Renoir: Old and ill

Old and Ill The last 30 years of the life of Renoir are impregnated with a tragic personal character. He was recognised by the public not just in France, but the rest of the world. He had big worries - a terrible disease and the pressure from the young artists with their new style. The last time he exhibited in The Salon, was 1890. Two years later he went to Spain to watch Spanish art, but he was not influenced by Spanish art. In 1892, Durand-Ruel exhibited 110 paintings of Renoir and the French nation bought one for their museum in Luxembourg "Yvonne and Chrisitine Lerolle at the piano".

Pierre Auguste Renoir - Enviorns De Cagnes

Enviorns De Cagnes
Pierre Auguste Renoir
24 in x 20 in
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His friend Cailebotte died and of the sixty five paintings he had of Renoir, six went to the museum of Luxembourg. The new style was Symbolism with Paul Gaugin at the head. Renoir was looking for the paradise outside of reality.
He painted many young women bathing using Gabrielle, cousin of his wife, as one of his models. He also used cleaners, baby-sitters and the cook as models. In 1898 Renoir bought a house in Essoyes but suffered a serious attack of rheumatoid arthritis and had to go to Provenza, in the south to recover.

With Durand-Ruel, his art dealer, he had many exhibitions. Very important was the Universal exhibition of Paris, 1900, when he got the Cross of the Legion of Honour. He went to Germany in 1910 where he painted portraits of the Thurneysen family. The serious rheumatoid arthritis caused him terrible pain, and in this year, he was confined to a wheelchair. Most of his body became paralysed and it was impossible for him to grab a brush. He made his family tie a brush to his fingers so that he could continue painting every day. It was very difficult for him to paint, but he did not stop. Even after all of this, he started to create sculptures. He hired a helper Ricardo Guino, Spanish apprentice sculptor. He had many other helpers, but Ricardo was the best. Renoir managed him with a stick, saying more off here, more around there and so on. This is how the sculptures were created. Never touched by Renoir's hands, but the most original creations of his spirit, a model of human beauty.

"La Parisienne" by Pierre Auguste Renoir

It is difficult to believe that this very old man, suffering from terrible pain and paralysed, never let any negative feeling creep into his art. At the beginning of the First World War his sons, Jean and Pierre were seriously injured. Their mother looked after them until they were completely recovered. Then she died in 1915, depressed and horrified at what the world had become. After her death, Renoir went to Essoyes where his wife rested. Then, back to Paris to visit museums and finally back to Cannes where he died 3rd December 1919.

"Oarsmen at Chatou" by Pierre Auguste Renoir