Renoir

by Barbara Ehrlich White

  While Pissarro’s anarchism distanced Renoir and Julie Manet, his Jewishness put off Degas. In one incident alluded to by the artist Paul Signac in February 1898, when Degas and Renoir were walking together, he noticed that Pissarro was approaching. Degas crossed the street. Caught by his closer friendship with Degas, Renoir followed him across the street to avoid Pissarro. Signac wrote in his diary: ‘He [Pissarro] told me that since the anti-Semitic incidents, Degas and Renoir avoid him and don’t acknowledge him any more. What can be going through the heads of these intelligent men for them to become so stupid?’105 In this instance, Renoir’s allegiance to Degas coincided with the anger he felt at Pissarro’s anarchism. Degas for his part refused to talk to Pissarro ever again.106 Renoir’s behaviour was petty, rude and pusillanimous, an example of his wheeler-dealing and of the effects of contemporary politics. Despite the fact that they were never close, Renoir and Pissarro retained a mutual respect and an on–off professional friendship. Indeed, around 1900, Renoir made a portrait drawing of Pissarro, which he signed ‘A. Renoir’, as if to affirm friendship with Pissarro.107

  Pierre Bonnard, Cipa and Ida Godebski, Thadée and Misia Natanson and Renoir in the garden of Le Relais, the Natansons’ estate at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, on the evening of Mallarmé’s funeral, 11 September, 1898. Gelatin-silver print, 13 × 18 cm (5⅛ × 7⅛ in.). Photo by Louis-Alfred (Athis) Natanson. Vaillant-Charbonnier collection

  When Pissarro died in November 1903, during the Dreyfus Affair, Renoir, who was painting in the south of France, took the train back to Paris to attend the funeral at the Père Lachaise cemetery. In contrast, Degas told the Pissarro family that he had been sick, which was his usual excuse when he refused to attend former Jewish friends’ funerals.108 If Renoir had been an anti-Semite, he, too, could have given the excuse of illness (actual in his case), but his relationship with Pissarro was sufficiently strong to make him attend the funeral.

  Ironically, it is Renoir’s friendship with the Bernheims that provides the strongest evidence for his not being anti-Semitic (see pages 200 and 243). Renoir began his friendship with the art dealer Alexandre Bernheim and his two sons, Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune (both then twenty-five years old), in 1895. The amity between Renoir and the Bernheims spanned twenty-five years until the artist’s death and is evident in the thirty-eight letters from him to the family from 1898 to 1919, and those written on his behalf by Gabrielle and Pierre.109 Renoir also gave them valuable business tip-offs: for example, in 1909 Renoir told them that Mme Cahen d’Anvers had put his large portrait of her daughters, which he had exhibited at the Salon of 1881, into their maids’ quarters in their home on Avenue Foch since Mme Cahen d’Anvers had decided that she disliked the painting. The Bernheims found the portrait and bought it from her in 1909, keeping it in their private collection for thirty-one years.110 In 1912, when Renoir could no longer walk, Josse and Gaston brought a Viennese doctor to Paris to try to cure Renoir’s rheumatism. Renoir’s closeness to the Bernheims may be judged from the fact that when he died in 1919, his son Jean sent the telegram announcing his death to the Bernheims’ home rather than their office.

  The Bernheims became one of Renoir’s three main art dealers, along with Durand-Ruel and Vollard (see page 200). In 1895, the two sons began to buy Renoir’s works from the artist for their private collection.111 By 1898, Renoir himself was writing to M. Bernheim.112 Later, at the midpoint in the Dreyfus Affair, in January and February 1900, Renoir worked with the Bernheims to put on a major exhibition with sixty-eight of his paintings. It is unlikely that, if Renoir were anti-Semitic, the Bernheims would have wanted to exhibit his paintings in their gallery, nor is it likely that Renoir would have consented to a solo show of his paintings with the most renowned Jewish art dealers in Paris. For the remaining nineteen years of his life, he continued to work with the Bernheims: they showed his paintings in fifteen different exhibitions in their gallery, including a second one-man show in 1913 with forty-two paintings.113 In the case of the Bernheims, Renoir’s actions speak louder than his words. Although he at least once made a racist comment about the Bernheims, as quoted earlier, Renoir’s friendship with and long professional commitment to the family demonstrates that his prejudice did not extend to hatred. With this example and with evidence of his continued faithfulness to them and to his other Jewish friends and colleagues, it is clear that Renoir was not an anti-Semite.

