Caillebotte had been financially supporting Renoir through loans and painting purchases, but Renoir’s relationship with him had both give and take. In 1876, Renoir helped Caillebotte to advance his art by inviting him to join the Impressionist shows. Caillebotte accepted and exhibited that year and in four subsequent group shows, in 1877, 1879, 1880 and 1882. Because of his great wealth, Caillebotte felt that the best way to help Renoir and his artist friends was to purchase their paintings and bequeath them to the Louvre to be displayed with the great art of the past. In the 1870s, Caillebotte purchased 69 works by the Impressionists, including 8 Renoirs – 3 of his greatest masterpieces, Nude in the Sunlight, 1875, Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette and The Swing – and 5 other images – Woman Reading and 4 landscapes.175 The other works were 7 pastels by Degas and multiple paintings: 2 by Millet, 4 by Manet, 5 by Cézanne, 9 by Sisley, 16 by Monet and 18 by Pissarro. Caillebotte’s will clearly specified that his entire collection of paintings must go to the Louvre and not to provincial museums: ‘I give to the State the paintings that I own. However, I want this gift to be accepted in a way that these paintings would end up neither in an attic, nor in a provincial museum, but rather in the Luxembourg and later at the Louvre.’176
Before Renoir began receiving money from Caillebotte, just as he had previously from other artist friends, in 1872, he began a relationship with a young dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, who gave him money in the form of advances or down-payments for works of art. Before he met Durand-Ruel, Renoir had no dealer, merely an arrangement with the paint merchant Carpentier. Two years earlier, Monet and Pissarro had made the acquaintance of Durand-Ruel in London where they had gone with their families to escape the Franco-Prussian War. Back in Paris after the war, Monet introduced Renoir to Durand-Ruel, who, in March 1872, bought Renoir’s View of Paris (Pont des Arts, Paris) and, two months later, Flowers (Peonies and Poppies), for 200 and 300 francs respectively.177 Durand-Ruel continued to be Renoir’s dealer for almost fifty years and became his close friend. The dealer worked not only with Renoir but also with most of the other Impressionists, selling works and giving advances.178 He also helped set up group exhibitions outside the official Salons and arranged for publicity for their shows, eventually becoming the dealer for all the Impressionists with the exception of Cézanne.
If Renoir’s art was hard for the public to understand despite the beautiful colours and attractive figures, Cézanne’s appeared grotesque by its forcefulness and extreme distortions. Consequently, it received the harshest criticism from both the critics and the public. Because of this, Cézanne had no patrons and no dealers while even Renoir had both. Renoir himself, along with Pissarro, adored Cézanne’s paintings. He saw Cézanne’s style as a guiding light for his own innovations. This was especially true after Renoir’s most Impressionist period of 1871–77, when many of his figures were light, colourful and dissolving. At this time, Cézanne’s figures were light and colourful as well, but also sculptural. This intrigued Renoir. From 1877 until his death in 1919, Renoir sought solidity of form in his own way. Because of Renoir’s admiration for Cézanne’s art, over time, he acquired a few of Cézanne’s paintings and watercolours.179 Renoir actively helped Cézanne by getting Rivière to write favourably about his art and by later getting Cézanne a patron. Even though he was not a client of Durand-Ruel, Cézanne did participate in the group shows started by the Impressionists and facilitated by their dealer. Prompted by their poor reception in the Salons of the 1860s and early 1870s, the Impressionists decided that, in April 1874, a month before the official Salon, they would have their own exhibit.
It was understood that in any given year, an artist could choose to submit to the official Salon or participate in the Impressionist group shows. The artists who were involved in either a few or all of the eight group shows that occurred between 1874 and 1886 included Caillebotte, Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley and any friends they wanted to invite. However, the independently wealthy Manet refused to exhibit outside the Salons. Even though Manet had trouble with acceptance and placement at the Salons, he persisted in trying to get his work officially recognized and never agreed to exhibit with the Impressionists.
