Renoir

by Barbara Ehrlich White

  In fact, Durand-Ruel, knowing that French patrons were not buying, began looking abroad for places to show and sell Impressionist works. After Renoir’s Paris show closed, Durand-Ruel sent Dance at Bougival to an exhibition in London at the Dowdeswell and Dowedeswell Gallery, where it was on view from late April until July.248 Having had no success in London, Durand-Ruel turned his hopes to America, seeking patrons who might not already be prejudiced against the Impressionists. He found an opportunity in Boston at the International Exhibition for Art and Industry. From 3 September to the end of October 1883, Renoir’s three dance paintings along with works by Manet, Monet, Pissarro and Sisley were exhibited in the Mechanics Building.249 The reception by the public was so good that Renoir was awarded a medal from the city of Boston.250

  The American audience was responding to the brilliantly expressed romance that Renoir brought to these paintings. Dance at Bougival, perhaps his most successful canvas and on a par with his extraordinary Luncheon of the Boating Party, has been eloquently described by a modern scholar, Colin Bailey: ‘Among Renoir’s most perfectly realized figure paintings, Dance at Bougival is also his most romantic: the tender yet passionate pose of the dancing couple conveys an ardor and eroticism that are almost palpable. Eyes masked by his boatman’s straw hat, the male dancer expresses his intentions through a body language that is as legible today as it would have been a century and a quarter ago. His companion’s willing compliance completes the harmony, both visual and sensual, that is at the heart of his painting, even though the touching of ungloved hands and proximity of the dancers’ faces would have appeared audacious to a late nineteenth century audience. As light as air, the young woman waltzes “deliciously abandoned” in her partner’s arms, his breath upon her cheek.’251 Bailey is here quoting Renoir’s words, inscribed in the painter’s handwriting under his pen and ink drawn copy of Dance at Bougival: ‘She waltzes, deliciously abandoned, in the arms of a blond man who looks like a boatman.’ Renoir’s drawing was engraved to illustrate a short story, ‘Mlle Zélia’, by Lhôte who, as noted earlier, modelled for this figure.252

  Having perfected his new style in the dance paintings, Renoir brought his new-found confidence to his portrait commissions. He needed to redo the portrait of Mme Clapisson so he decided to try this early Classical Impressionist style.253 This second version recalls Ingres’s female portraits in its clarity, seriousness and sensuality. Renoir had had Ingres in mind when he wrote, soon after leaving Italy: ‘I prefer Ingres [to Raphael] in oil painting.’254 The second version of Mme Clapisson’s portrait pleased the patrons, who paid him 3,000 francs. It was the only work that Renoir sent to the Salon of 1883, and it was accepted.

  In late June 1883, when the Clapisson portrait was still on show at the Salon, Caillebotte invited Renoir to visit at his country home outside Paris in Petit-Gennevilliers, to paint a portrait of his devoted partner, Charlotte.255 Renoir’s elegant portrait in his new style shows Charlotte with her dog.256 Five months later, Caillebotte made an addition to his 1876 will: ‘My intention is that Renoir never has problems because of the money I lent him – I give him back the entirety of his debt and remove his obligation to pay Mr Legrand. Written in Paris on November twentieth eighteen eighty three. Gustave Caillebotte.’257 This is an indication that, in November 1883, Renoir was still having financial problems. Six years earlier, he had entered into partnership with Alphonse Legrand with Caillebotte as a limited partner. Although the company was dissolved a year after its inception, technically Renoir owed Legrand money.258 Hence Caillebotte’s addition to his will protected Renoir and indicates that Renoir’s financial situation was still dire in 1883, even though he was a popular portraitist.

  Benefiting from his Italian studies, Renoir began receiving more commissions, the most prominent of which was from a wealthy Jewish family related to Pissarro.259 Alfred Nunès, the mayor of Yport, a town near Dieppe, asked for life-size portraits of his two children, Aline Esther, then aged eight, and Robert, aged ten.260 Renoir completed the portraits to the Nunès’s satisfaction, executing them in his new, substantial and richly coloured style. Elegantly dressed Aline stands in a garden holding an umbrella and flowers, while Robert, dressed in a sailor suit, stands at the seashore holding a stick.