  Friendship, such as that which Renoir had with the Bernheims, had always been his lifeblood and became even more important to him as he became increasingly sick. His friends provided the emotional support that he needed in order to persevere in his painting. While he lived and travelled with a bevy of servants, various family members and his care-giver and model, Gabrielle, he longed for the companionship of male friends outside his family circle. As he put it to his patron Gallimard in 1900: ‘There aren’t enough men in my life. It’s a little monotonous in the evening.’114 By the time he wrote that complaint, the most important female companions in his life were gone. Lise had left him around 1872; his close relationship with Aline from 1878 to 1890 had become more strained but nevertheless continued (their sons Jean and Claude being born in 1894 and 1901); his close professional and social friendship with Morisot had ended with her death in 1895 and, in 1900, his close relationship with Julie and her cousins ended when Julie and Jeannie married.

  Renoir travelled with other friends over the years. In 1892, he had voyaged to Spain with Gallimard; with him, three years later, he went to Holland and London.115 In 1896, two years after Caillebotte’s death, he travelled with Caillebotte’s brother to the Wagner opera festival at Bayreuth116 and enjoyed museums in Dresden.117 In October 1898, Julie recorded in her diary: ‘M. Renoir is in Holland with [the artist Abel] Faivre, Durand-Ruel’s son, M. Bérard, and E [unidentified].’118 They stayed in Amsterdam and visited The Hague to see a major Rembrandt exhibition.119 Still, these visits did not fill the void in Renoir’s heart created by the deaths of Caillebotte and Morisot. Nevertheless, in 1894, Renoir had made the acquaintance of two men who would come to fill that vacuum, Ambroise Vollard and Albert André, though both were significantly younger than the painter. When they met, the artist André was twenty-five and the art dealer Vollard was twenty-eight, closer in age to Renoir’s eldest son, Pierre, then aged nine, than to him at fifty-three; in a way, they became new sons to Renoir.

  André and Renoir met at the ‘Exposition Indépendant’ of 1894, where the young artist had works on display.120 At this time, André was already a client of Durand-Ruel but had earlier become a follower of Renoir’s art; his work reflects this influence in its bright colour, pervasive light, scenes of daily life and, most of all, his optimistic view of life. During the coming years, André spent a great deal of time with Renoir, often with another young artist, Marguerite Cornillac, called Maleck, who later became André’s wife. André and Maleck loved Renoir dearly and became part of his extended family.

  Similarly, Renoir took a fatherly interest in Vollard’s budding career as an art dealer. From the first time they met, Renoir felt a close kinship with the young dealer. Vollard was twenty-seven years younger than Renoir, the same age as Renoir’s first son, Pierre Tréhot, would have been. Vollard was a Creole, born and raised on Réunion, the island east of Madagascar colonized by France. At nineteen, he went to Montpellier in central France to study law. Two years later, in 1887, he travelled to Paris to continue his studies but soon gave up law to become an art dealer. The young Vollard perhaps made Renoir think of his earlier self, an outsider who by his wits was able to join the insular art world. Just as Renoir had a secret life with his illegitimate daughter, Vollard had a secret life with Madeleine de Galéa, born Moreau, who was also a Creole born on Réunion, in 1874. They had been childhood friends. She came to Paris before Vollard and married a diplomat, Edmond de Galéa. When Vollard arrived in Paris he stayed with the de Galéas for a while. Some rumours suggest that Madeleine’s son, Robert de Galéa, was actually Vollard’s s
on. In Vollard’s will of 1911, the de Galéas were among his heirs.121 Vollard’s unorthodox relationship with Mme de Galéa and her son could have reminded Renoir of his relationship with his secret daughter.

