Claude Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Postcard

Claude Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, oil on canvas 1875, is a three-quarter length portrait painting of the French Impressionist painter Monet with his beard, dark grey suit, and black hat, looking up at the viewer while holding his artist painting palette and brushes. In the background are curtains drawn to reveal the soft, white light pouring through the windows. Renoir constructs a sympathetic image of his fellow Impressionist painter through warm, grey colour harmonies and softly applied blended brushstrokes of fluid oil colours. The informal composition of the portrait reflects the casual nature of the treatment of everyday life in the works of the Impressionists. This warm portrait of the leader of the Impressionist movement was painted less than a year after the first group show of the movement took place in 1874. Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919) was a French painter and leading figure of the 19th century French Impressionist movement. As a boy Renoir painted designs on fine china and fans, and studied paintings in the Louvre, until he went to study art with Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Monet, Sisley and other members of the Impressionist group. Influenced by the Realism of Courbet and the painterly sense of light and colour of Monet and other plein-air painters, Renoir developed a softly painted style of vibrant light and saturated colour. Renoir painted many portraits and landscapes but concentrated on dazzling scenes of contemporary life which captured a momentary snapshot in time, while the influence of Titian, Rubens and the Rococo painters inspired his many figurative paintings and domestic scenes. Renoir married and had three children who became accomplished artists themselves, and in his older age continued to paint prolifically while partially disabled by severe arthritis. In 1919 Renoir became nearly the only living artist honoured by an exhibition in the Louvre alongside the works of the old masters. Renoir's fluid, masterful technique, unique sense of light and colour, warm sensuality and human empathy made him one of the most beloved and popular painters of all time.