Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) Paysage, executed between 1910-1914
12
(n/a) Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Paysage, executed between 1910-1914
signed 'Renoir' (lower right)
oil on canvas
24.1 x 40.6cm (9 1/2 x 16in).
Estimate:
£100,000 - 150,000
US$ 150,000 - 230,000
€120,000 - 180,000

Footnotes

  • Provenance
    Galerie Motte, Geneva
    Acquavella Galleries, New York
    Weintraub Gallery, New York
    Private Collection, UK

    Exhibited
    Florida, The Lowe Art Museum 'The French Impressionist Influence in American Artists', March 19-April 25, 1971

    In 1907 Renoir moved to the estate of Les Colettes in Cagnes, where he painted both ‘Paysage’ and ‘Paysage à Cagnes’. Nestled amongst olive groves and orange trees, the landscape of Cagnes represented to Renoir a rural arcadia and provided the artist with the bright light and sensuous properties, which he relished and in whose atmosphere his painting thrived. Despite suffering from arthritis, both works resonate with Renoir’s characteristic celebration of and passion for the world around him, the energy and spontaneity of which arguably derived from painting en plein air. Whether a sketch like ‘Paysage’ or a fully worked up composition, Renoir seduced his viewers with soft feathery brushstrokes and lively use of rich warm colour deployed with apparent ease, indicative of Renoir’s observation that ‘I like to get friendly with painting, caress it’. Indeed Renoir’s confident and lyrical application of paint imbues both works with an immediacy, transporting the viewer to the South of France. However the intensity of colour used in ‘Paysage à Cagnes’ was also stimulated by Renoir’s trip to Algiers and by seeing Carpaccio’s frescoes in Venice during the 1880's.

    The significance of Renoir’s pure landscape paintings was documented by the National Gallery’s exhibition ‘Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883’ held in 2007. However Renoir’s own belief that landscape painting was the best genre through which a painter could develop, free from the constraints of the studio, demonstrates the vital contribution the two works illustrated here make to our understanding of Renoir’s oeuvre.

Category: Fine Art / Impressionist and Modern Art

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