  Renoir became so close to Vollard that eventually he trusted him with the secret of Jeanne, something he never told Durand-Ruel, ten years his senior, a devout Catholic and a widower with five children. In 1899, Renoir needed someone responsible and accessible to be his contact for the mayor in the town where Jeanne and Louis lived. At this time, Renoir probably explained to Vollard that this Mme Robinet was his daughter. Perhaps because Renoir asked Vollard for assistance with his daughter, he felt a debt that made him more inclined to accept Vollard’s commissions than he would otherwise have been. Vollard had already revealed his appreciation of Renoir’s work, and of its monetary value, in 1892, two years before they met, when he had acquired the Nude Woman, 1880, for 250 francs.122 In 1893, he asked 400 francs for it but did not sell it until 1898 when it went for 2,000. (Eventually, Vollard bought the painting back and in 1910 sold it to Rodin for 20,000, nearly a hundred times its original price.123)

  In 1894, both Renoir and Pissarro encouraged Vollard to take on Cézanne as his client, which Durand-Ruel still refused to do. These two senior artists’ enthusiasm convinced Vollard. In November 1895, Vollard mounted a large show with 150 Cézanne works, during which Pissarro wrote to his son: ‘my enthusiasm is nothing next to Renoir’s’.124 Nonetheless, at this point Cézanne was suffering from periodic outbursts of irrational behaviour and drifted apart from Renoir. As Pissarro wrote again to his son, in January 1896: ‘my word, it’s a variant of what happened to Renoir. It seems [Cézanne is] furious with all of us: “Pissarro is an old fool, Monet is a wily bird…. I’m the only one with temperament. I’m the only one who knows how to make a red”!!…. As a doctor [Augiar] assured us…he was unwell, and that we shouldn’t notice, that he was not responsible. What a shame that a man endowed with such a beautiful temperament should be so lacking in stability.’125 Despite Cézanne’s mental problems, Vollard eventually sold 680 of his paintings, which was two-thirds of the artist’s total output. Becoming Cézanne’s dealer made Vollard enormously wealthy and universally esteemed as an important dealer.

  While his friendship with Vollard grew, Renoir wanted to be faithful to his dealer of twenty-two years, but he also wished to be able to give his new friend some of his work. Although Renoir had always given or sold pieces directly to his friends, he might have worried that Durand-Ruel might take offence if he gave or sold paintings to another dealer, even one with whom he had a close friendship. Nevertheless, he was willing to sell Vollard minor works such as twenty small pieces for 1,400 francs in October 1895.126 Additionally, Renoir exchanged his own art for similarly priced pieces in Vollard’s possession, including two watercolours by Manet in 1894 for 350 francs and in 1896 several Cézannes, including Red Rocks, Lilac Hills, A Large Old Painting (Idyll) and a Mont Ste-Victoire, valued at 2,000 francs each.127 For the last, Renoir was willing to give Vollard one of his early Impressionist paintings, The Lovers, 1875.128

  Vollard also commissioned Renoir to make lithographs, both in colour and monochrome. For example, around 1894, Renoir had made an etching of Julie and Jeannie, Pinning the Hat, that also served as an illustration in Geffroy’s 1894 book, La Vie artistique.129 Three or four years later, Vollard arranged for Renoir to be aided by an expert printer, Auguste Clot, in making the same image into both a colour and monochrome lithograph, which became one of Renoir’s most popular prints.130 In addition to selling them, Vollard published Renoir’s etchings and lithographs.131

  In September 1897, Vollard had dealings with Aline when Renoir broke his right arm for the second time.132 When Jean’s godfather, Georges Durand-Ruel, learned of the mishap, he wrote to Renoir: ‘I learned that you had a nasty accident, that you broke your arm; I hope that everything was put back into place and that it will only be a matter of time until you can use your arm like before. You have decidedly bad luck with that arm, since my father told me it was the same one you broke once before.’133 Thus, on 7 September 1897, Aline wrote on Renoir’s behalf to Vollard: ‘I received the 300 francs that you sent me. I will remain in Essoyes till the end of October. If you make any dazzling sales, please send me what you can.’134 Around this time, a year after Renoir’s mother had died, Aline told Vollard about the many early works that still remained with Renoir’s siblings in his mother’s former home.135 Vollard went to Louveciennes and bought all these works, from the basement to the attic.136 He also acquired works by Renoir from other owners, including Vincent van Gogh, who had admired Renoir. After Vincent’s death in 1890 and his brother Theo’s death in 1891, Vollard had approached Vincent’s sister-in-law, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, and in 1897 purchased three works by Renoir.137

