When Renoir was nearly fifty, he was interviewed on 31 January 1891 by André Mellerio for an article on artists in their studios, which appeared in the periodical L’Art dans les deux mondes (the two worlds being America and Europe): ‘An emaciated figure, worried, very original…with pointed cheekbones, sunken cheeks, his forehead full of prominent veins. With thinning hair, falling down at the back or sometimes standing on end pushed up by the abrupt stroke of his hand. His beard greying, a little rough. A very thin body, long fingers. Renoir is predominantly nervous…. Standing, shaky in his gestures, he gets excited; the weak tone of his voice grows stronger. He finishes assertively, makes a half-turn on the spot, sets off for the other end of the room, with a shake of the head, a jerky step, as though trying to put an end to the discussion…. Renoir’s tormented nature forms a contrast with his artistic conception of women, so softly harmonious. The woman is, in his work, of exquisite grace, in fine, velvety colours. Upon vaporous, almost transparent backgrounds, she charms: the complexion is very white, the cheekbones bright pink, full lips of a refreshingly pure red. And in this rich flesh tint with bold tones united by elusive nuances, shines the vividness of the eyes, deeply black or blue, always filled with intense life.’119
For an anonymous interview in the next year, in August 1892, a journalist came to Renoir’s home and reported in the daily L’Éclair (Lightning): ‘M. Renoir lives in Montmartre [at 13 rue Girardon], in a small house with a remarkable view. In his small garden frolics the young Pierre Renoir, a well-behaved child who is idolized by his father…. The painter works every single day. In the morning he arrives early, from his little home on the Montmartre hill, to his studio at the impasse Hélène. He works tirelessly until noon; then, after a short break, returns to work all the rest of the afternoon…. But in addition to all the effort that he puts into this work, he is continually starting again! If you visit his studio – and I warn you that if you are not one of the rare friends for whom the door opens partway, you might not be welcome – you will be struck by the torment of his talent, torment that is evident in hundreds of sketches, trials, studies, in some canvases that lie here and there…. The life of M. Renoir is all work and contemplation. He is the most simple and modest person that one can imagine.’120
At the time of this interview, five years after The Large Bathers, even Durand-Ruel agreed that Renoir’s art had become beautiful. After the largely hostile response to his Ingrist Impressionist works, Renoir modified his style. He softened his lines and integrated the formerly disengaged figures into their Impressionist setting, thereby satisfying Pissarro’s assertion that unity was the goal of art. This moved him back to a Classical Impressionist style, on which he would create variations until his death thirty-one years later. He continued to depict motherhood, the family and the nude. As he became increasingly ill, his fine motor skills slowly diminished and he began painting with broader and freer strokes (see page 193).
Yet from 1888 or 1889, during the first few years of his renewed Classical Impressionism, Renoir retained his uncertainty about his artistic direction. In July 1888, when the critic Claude Roger-Marx invited him to exhibit his works, Renoir responded: ‘When I have the pleasure of seeing you, I will explain to you what is very simple, that I find everything I have done bad and that it would be very painful for me to see it exhibited.’121 Three years later, Renoir continued to have doubts about his style. On 5 March 1891, he wrote to Durand-Ruel: ‘I am giving myself a lot of trouble to stop messing around. I have been fifty for four days [sic] and at this age if you are still searching, it is a little old.’122 The same day, he expressed similar thoughts to Bérard: ‘I always dream of things above my strength and I will never know how to just do what I’m good at. I’m simply too old to cure myself. I will die impenitent.’123
At last, a month after those disheartened letters, Renoir wrote to Durand-Ruel with increased confidence: ‘I am bringing back some studies. In Paris, we will judge what they are worth. Here, I can’t know. In any case, I think I’ve made some progress and will be able to work in my studio in a productive fashion.’124 It seems that the dealer did not share Renoir’s optimism and must have said something about the manner in which he should paint to please clients. Three months later, in July 1891, Renoir complained to Cassatt, who told Pissarro, who in turn wrote to his son: ‘It seems that, according to Miss Cassatt, he [Durand-Ruel] takes everything from Renoir who is very annoyed that he is obliged to make paintings that please!’125 In typical Renoir fashion, he never addressed his complaints to his dealer.