  Anti-Semitism was common in France at this time, especially prevalent among wealthy Parisians, but Renoir seems to have been ambivalent on this topic.261 Although he made the occasional anti-Semitic remarks, Renoir liked the Nunès and wrote mostly positive letters about the family. For example, to Aline in August 1883: ‘We eat 12 courses per meal, and we have lunch at 1 o’clock after having eaten at 9 o’clock. We should be eating at noon but someone is always late. I have to find a way to eat alone; otherwise I’ll be spending the entire day eating and digesting. Aside from that [they are] good people.’262 In another letter to her around the same time, Renoir explains: ‘The children have very sweet dispositions. What’s more they aren’t bothersome people. Despite this, I am beginning to find the high life rather dull.’263 He also wrote to Bérard in a similar vein at this time: ‘They are very nice people and not at all typically Jewish, at least so it seems to me. They have too many parties, that’s their weakness…. Anyway, I’m not too bored since I succeeded in having a place of my own [at Maison Aubourg, rue de l’Église, Yport264] fortunately…because in their house, they spend the entire day eating.’265 The sense one gets from these letters is that Renoir felt that the wealthy family was enjoying their abundance through extravagant meals. Nonetheless, every complaint is accompanied by positive statements about their geniality.

  Wealthy Parisians spent their summers in the country and some thought it a good time to commission portraits of their family. With Renoir away fulfilling portrait commissions, Aline was in charge of their Paris apartment and she endeavoured to make their home attractive. She wrote to him: ‘I don’t know if I will have enough money to last to the end of the month, because we need more material. We don’t have enough for the big curtains to hang at the side of the large window where most of the sun comes in. It is on the west side, I think…. The calico curtains next to the beam and the linen ones on the other side. I will be able to buy just the number of yards needed. I found a shop where they sell by the piece. But as I have already spent forty francs for you, I’m afraid I won’t have enough to buy the material. If you are not coming back before the end of the month, please send me some [money].’266

  Besides making curtains, Aline was in charge of supervising the carpenter, Monsieur Charles. She kept Renoir informed: ‘The leak [in the roof] of your studio has not been repaired yet. The men were to come and mend it on Monday, but there was a wedding. Tuesday was a holiday. Today it rained all day, and they say they must wait until it clears up. However, I hope it will be done by the time you come back. I showed Monsieur Charles the drawing for your bed. He will make it as soon as you return. He wants to talk to you about it. You know how stubborn he is. I don’t know what he thinks is too high about it. You can discuss the matter together.’267

  While he was away, Renoir appreciated all that Aline did for him and wrote back to her frequently and sent her money. When close to completing the Nunès portraits, he promised her: ‘As soon as I get paid, I’ll send you some cash.’268 He was also concerned that she would overwork herself without him there, advising: ‘Don’t exhaust yourself unnecessarily working on my studio. Tell me when my upstairs furnace is done and how much it will cost me.’269 Despite their continuing closeness, Renoir was careful to keep his relationship with her a secret from almost everyone, even after living together for two years. As late as 1883, the few who knew that she was not only Renoir’s model but also his mistress included his brother Edmond, Cézanne, Hortense Fiquet, Paul Cézanne junior and Caillebotte and his partner, Charlotte.270 Even though it risked revealing his secret, Renoir arranged for Aline to visit him covertly in Dieppe. When he had almost finished the Nunès portraits, he wrote to her: ‘I want you to come here for a few days after th
e races; there will be fewer people’ (Dieppe’s racetrack was and still is famous).271 At another time he wrote: ‘Wednesday I’ll wait for you at the train station…. The most convenient train is the one leaving at 7:45 in the morning or the one at 12:45.’272 In another letter, he wrote about ‘purchasing round-trip tickets…. I will work all day and in the evening, I’ll be free.’273

  After finishing the Nunès portraits, Renoir decided to go away with Aline for a month. From early September to early October 1883, they travelled to the two Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey. From Guernsey, he wrote to his dealer: ‘I hope to return soon around the 8th or 9th of October with several canvases and documents to make paintings in Paris. I have found myself here on a charming beach…. I hope, despite the small amount of things that I can bring back, to give you an idea of these charming landscapes.’274 In Guernsey or back in Paris, he painted Aline embroidering in By the Seashore, 1883.275 In this painting, Aline’s precisely rendered face calls to mind the woman’s face in Country Dance painted a few months earlier.

