Pierre-Auguste Renoir (ruh NWAHR) was the son of a
French tailor.
He was one of seven children in the family. His first experience with
painting came when he started to work for a porcelain maker who made
fine dishes. Since their 13 year old boy wanted to be an artist, his
parents thought this would be a good job for him. He painted flowers on
cups and saucers.
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When the music teacher at school tried to teach him
music, he just spent his time making drawings on the music books.
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He next began to paint fans for a living. The ladies
used these fans to
fan themselves when they became too warm. Then he painted window shades
to look like stained glass windows. It seemed that he would never have
a chance to become a real artist.
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Finally he was able to go to an art school. He became
friends with
other artists, Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. Money was scarce and they
helped one another to get food and supplies.
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They developed a style of painting known as
Impressionism. Someone
started calling their paintings impressionistic because they titled
some of their paintings as Impression, Impression of Sunrise etc. That
person didn't really mean it as a compliment, but the name stayed with
them.
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This style of painting used bright colors, and the
artists rather than
mixing the colors, would use quick brush strokes with the different
colors, and the eye of the person viewing it would "mix" the colors.
These artists worked out in the open and tried to show the effect of
light on the colors. They observed how objects would change color as
the sun moved across the sky.
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The Charpentier family befriended him and helped him
financially. In
return he painted portraits of the family. His painting of Madame
Charpentier and Her Children became one of his most famous
paintings. Before his death, he was able to see his
Portrait of Madame Charpentier hanging in the
famous Louvre.
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When he was 40 years old, Renoir married Alice
Charigat and they had three sons, Pierre, Jean, and Claude.
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As he became older he began to suffer from rheumatoid
arthritis. He
used two sticks for walking, and he would attach the brush to his wrist
with plaster so that he could paint. He called it "putting on his
thumb". Since he couldn't change brushes easily, he would dip the brush
in turpentine to clean it and continue painting.
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Toward the end of his life, he began to experiment in
sculpture.
He could not use his own hands to model, but he used assistants to do
the work and he told them what to do.
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He died of pneumonia at the age of seventy-eight.
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