Despite the fact that Renoir felt constrained by requests from Durand-Ruel, he was concurrently seeking to revive his business as a portraitist by painting a large family portrait to be exhibited at the Salon, as he had with the portrait of the Charpentier family. Back in January 1888, Renoir had written a proposal to a friend, the Jewish symbolist poet, Catulle Mendès, who lived with the composer and virtuoso pianist Augusta Holmès; together they had five children, three of whom Renoir wanted to paint: ‘My dear friend, I…would like you to tell me at once if you want portraits of your beautiful children.126 I would exhibit them at Petit’s in May. See how I’m rushed. Here are my conditions, which you will probably accept. 500 francs for the three portraits, life-size and [the three] together. The eldest at the piano giving the pitch while turning towards her sister who is tuning her violin. The littlest is leaning against the piano listening as one should always do at her young age. That’s it. I would do the drawing at your house and the painting at mine. P.S. The 500 francs are payable 100 francs each month. Please respond. Your friend, Renoir, 28 rue [de] Bréda [his studio].’127 Along with the letter, Renoir enclosed a detailed drawing showing his vision for the painting. Mendès agreed to the proposal, and Renoir completed the portrait on time, but it was not exhibited at Petit’s. Instead, it was included in Durand-Ruel’s show of May and June 1888 and then again at the official Salon of May and June 1890 (see page 196).128 This group portrait was not a success at the Salon, perhaps because of its intense colour and stylized faces. In the end, Renoir’s attempts to revive his portraiture business did not succeed. He received one commission in 1888, from Durand-Ruel for a portrait of his daughter Marie. The next year he received one portrait commission for a portrait of Mme de Bonnières. Thereafter friends occasionally commissioned portraits.129
The year 1888 was a major turning point for Renoir, not only in his art, which became increasingly classical, not only in his health, which began to decline steadily, but also in his finances, which took a meteoric upturn. Durand-Ruel, who had disappeared to America, had a huge success in New York, where he opened a gallery and began to sell Impressionist paintings for much better prices than anyone in Europe was willing to pay. By 1890, Renoir and the other Impressionists finally began to achieve critical and financial success. Durand-Ruel later told an interviewer: ‘Oh! Without America, I would have been lost, ruined, to have bought so many Monets and Renoirs! Two exhibits I put on there in 1886 saved me. The American public didn’t mock us at all [in contrast to the French public]. They bought – moderately, it is true, but, thanks to them, Monet and Renoir could finally support themselves; and since then, as you know, the French public followed since they had obstinately kept their negative point of view before.’130 Durand-Ruel was here referring to his April 1886, successful exhibition of primarily Impressionist paintings in New York at the American Association of Art, which included thirty-eight oils and pastels by Renoir among a total of about three hundred pieces.131 Because of public interest, the show was prolonged through May and June at the New York National Academy of Design.132 In August, Durand-Ruel had written to one of his clients, Fantin-Latour: ‘Do not believe that the Americans are savages. On the contrary, they are less ignorant and less conservative than our French art lovers. I have been very successful with paintings that took me twenty years to get people to appreciate in Paris.’133
From 25 May to 30 July 1887, Durand-Ruel returned to New York for the
second show at the National Academy of Design.134 Five paintings by Renoir were shown.135 Renoir was unconvinced by Durand-Ruel’s claims, writing in May 1887: ‘I am afraid that you’ll lose your focus [on French sales] and chase rainbows with your American distraction…. It seems to me that quitting Paris is unwise; you are going to find the same difficulties elsewhere.’136 Nevertheless, Durand-Ruel was so encouraged by his American sales that, in 1888, he opened a gallery in New York that thrived for sixty-two years.137
Throughout 1889, Renoir was still feeling poor. In August, Monet was collecting funds to buy Manet’s seminal Olympia, which he and his friends considered the first modern painting. The Americans seemed on the point of purchasing the work. Monet felt it was important that it stay in France, so he organized his artist and patron friends to establish a fund to purchase the painting for the Louvre. On 11 August, Renoir responded: ‘Impossible to find the money…. I hope Manet will go to the Louvre, but it will have to be without my help. All I can do is say that I hope you will succeed in what you are trying to do.’138 Five months later, Renoir was able to scrape together the modest contribution of 50 francs.139 By 1890, both he and Monet started to see huge sales in America, the turning point in their careers. Many of their works were sold, and the selling prices were high. Renoir would never be poor again.