  Two months later, from 16 to 30 December 1883, Monet and Renoir made a research trip together along the Côte d’Azur from Genoa to L’Estaque. From Monte Carlo, Renoir wrote to Aline about his fears of a return of pneumonia: ‘[I am in]…an exhausting country, maybe even more dangerous than L’Estaque. Thus I take all possible precautions to avoid a replay of the Estaque incident.’276 His affection for Aline is evident in his suggestion of intimacy: ‘My dear friend, I think it is because you are not here, but the southern sun does not affect me as it used to; I don’t think I have the slightest desire any more.’277 While thinking of her, he also thought of her love of gambling, a pastime he did not enjoy: ‘I bet a hundred sous for you on red. I lost. The first day with a hundred sous, we won 45 francs, but we lost it all the next day. We won’t go back. It’s deadly dull; that casino is atrociously sad. So see you soon. Love, Auguste.’278

  Although Renoir was happy with Aline and though he enjoyed his two-week trip with Monet, back in Paris, he missed his Impressionist friends. The sociable Renoir, who had been intimately linked to those friends since he was in his twenties, did not like the fact that, by the time he was in his forties, he rarely saw these companions of his youth. The old Impressionist group had drifted apart for several reasons. First, since 1882, the group had no longer exhibited together.279 Second, many of the artists had moved from Paris: Cézanne to L’Estaque, Monet to Giverny, Pissarro to Pontoise and Sisley to Moret. Only Cassatt, Degas, Manet, Morisot and Renoir continued to have their primary residences in Paris. Third, each of his artist friends was seeking a more individual style.

  Yet the sociable Renoir always enjoyed painting with friends and was happy to paint with Monet in late December 1883 as they travelled along the Riviera. From Genoa, Renoir wrote to Durand-Ruel: ‘We judged that it was preferable to study the countryside carefully so that when we come back we will know where to stop right away.’280 Renoir thought that this trip was the beginning of a renewed working partnership, similar to working trips that they had enjoyed when they were younger. Side by side, they had painted the same motifs at La Grenouillère in 1869, at Argenteuil in 1873 and 1874 and in Paris in 1875. Renoir had not only worked side by side with Monet but also with Bazille in 1867, with Pissarro in 1869, with Sisley in 1873, with Manet in 1874, with Caillebotte in 1882 and with Cézanne in 1882 (and would later in 1888–89) and with Morisot around 1890.281 Although Renoir and Monet worked side by side more than either of them had with any other artist, still their artistic paths had always been different. Monet was primarily a landscape painter and Renoir a figure painter. Yet Renoir always felt the importance of painting landscapes, which he believed to be a way to experiment and to improve his painting.

  Even though Monet had agreed to this December 1883 trip with Renoir, on his return he changed his mind about working together again. On 12 January 1884, Monet explained in a letter to Durand-Ruel: ‘As much as it was agreeable to do the trip as a tourist with Renoir, it would be a nuisance for me to do a working trip together. I have always worked better in solitude, and from my own impressions, so keep this secret, until I tell you otherwise. Renoir, knowing that I am about to leave, would no doubt be eager to come with me, which would be just as harmful for each of us. No doubt you will agree with me.’282 Monet returned on his own to Bordighera and wrote again to his dealer: ‘I wrote to Renoir and I am not making my stay here a secret. I only wanted to come alone, to be freer with my impressions; it is always bad for two people to work together.’283 His feelings were partly a reaction to the critics who claimed that all the Impressionists were alike. For example, in a review in Le Figaro in 1882, Albert Wolff had written: ‘Renoir or Claude Monet, Sisley, Caillebotte, or Pissarro, it’s the same musical note.’284 After his December 1883 trip with Renoir, Monet made it clear that thenceforth he wanted to work alone to create a unique style. He was still convinced of this four years later when he again rebuffed Renoir. In January 1888, Monet wrote to his wife: ‘This morning I received news from Renoir, whom I have always feared would show up here…. I have too much of a need to be alone and in peace.’285 Clearly, Monet’s and Renoir’s needs about companionship while painting differed.