The reason that Impressionism was received so poorly arose out of the increasingly conservative atmosphere engendered by the defeat of France in the war. The reparations made to Germany also sparked an economic depression that lasted more than a decade.180 At this time, the attempt of the Impressionists to create an innovative style about modern life in France was viewed with suspicion. Besides objecting to the innovative subject matter, the critics and public were shocked by the bright colours, visible brushstrokes, unclear figures and unfocused views, which they saw as destructive and sloppy. They perceived the new art as antithetical to the great art in the museums. The critics’ basic misunderstanding evolved into hostility and mockery. A typical cartoon shows a pregnant woman about to enter an Impressionist exhibit with the caption, ‘Policeman: “Lady, it would be unwise to enter!”’181
Along with Cézanne’s canvases, those by Renoir, which were primarily figure paintings, were the most vilified, since his Impressionist, dissolving people were more alarming than sketchy landscapes and still lifes. Furthermore, critics branded Renoir a revolutionary, associating him with those who staged the Commune of 1871, despite the fact that he had had no part or sympathy with them. As Renoir later remarked: ‘All these refusals, or bad placements, didn’t help sell my paintings, and I had to earn enough to eat, which was hard.’182
Morisot at the age of 32, c. 1873. Photographer unknown. Musée Marmottan, Paris
In December 1873, Renoir, Monet and Sisley, supported by Morisot, Cézanne and Pissarro, joined together to plan what would be their first group show in April and May 1874. In this and future exhibitions, all the artists invited could display any work without a panel’s evaluation. The titles of group shows never included the word ‘Impressionist’, since the critics used that term as a pejorative. Instead, the first exhibition title was ‘Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs’ (Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Printmakers). A critic mocked Renoir’s Dancer: ‘His dancer’s legs are as cottony as the gauze of her skirt.’183 The first exhibition was held at the premises of the photographer Nadar at 35 boulevard des Capucines. Afterwards, Renoir sold The Loge, now a treasure of the Courtauld Institute in London, for 425 francs.184 This sale would barely cover his rent of 400 francs for three months. In 1925, Samuel Courtauld purchased the painting for 22,600 pounds.
The following year, 1875, the group mounted their first auction at the Hôtel Drouot, at 8 rue Drouot in the ninth arrondissement. Durand-Ruel was assisting as an expert. At this event, many future patrons bought their first Renoir paintings. The sale prices were low because of the negative opinion of the critics. Worse, some of the crowd at the auction were there to heckle rather than to buy; they got so violent that the police were called. Despite the rowdiness, Renoir sold twenty paintings with prices ranging from 50 to 300 francs, totalling 2,251 francs, with an average of 112 francs. For comparison, Zola wrote about the Salon of that same year: ‘Each portrait, even by a mediocre artist, sells for between 1,500 and 2,000 francs, while those by the better known receive 5, 10 or 20 thousand francs.’185 Thus, using Zola’s arithmetic, if Renoir’s works had been valued only as ‘mediocre’, he would have had twenty times the money that he actually received.
In 1876, at the ‘2ème Exposition de Peinture’ (Second Exhibition of Paintings), Renoir exhibited three of his works that tested the boundaries of the Impressionist style: Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette, The Swing186 and Nude in the Sunlight. This year, the reviews were worse than ever. Nude in the Sunlight was mocked by the most respected art critic for Le Figaro, Albert Wolff: ‘Try to explain to M. Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a mass of decomposing flesh with green and purple spots that indicate the state of total putrefaction of a corpse!’187 (Eventually, this type of criticism plus
the lack of sales of paintings in this style led Renoir to change his Impressionist style to become more clearly defined, more realistic and closer to photography; see Chapter 2).
The next year, 1877, Renoir was one of the organizers of the group show. Two months before the exhibition opened, the artist Armand Guillaumin wrote to Dr Paul Gachet (a friend of the Impressionists and, famously, Vincent van Gogh, whom he looked after in Auvers twelve years later): ‘By writing to Renoir, 35 rue Saint-Georges, you would get all the information you need, since that’s where the [third group] exhibition is being planned.’188 In hosting the organization of the exhibit, Renoir was taking an active role in the future of this movement. This process may be the subject of Renoir’s painting of 1876–77, The Artist’s Studio, Rue Saint-Georges (see page 87).189 The central figure is his friend Georges Rivière, to his left is Pissarro (his bald head and full beard are visible) and to Pissarro’s left, Frédéric Samuel Cordey, another artist friend. At Rivière’s right, seated on a table, is another artist friend, Pierre Franc-Lamy. In the foreground, seen from the rear with his left side visible, is Caillebotte, who found and paid for the exhibition space at 6 rue Le Peletier, on the same block as Durand-Ruel’s gallery.
