colorist in his painting of flesh tones, Renoir stated: “I look at a nude; there are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver” (quoted in W. Pach, “Pierre Auguste Renoir,” Scribner’s Magazine, vol. 51, no. 5, May 1912, pp. 606-612). In the present work, the artist’s layering of paint and tiny brushstrokes allowed these “tints” to mix and combine, achieving a lively, vibrant surface which suggests the flutter of living flesh. This treatment is juxtaposed with the loose and fluid handling of the background, further enhancing the soft, supple appearance of the skin.