May 2007
Volume 1, Number 5

Inside this issue...

Artist Of The Month: Renoir
Art In The News 
Outside The Lines
Segmation News

Artist Of The Month: Pierre-Auguste Renoir 

In 1862, Renoir began studying art formally, and it was during his studies that he met Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley. The emphasis of his classes was on painting and drawing outdoors – considered revolutionary in those days - and Renoir and Monet spent a lot of time painting the river Seine. The sailing boats, regattas, and popular cafes that lined the river banks in those days became their favorite setting. They painted the play of light on water, rendered in quick brush strokes, and soon both artists were deeply involved in developing the color theories that are now considered to the basis of Impressionism.

After the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Renoir and his friends formed the Impressionist School. They drew their inspiration from nature and their surroundings, discarded the dominant stiffness and somber colors of European art and adopted instead a style distinguished by its bright colors and its spontaneity. They were rejected and ridiculed by the art establishment. The official annual Salon exhibition refused to show their works removing any chance of the paintings being sold. In 1874 therefore, the Impressionists held a counter-Salon called le Salon des Refuses - the Salon of the rejected.

Renoir painted some of his most famous works in the 1870s, including the Bal au Moulin de la Galette, painted in 1876. This painting embodies the spirit of Impressionism – ordinary men and women, sailors and Montmartre girls—in casual poses, having a good time, dancing and drinking. They are depicted with emotion and sensuality caught, like a snapshot, in a fleeting moment of color and light.

But Renoir grew dissatisfied with the limitations of pure impressionism and was looking for new directions. In 1881 he went on a year-long visit to Algiers and Italy in search of inspiration. He never forgot his roots as a porcelain painter and, influenced by the harsh light of the Barbary Coast, his style became more classical and minimalist. His palette was reduced to only five colors.

In 1890, Renoir married Aline Charigot who had been his model for Luncheon of the Boating Party, painted in 1881. They had three children: Jean, who became a filmmaker, Pierre, who became an actor, and Claude.

By the 1890s Renoir was painting many female nudes, rendered in exotic colors and sensual flesh tones influenced by the sun-drenched south of France where he lived from 1905. By this time Renoir was crippled with arthritis and, unable to move his hands, painted with a brush tied to his wrists.

Renoir died at the age of 79. Before he died, the French government purchased his portrait of Madame Georges Charpentier, painted in 1877, and he was able to see it hanging in the Louvre.

You can find a great collection of Renoir patterns to use with SegPlayPC™ here: http://www.segmation.com/SegPlayPCPatterns.asp#REN. 

Art In The News

Nobody Bids For Jane

In her lifetime Jane Austen received just one bid for her hand. Two hundred years later, there were no bids for her portrait.

Henry Rice, a distant relative of the writer admitted that the painting is controversial and has long divided experts. Some skeptics have argued that the short hair and empire-waist dress weren't stylish until Austen, who was born in 1775, was much older.

Outside The Lines

Who Said This? Quotes By Famous Artists

Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity!
Paul Gauguin

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then the painting is finished.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.
Salvador Dali

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.
Leonardo da Vinci

Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.
Andy Warhol

Yes, we know it's June!! - Sorry for the delay with getting our May newsletter out, but we've been sooooo busy with getting SegPlayMobile™ completed!