The undercurrent of friction between Renoir and Monet had surfaced again when the latter began to obtain success before the former. In 1889, Duret wrote to Caillebotte about the two artists: ‘I was sorry to read what you had written me about the quarrel between Monet and Renoir. Men who as friends had endured misfortune and who break up as soon as success comes to them unequally.’140 Monet, however, expected that their friendship and Renoir’s fortunes would both improve. By July 1891, he was writing to Pissarro: ‘I hope that you are now better off materially and I would be happy if you had some of the luck that is favouring me. Besides, I expect that the rebound will soon come for you and for Renoir.’141 Later that year, his wish came true and Renoir and Pissarro enjoyed Monet’s material success.
Slowly, Impressionist work began to sell more and at higher prices in France. In 1892, even the French government endorsed Renoir’s work. Henry Roujon, the Director of Fine Arts, who was a friend of Mallarmé and Roger-Marx, commissioned Renoir to paint a work. Renoir offered them five oils of young girls at the piano. In April 1892, Roujon chose Young Girls at the Piano,142 which the French government purchased from the artist for 4,000 francs and displayed at the Musée du Luxembourg, which was where works by living French painters were displayed.
Even though Bérard continued to be a good friend of Renoir’s, the painter had been without a patron since Bérard stopped buying his paintings after 1884. Finally, alongside his American success, in 1889, a new patron, Paul Gallimard, appeared.143 Gallimard was an art collector who owned the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris. He had two young sons, Raymond and Gaston, two and four years older than Renoir’s son, Pierre. Renoir became close friends with Gallimard and his family. In the spring of 1892, Renoir accompanied Gallimard on a trip to Madrid where Renoir admired the Velázquez paintings in the Prado.144 After their return, Gallimard commissioned Renoir to paint a portrait of his wife and invited him to come to paint at Gallimard’s summer home in Normandy, Villa Lucie in Benerville near Deauville.145 The next year, in the spring when Pierre was eight, Renoir wrote to his patron: ‘Pierre wants to come with me. If you don’t respond, I’ll bring him and our linens…. We will sleep in the city and we’ll even do our own housekeeping.’146 Again, in April 1893, Renoir wrote: ‘We are going home soon. It’s raining at the moment so I’m waiting 3 or 4 days for better weather to finish and come home…please give my greetings to Mme Gallimard and the children…. We’ll stay until Tuesday I think – more if the good weather doesn’t return. But I believe that the good weather will soon return and allow me to do some more studies.’147 During that same year, Renoir agreed to become a teacher to Gallimard’s distant cousin, an art student, Jeanne Aline Baudot, then aged sixteen.148 Her father, Dr Baudot, became a good friend of the artist. Renoir agreed to mentor Jeanne but he also suggested that she study at the women’s studio at Académie Julian and that she copy paintings at the Louvre. Not only did Renoir become her teacher but he also welcomed her into his home and she became a lifelong friend (see page 173).