  A few years after Renoir met Vollard and André, an old friend who had drifted away reappeared in his life. Georges Rivière had been a close companion during the Impressionist years of the mid-1870s, but was not a big presence in Renoir’s life after that. However, in 1897, Rivière’s wife, Maria Eva Jablotska, died of tuberculosis, leaving Rivière with two young daughters, Renée and Hélène, aged twelve and fifteen. Rivière then began reaching out to his old friends, and he and his daughters became close to the Renoirs. It is possible that Aline welcomed the appearance of Rivière’s two girls since she loved having Julie and her cousins and always treated them with kindness. Julie, Jeannie and Paule, in turn, began to like Aline more and more. On 17 November 1897 in Paris, Julie wrote in her diary: ‘We visited Mme Renoir, who is leaving for Essoyes again. She was very nice to us, and Jean is sweet.’ A month later, Julie recorded: ‘We went to the Renoirs for dinner…. Mme Renoir [was] as pleasant as could be. She has really taken to us since we spent so much time chatting to her about her part of the country.’138

  Perhaps because Aline was unusually obese, Julie often wrote about that in her diary. At Essoyes in September 1897, for instance, Julie recorded: ‘M. Renoir’s sister-in-law has arrived with her son; I prefer Mme Renoir, frankly fat and peasant-like. The other woman has a fatness which has no roundness; she is very ugly with her big, protruding eyes; she didn’t say a word and seemed very uncomfortable.’139 Aline’s girth was a theme on which Julie dwelled throughout her diary, beginning during her first 1895 summer trip with the Renoirs. After ten-year-old Pierre and Aline had been in the water: ‘Pierre said to her, “Maman, when you are seen from below, you’re even fatter.”’140 Julie also recounted another weight-related anecdote: ‘we remained stranded several times on sandbars. After much fruitless effort to extricate ourselves, Mme Renoir, putting all her energy into pressing down with her weight at the front of the boat, succeeded in making it move forward.’141 Julie also took note of Aline’s lack of endurance: ‘We spent the day and had lunch at St Nicolas…. A car came to take Mme Renoir and we walked back with M. Renoir.’142 Aline periodically tried to lose weight but we know from what Renoir and others wrote that she continued to struggle with her weight for the rest of her life. In December 1897, Julie reported: ‘She…only drinks milk. She is terribly hungry and she is becoming thinner, or less fat.’143 Nonetheless, a few years later, Renoir wrote to Jeanne Baudot: ‘my wife is gaining weight’.144

  Julie Manet might have liked Aline, but she mentions Aline’s bossiness again and again. Aline liked to mother the girls and thought of herself as the chaperone of the three ‘little Manets’, as she called them, according to Jeanne Baudot’s recollection, who wrote that Aline prevented the three cousins from accepting an invitation to a party that her own parents had allowed her to accept.145 Aline was also controlling of Renoir. As Gabrielle took over tasks that Aline had formerly performed, including modelling for Renoir, Aline’s role in the family became more supervisory, and she managed everyone, including her sick husband. In 1899, Renoir complained to Bérard that his wife coddled him ‘like a big baby’.146 The ailing Renoir, hating conflict, found it easier to let her have her w
ay than to protest about any decision she made, though he often got what he wanted by going behind her back. Julie wrote about the couple’s interactions in February 1898: ‘He was very amusing today: “I should have married a henpecking wife.” “But, isn’t that the case…”, we ventured, Paule, Jeanne Baudot and I. M. Renoir seemed very surprised and a little while later told us that we had just informed him of something of which he was unaware.’147

  With Aline so headstrong, one of the few ways for Renoir to do as he wished was to live essentially a separate life from his wife. They slept in separate rooms, sometimes on different floors, and they often travelled without one another. In December 1900, Renoir wrote to Durand-Ruel: ‘My wife is going to spend the New Year break in Paris. She’ll come to give you some news from me and give me some from you when she returns.’148 The next day, André wrote to Durand-Ruel: ‘I went today to see Father Renoir who is recovering from a touch of gout which struck him last week. I am going to stay several days with him when he will be alone, since Mme Renoir needs to go to Paris next Saturday.’149 Renoir often took advantage of his wife’s absence to work, as he wrote in 1898 to a friend: ‘My wife left for her hometown for a month and I would like to take advantage of the peace and quiet to get as much work done as possible.’150