Those who think it’s chic to dismiss Renoir have a rethink coming, courtesy of the absorbing, highly informative exhibit Renoir Drawings, now on view in New York.
Not so long ago, the idea of ousting Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) from the canon of western art sparked a movement of sorts. “RENOIR SUCKS AT PAINTING,” proclaimed a protester’s sign at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2015. The performance artist Max Geller had organized the demonstration to condemn Renoir as a purveyor of “treacle.” His female nudes objectified women, it charged; even when clothed, they smiled and blushed too prettily. Indeed, Renoir’s work held value only for the unsophisticated and its popularity represented the triumph of the cliché.
Well, every art-lover is entitled to his or her own taste – and, however open-minded we try to be, it can be difficult to separate some artists’ works from their personal opinions and actions. Take me, for instance: I find Renoir’s anti-Semitism odious. Even so, his luscious palette rarely fails to elevate my mood.
Most of the 100-some drawings, pastels, watercolors and prints here will not be familiar to most viewers. These are fragile, sensitive creations that are rarely placed on public view, and the artist himself wasn’t very careful about preserving them. All this means that the Morgan’s exhibition is the first in more than a century to be dedicated to Renoir’s work on paper.
The unfamiliarity is a plus. The images, displayed chronologically, chart Renoir’s artistic development over his 50-year career as well as his engagement with subjects that are less often associated with him, such as scenic landscapes and candid scenes of Paris life. They serve to expand and enhance our understanding of his entire oeuvre across genres.
The exhibition begins with an array of anatomical drawings, decorative designs and scenes from history and mythology, mostly dating from 1860-61, which demonstrate Renoir’s early proficiency. By this time, he had abandoned an apprenticeship as a decorative porcelain painter and thrown in his lot to become an artist, beginning drawing classes that included two years at the École des beaux-arts in Paris.
Soon after, he began showing early work at the Salon and then, starting in 1874, with the group that came to be known as the impressionists. Like them, Renoir adopted the practice of painting spontaneously. Nonetheless, a wall label explains, he continued to draw, even if only “rapid, notational sketches on paper.”
A good thing, too, because he also needed to make a living. He began producing book illustrations for such volumes as an 1878 edition of Émile Zola’s novel L’Assommoir, the saga of a striving working-class laundress. The crayon-and-ink-wash study shown here presents Renoir’s initial, broadly drawn attempt to capture a group of young women “taking up the width of the road, arm in arm in their light dresses with ribbons in their hair,” paying special attention to their stylish clothing and forthright manner. In another illustration, for Alphonse Daudet’s sarcastic essay on French salons, Renoir turns satirist himself, using black chalk, pen and brown ink to comically exaggerate the formal gestures and dress of the salon members.
We see Renoir similarly attuned to the subtle signs and signals of body language and physical movement in the vividly sketched scenes of Paris life he produced for the short-lived arts magazine La Vie moderne. Among them is “The Milliner” (1879), a brilliantly detailed pastel that contrasts the woman’s darkly demure clothing with the frothy-colored hats seen through the shop window.
His vibrantly drawn, delicately modeled pastel portraits became another source of income. Their subjects were often the children of his older patrons who may have thought the impressionist technique was not prestigious enough for themselves, but fine for their wives or children. “Portrait of a Girl (Elisabeth Maître),” from 1879, depicts the six-year-old niece of the writer, musician and collector Edmond Maître. The coordinated blues of her dress, hair ribbon and eyes and the differing crosshatched hues of the background contribute to the charm of this sweetly beguiling picture.
Then came the 1880s and what’s commonly called Renoir’s “crisis of impressionism.” A trip to Italy spent viewing works by the artists of antiquity and the Renaissance led him to exchange impressionism’s loose brushwork and lack of formal structure for a more classical technique that called for preparatory drawings, a strong sense of form and structure and softer brush strokes.
Ten watercolors and drawings are associated with “Dance in the Country” (1883), one of Renoir’s most dynamic paintings. Those on display here show him experimenting with dance poses, facial expressions, clothing and coiffure. One watercolor even features a series of five floating female heads, each with a differing response to the flirtatious attitude of the painting’s male subject. Renoir’s models here were his friend, the suave and smartly outfitted journalist Paul Lhote and the brightly smiling Aline Charigot, Renoir’s 23-year-old companion.
In 1885, Renoir and Charigot welcomed their first son, Pierre. “Motherhood” is the title for both the oil painting and the red-and-white chalk drawing of Charigot, who is so calmly in control as she breastfeeds her visibly content baby that she can turn her head to face the artist. The poses in both the painting and the drawing are similar, but a cottage scene surrounds the figures in the former, while a white chalk surrounds them like a halo in the latter.
Renoir once referred to the watercolors and drawings produced during his summer visits to the country as “material” for him to develop more fully in the winter. But the precise lines and evocative seasonal hues of his watercolors “Landscape, Autumnal Effect” (c. 1885-86) and “View of a Park” (c. 1885-90) seem complete in themselves. Similarly compelling are the candid portrayals of his wife, children and various family friends mingling over meals or outdoors at work or at play.
Central to the exhibition are seven of the 20-some preparatory drawings Renoir made for his oil painting “The Great Bathers” (1886-87), shown here alongside the painting. Two stand out. First, the red-and-white chalk study in which Renoir depicts two of the three central figures of the painting; both are nude, engaged in animated conversation and apparently oblivious to their voluptuous beauty.
The second drawing, the exquisite “Splashing Figure (Study for ‘The Great Bathers’)” in red, white and black chalk, depicts the third of the trio. Seen mostly in profile, this female, also nude, appears younger than the other figures. With her braided auburn hair casually thrown behind her shoulder and her hands playfully cupped to hold water, her sly half-smile reveals her intention to splash and spray her unsuspecting companions. Call me unsophisticated, but this depiction of youthful spontaneity shows Renoir at his most sublime.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s December 22, 2025 World edition.
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