With all the success in America and a new, stable French patron, Renoir finally felt financially secure enough to marry Aline. There was no longer any pressing need to keep her and Pierre a secret. Nonetheless, Renoir still usually socialized without Aline. Just like before their marriage, she was his stay-at-home wife, in charge of the home and children. On 14 April 1890, the couple wed and thereby legitimized Pierre. The marriage licence was from the ninth arrondissement and certified that ‘Mr Pierre Auguste Renoir, painter residing at 11, boulevard de Clichy, son of deceased Léonard [Renoir] and Marguerite Merlet and Aline-Victorine Charigot, a dressmaker, residing at 15, rue de Bréda, daughter of absent Claude [Charigot] and Thérèse Emélie Maire were married today in this town hall.’ Even though they were living together at 18 rue Houdon in the eighteenth arrondissement, for propriety Aline gave her mother’s address although it was in the heart of Paris’s red-light district, and Renoir gave his studio’s address. Their witnesses were Renoir’s long-time friends: two government officials, Paul Lhôte and Pierre Lestringuez, and two painters, Frédéric Zandomeneghi and Pierre Franc-Lamy. The certificate stated that ‘the future husband and wife had declared that they acknowledge the legitimation of their son Pierre, born in Paris on 21 March 1885, that would result from their marriage’.149 At the same time, the couple were given (without charge) an official family record book, Livret de famille, which they were told to bring to the mayor of the arrondissement to record births and deaths.150 In this booklet they recorded the birth of Pierre and later of their two subsequent sons. Renoir’s only known painting of Aline that year is a painted sketch.151
Five months later, the family moved from the apartment on rue Houdon to a rented house with a garden at 13 rue Girardon. The move took them from below Montmartre to the eighteenth arrondissement on the hill of Montmartre. Their residence was called the Château des Brouillards (Chateau in the Mist). In October 1890, Renoir wrote to Murer: ‘Here are my addresses so as not to get mixed up: (Studio) Villa des Arts (impasse Hélène) (avenue de Clichy) and apartment: 13 rue Girardon.’152 He also installed a studio in the rue Girardon house. A few years later, Morisot and Julie Manet paid an unexpected visit, which Julie recorded in her diary: ‘Since M. and Mme Renoir were out, we were entertained in the garden by Pierre who was very kind. He wanted to show us his father’s paintings and said that he [Renoir] now had two studios, one a bit lower down in Montmartre, and one at home for when he had a cold. After a while Mme Renoir came home. She took us up to the studio and showed us the landscapes M. Renoir did in Brittany.’153
Renoir in his Paris studio, after 1892. Photographer unknown
One of the reasons why Renoir and Aline had moved to a bigger place was that they hoped to have another child. Shortly after they married, Aline became pregnant, but this pregnancy brought her difficulties. Renoir, off painting with Morisot at her summer home, expressed his concerns about his wife to Dr Gachet. ‘I made a point of recommending rest before I left for Mézy, but you can’t rely on women; when their health is at stake, it’s impossible to make them take care of themselves in due time, and I’ll never change them. Nevertheless, according to the letter I received, everything looks like it is going well, and I thank you again for having visited [her].’154 Although this letter brings to mind Renoir’s earlier worries about Aline’s health, his complaining tone and appeal to a friend for help with his wife are more like Renoir’s roundabout interactions with Monet when Renoir refused to face a conflict. It appears that Renoir was treating Aline in a distanced manner, suggesting an increase in the separation between the two.
Early in their relationship, Renoir had given Aline ad
vice in a benevolent, paternal manner, with affection and gentleness, but now he realized that she no longer heeded him. His frustration with this certainly comes through, especially in his sexist assertion that ‘you can’t rely on women’. It calls to mind his statement to Burty two years earlier. Clearly, Renoir felt helpless to affect Aline’s actions, and, as a way of taking power back, he ascribes her perceived faults to women in general. Also, Renoir’s sexism is a way of flattering Gachet, to make an alliance between them as men. Whatever the outcome of Renoir’s plea to Gachet, whether Aline rested or not, the pregnancy did not go well, and eventually she miscarried. Both she and Renoir were deeply disappointed, even more so two years later when she miscarried again.
Despite her grief, Aline had finally achieved a state of happiness and stability as a nouveau-riche woman. She exerted a fair amount of power in her new role, both over Renoir, now truly bound to her, and over people she had known since her childhood. Nevertheless, she was doubtless aware that Renoir kept much to himself, that he still did not share everything in his life and never would.
Some of Renoir’s most important relationships from which Aline was excluded were with Morisot and her husband, and with Mallarmé, of whom Renoir had painted a striking portrait in 1892 (see page 197). As Julie Manet later wrote in her diary, in September 1898: ‘M. Mallarmé and M. Renoir were the most intimate friends, the constant visitors on Thursday evenings’, a weekly event to which Aline was not invited.155 Nearly two years earlier, Julie had elaborated: ‘It was lovely to see the spirited painter and the charming poet chatting together as they have so often done at our house on those Thursday evenings in the high-ceilinged pink salon, where the hosts, in their own surroundings, were among those they loved, among precious friends.’156 She also recorded that Mallarmé was ‘named as my guardian, and it was he and M. Renoir who were the two great friends of Papa and Maman’.157
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