Renoir also took the initiative in responding to the public’s hostility. Since his works had been lambasted during the 1876 group show, he took it on himself to find a vehicle to explain Impressionism to the public. He strongly believed that the critics and public were misguided and if they could be made to understand Impressionism, their negativity could be changed to understanding and acceptance. Just as his brother Pierre-Henri had done, Renoir decided that writing was the way to reach the people. He asked Rivière, who was already involved in the planning for the third group show, for help.190 They created a newspaper, financed in large part by Durand-Ruel, to appear weekly between 6 and 28 April 1877, for the duration of the third group show. While the title of the exhibition was ‘3ème Exposition de Peinture’ (Third Exhibition of Paintings), the informative paper was called L’Impressionniste: journal d’art. Thus, this group of artists took ownership of the word ‘Impressionism’ that the critics had used negatively. In four issues, Rivière (who signed himself either G.R. or G. Rivière) strove to explain the new style and to differentiate among its artists.
Since Renoir recruited Rivière, it is likely that many of the opinions were Renoir’s and that any idea that Rivière originated would have been approved by him. The first issue began with a copy of a letter to the editor of the foremost Parisian newspaper, Le Figaro, in which ‘G.R.’ poignantly asserts: ‘for the honour of the French press, it is really deplorable to give the world this incredible spectacle of idiotic, tactless, hateful writing against people of talent and just at the moment when success was beginning to applaud their efforts.’191 This was followed by an article called ‘Exhibition of the Impressionists’, which described the key works of Renoir, Monet and Degas.192 The second issue’s ‘Exhibition of the Impressionists’ discussed key works by Cézanne, Pissarro, Sisley, Caillebotte, Morisot and then the minor painters Cordey, Guillaumin and Franc-Lamy.193
Rivière was not shy in promoting Renoir’s art. Beginning with the first article about the group show, Rivière considered that Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette was ‘the most important of his paintings’. ‘It’s a page of history, a precious tribute to Parisian life…. No one before him had thought of portraying an event of everyday life on such a large canvas…. It’s a historic painting.’194 Two weeks later, Renoir’s friend tried to help him attract clients by writing ‘To the Women’, an article that tempted them to commission an Impressionist portrait. Rivière enticed female buyers by asking: ‘Wouldn’t you like to have in your own home a ravishing portrait where one can see the charm that floods your dear being?’195 While Renoir’s name was not given in the article, it was clear that Rivière was talking about Renoir, the only Impressionist who did flattering portraits.
The Impressionist also included two articles written by Renoir, each modestly signed ‘a painter’.196 Both are discussions of contemporary architecture, specifically of the ornamentation and decoration of new buildings that the writer deplored. Renoir cared deeply about the paintings on the walls of buildings and indeed aspired to get commissions for them, as he had for the Prince Bibesco murals. Unfortunately, the Impressionist did not lead to a greater understanding of the Impressionists’ aims. Nor did it change the hostility and mockery from the critics and public. In May 1877, after the third group exhibition, Renoir participated in a second auction at the Hôtel Drouot. Despite Rivière’s efforts to convince the public of the beauty of Impressionist works, the average price of paintings sold was 169 francs. Renoir sold fifteen paintings and a pastel for a total of 2,005 francs, with individual works going from 47 to 285 francs.197 Since the 1875 auction, the selling price of Renoir’s works had remained about the same. Clearly, his art was not valued by the buying public.
