Renoir's Women: The Embodiments of an Artist's Style

     One of the leading painters of the French Impressionists movement, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was a painter notes for his portraits of women and female nudes. Despite his many successes, Renoir's career was impinged by extreme financial struggle, insecurity, loneliness, and conflicting interests.

    Renoir’s artistic career took off when he was introduced to the Charpentier family and their celebrity-filled social circles. Madame Charpentier used her influence to ensure Renoir’s paintings of her family were featured in the Salon. At this time, in the late 1870s, Renoir’s style was characterized by fluffy brush strokes, soft forms, and vivid colors. After his first great successes, including Madame Charpentier et ses enfants, Renoir continued to exhibit Impressionist-style work, until one of his commissions in 1883 caused a personal crisis. This crisis led him to adapt his technique so that he could retain the favor of his patrons and clientele. Renoir’s travels throughout Europe in the 1880s and his admiration for Renaissance artists and artwork created yet another shift in his style, one inspired by classicism and naturalism. He painted more distinct, defined forms, which characterized his Anti-Impressionist artwork. Renoir’s paintings of women reflect the technical and stylistic shifts of his lifetime. He oriented his career around the many female models who posed for him, and whose lives and sensuality he brought to life with his brushstrokes and colors.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875–1895)

1878

Oil on canvas

153.7 cm x 190.2 cm

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07.122

Marguerite Charpentier, pictured here alongside her two young children, played a crucial role in Renoir’s success. Renoir was extremely poor when he met the Charpentier family, but Madame Charpentier’s influence helped him gain recognition. He painted several portraits for the Charpentier family, one of Georgette, their oldest daughter, a small one of Marguerite, and this breakout painting, which was displayed in the Salon in 1879 and received praise and approval from many of the art critics at that time. Renoir’s painting of this family is characterized by his fluffy, discernable brushstrokes and soft forms. Renoir flatters Madame Charpentier as much as possible in this painting by drawing attention to her angelic children, opulent living quarters, and expensive belongings.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jeanne Samary in a Low-Necked Dress

1877

Oil on canvas

46 cm x 56 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia, Ж-3405

Jeanne Samary was a renowned actress of the French Academy who posed for a dozen of Renoir’s portraits. The two likely met at one of the Charpentier’s parties, and a full-length portrait of Samary was displayed in the Salon alongside Renoir’s Madame Charpentier et ses enfants in 1879. In this portrait, Renoir paints Samary as a glamorous, starry-eyed, alluring young woman. He highlights her rosy cheeks, glowing skin, and bright red lips that almost betray her well-known infectious laugh. His use of broad brushstrokes and bright “parrot-colored” palette capture the charm he saw in her and simultaneously characterize Samary as a celebrity of the time.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Blonde Bather

1881

 Oil on canvas

 90 cm x 63 cm

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1955.609

Renoir’s Blonde Bather is Aline Charigot, who was his young mistress, mother of his children, and whom he eventually married. This portrait showcases Renoir’s fascination with the luminescence and liveliness of human skin. Renoir’s interest in the qualities of skin enhance the sensuality of the women he paints. When Renoir paints the Blonde Bather, he dries his paint in order to achieve a pearly, glowy effect on Aline’s smooth skin, which stands out against the blurred blues and greens of the background. The portrait invites the viewer to admire the softness and erotic qualities of the woman’s skin and body, and is considered by some art historians to be Renoir’s personification of the male gaze.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Madame Léon Clapisson

1883

 Oil on canvas

 81.2 cm x 65.3 cm

Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1174

Renoir’s portrait of Madame Clapisson displays aspects of the compromises he began to make in his portraiture to satisfy his clients’ desires. Renoir’s first commissioned portrait of Valentine Clapisson was an extreme disappointment to him, and he believed he had approached the painting (Dans les roses), a vivid gardenscape, from the wrong angle. The compromises he made in his second portrait of Mme Clapisson led to the emergence of Renoir’s new painting style. Although his visible brushstrokes remain, his colors are muted and he takes on Berard’s dark background style (the original dark red has faded) as well as Ingres’s portrait style. He paints Mme Clapisson in a dark evening dress, which accentuates her elegant features and underscores her elevated social status and prominence in city life.

Renoir, Dance at Bougival

1883

Oil on canvas

181.9 cm x 98.1 cm

The Frick Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 37.375

Renoir's Dance at Bougival is one of the three large-scale paintings he finished in 1883, alongside Country Dance and City Dance, and is considered to be the most romantic of the three. The woman who models for this painting is assumed to be Suzanne Valadon, who became an artist herself during the Impressionist period. The brushstrokes in this painting are smoother than Renoir’s previous artworks and reflect the shift in technique that followed his painting of Madame Clapisson. Renoir’s depiction of this woman, in her fashionable dress, reflects the sensuality of the women in his other portraits. In this painting specifically, Renoir uses the man’s gaze and body language to evoke the woman’s sensuality and romance.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Les Grandes Baigneuses

1884-1887

Oil on canvas

170 cm x 115.6 cm

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1963.116.13

Les Grandes Baigneuses is the highlight of Renoir’s Anti-Impressionist artwork and is influenced by a variety of his own works, as well as classicism and Rococo. The two left figures are painted in an Anti-Impressionist style like his painting Diana; the brushstrokes blend together, and the forms are more structured with defined lines. The central blonde is likely Renoir’s wife, who also posed for the Blonde Bather. The brushstrokes and forms of the figures on the right as well as the background are much less defined, and revert back to the style of Renoir’s Impressionist works. Renoir’s work is primarily inspired by Ingres, among others, in both form and content. Renoir emphasizes the figures' sexuality through their size, proportions, and frozen but sensuous poses.