  After Monet shot down Renoir’s 1884 attempt to return to working side by side, Renoir came up with a new scheme to end his isolation. He attempted to establish a community of artists, which he called La Société des Irrégularistes (Society of Irregularists). For his new organization, Renoir suggested yearly art exhibitions. In its manifesto, he wrote: ‘An association is…necessary…. The association will take the title Society of Irregularists which explains the general idea of its founders. Its aim will be to organize as soon as possible exhibitions of all artists, painters, decorators, architects, goldsmiths, embroiderers, etc., who have irregularity as their aesthetic principle.’286 Renoir’s manifesto also postulated the theory that beauty comes from diversity or irregularity. He explained: ‘Physicists say Nature abhors emptiness; they could complete this axiom by adding that it equally abhors regularity…. The two eyes of the most beautiful face will always be slightly dissimilar; no nose is placed exactly above the centre of the mouth; the quarters of an orange, the leaves of a tree, the petals of a flower are never identical; in fact, it seems that every kind of beauty draws its charm from this diversity…. the great artists…have restrained from transgressing its fundamental law of irregularity…the duty of all sophisticated people, of all men of good taste, is to get together without delay, whether or not they have an aversion to struggle and protests.’287 His philosophy for the Irregularists stemmed from the new style with which he was experimenting in 1884, that of what can be called Ingrist Impressionism. It often shows stylistic diversity within one canvas: Impressionist background, colour and light, as well as clearly delineated and detailed figures, an edge of form reminiscent of Ingres and figures on the picture plane close to the viewer (see pages 93, 96, 194 and 195).

  This is another instance of Renoir taking the initiative and belying his claim to passivity. Just as he had in the 1877 Impressionist group show, when he prompted Rivière to create the four issues of L’Impressionniste: journal d’art, seven years later he took charge in organizing a new group. In May 1884, Renoir sent his dealer the manifesto, which Pissarro’s lawyer cousin, Lionel Nunès, helped him draft.288 He also showed this proposal to Monet. Unfortunately, Renoir was not able to garner any substantial support for the idea. Eventually he gave up on the plan and nothing came of his Society of Irregularists.

  Even though Monet was opposed to painting with Renoir, in the end it was Monet who assuaged Renoir’s isolation by creating monthly gatherings of the former Impressionists. These meetings were more like the Charpentiers’ soirées than Renoir’s attempt to put together an artistic group, since primarily they were social events tied by a common love of Impressionist art. Monet enlisted Pissarro’s help, writing in November 1884: ‘I wrote to Renoir so that we could set up a time to dine all toget
her each month, so that we can get together to talk because it is stupid to isolate oneself. As for me, I am turning into a clam and all I do is worry more about it.’289 Later in the month he reported to Pissarro: ‘I saw Renoir who of course was thrilled that we are organizing a dinner.’290 Besides artists, others participants included the art critics Jules Castagnary and Octave Mirbeau and other writers, collectors and friends, among them Alphonse Daudet and Zola,291 Stéphane Mallarmé,292 Philippe Burty, Théodore Duret, Dr de Bellio, Ernest d’Hervilly, Georges Charpentier and Ernest Hoschedé. Unsurprisingly, these gatherings were all-male.

  These social occasions may not have been enough for Renoir since his real feelings of isolation stemmed from his problems in forging his new artistic direction, which came to fruition as Ingrist Impressionism in 1884. This new style with its focus on line was so radically different from what any of the other Impressionists were doing that Renoir found himself completely alone. His desire for simplicity and grandeur was not satisfied by his early Classical Impressionism of 1881–83, as in the Blonde Bather of 1881 and its replica the following year. Thus, by 1884, Renoir’s focus had shifted to an innovative style based on clearly drawn foreground figures with Impressionist backgrounds. The term Ingrist Impressionism is contradictory, since Ingrism is characterized by defined, sculptural figures whereas Impressionism’s figures are without boundaries or mass. Ingrist Impressionism incorporates the sculptural qualities of Cézanne, the linear definition and precision of detail of Ingres, the simplicity and grandeur of Raphael and Pompeian frescoes and the colour, light and visible brushstrokes of Renoir’s Impressionism. In this new style, the faces of some of Renoir’s figures (Étienne Goujon, Pierre Goujon and Girl plaiting her Hair, modelled by Susan Valadon, all 1885; Woman with a Fan and Young Girl with Swan, both 1886293) appear mask-like, reminiscent of Cézanne’s portraits.294