In the Impressionist, Rivière, no doubt inspired by Renoir’s adoration of Cézanne’s painting, gave special attention to his submission of fifteen works to the group show. Even though the review of Cézanne’s work is signed ‘G. Rivière’, considering Renoir’s fanatical devotion to Cézanne’s art, it seems that Renoir wrote these moving words or at least gave Rivière the ideas for this eloquent tribute: ‘Mr Cézanne is, in his work, a Greek of the golden age; his paintings exude the calm and heroic serenity of ancient paintings and terracottas. The dimwits who laugh at the Bathers [see page 86], for example, remind me of barbarians criticizing the Parthenon. Mr Cézanne is a painter and a great one at that…. His painting has the inexplicable charm of biblical and Greek antiquity; the figures’ movements are simple and broad like ancient sculptures, the landscapes have an imposing regality, and his still lifes, so beautiful and so accurate in the relationship between shades of colour, bring a certain solemnity in their truth…. A scene at the sea…is of a surprising grandeur and of an incredible calm; it seems like this scene takes place in one’s memory, when remembering one’s life…. Works comparable to the most beautiful ones of antiquity, those are the weapons with which Mr Cézanne fights against the hypocrisy of some and the ignorance of others, and that assures his triumph…. One of my friends [no doubt Renoir] wrote to me: “When in front of the Bathers, I do not know what qualities one could add to this painting to make it more touching, more passionate, and I am looking in vain for its supposed flaws. The painter of the Bathers belongs to a race of the greatest artists. Since he is incomparable, he is easier to reject; yet there are some similar to him whose art is respected, and if the present does not give him justice among his peers, the future will rank him next to the demigods of art.”’198
Although Renoir had not convinced Durand-Ruel to become Cézanne’s dealer, he was more successful in finding Cézanne his most faithful and devoted patron. In 1875, at the Impressionist auction, Renoir had met Victor Chocquet, a customs official married to a wealthy woman. Renoir guessed that the sophisticated Chocquet would admire Cézanne’s art, so he brought him to Père Tanguy’s art supplies shop where Chocquet bought three Cézanne paintings for 50 francs each (Julien François Tanguy was an especially helpful dealer for Cézanne). Then, Renoir introduced Chocquet to Cézanne, and Chocquet became his patron. Eventually he bought thirty-five works by Cézanne.199 In 1880, Chocquet commissioned Renoir to make a pastel portrait of Cézanne. Shortly thereafter, Cézanne made an oil copy of this portrait (see page 72).200
While Renoir was delighted to have found a patron for Cézanne, it was not at the expense of his own patronage. Over the next five years, Chocquet purchased thirteen paintings by Renoir. In 1875, the Chocquets commissioned a portrait of M. Chocquet (see page 88) and one of his wife. The next year, they commissioned one more portrait of M. Chocquet, two more portraits of his wife and one of their little girl, who, sadly, had died when five years old, for which they had supplied a series of photographs. Around the same time, Chocquet also asked Cézanne to paint his portrait (see
page 88). The other paintings by Renoir that Chocquet acquired included a wide variety of subjects: a study for Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette, a nude, a genre scene, two landscapes and a self-portrait.
The self-portrait painted around 1875 (see page 89) was purchased by Chocquet in 1876 and sold the same year to a Dr Georges de Bellio.201 Besides Chocquet, Renoir had several patrons interested in his painting. In all cases, the warm, gregarious artist became a close friend of the patron who also provided him with money, commissions and contacts. Three of the most important were Duret, Murer and Charpentier.
Renoir seems to have met Théodore Duret, a wealthy critic and collector, at the Café Guerbois in the 1860s among Manet’s friends. In 1871, Duret and a French banker, Henri Cernuschi, travelled around the world, including in the recently accessible Japan, and collected Japanese art.202 Back in Paris, in 1873, Duret bought his first Renoir, Summer (or The Bohemian), a painting of Lise that had been exhibited at the Salon of 1869.203 Duret had purchased the work from a dealer on rue La Bruyère for 400 francs. The same year, during a visit to Renoir’s apartment-studio, he bought Lise (or Woman with an Umbrella), a large painting exhibited at the Salon of 1868, for 1,200 francs.204. Besides purchasing his paintings, Duret also began sending the painter small sums to pay his rent, as noted in seven letters from Renoir to the collector. For example, around 1875, Renoir pleaded with him: ‘Everybody is letting me down for my rent. I’m extremely annoyed. I’m not asking you for any more than you can do, but you would be doing me a real favour. I’ll stop by just in case tomorrow morning. Of course, if you can’t do it, I will understand.’ In a letter of October 1878, he acknowledged: ‘[My dear Duret,] I received the 100 francs you sent and it made me extremely happy.’205
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