Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, France on February 25, 1841. His family moved to Paris when he was four years old. As a child he exhibited talent in both singing and drawing; in fact he turned down an opportunity to join the Paris Opera. His first exposure to painting came in a visit to the Louvre with his sister at the age of nine. At age 13 he entered into an apprenticeship at a porcelain factory where he used his art expertise to paint decorative designs on plates, cups and bowls. Renoir lost his job at age 20 when the porcelain factory became automated. After painting murals on café walls for a time he decided to seriously study painting.
During his studying at Paris' Alelier Gleyre, fellow artists Gustave Gourbet and Edouard Manet heavily influenced Renoir's art. After giving up his commercial painting to devote more time to his studies, Renoir often had difficulty in getting enough money to buy canvas and paint.
Renoir was one of the major French Impressionist painters. The objective of the Impressionists was "to capture the color of light within each picture."(Authors and Artists for Young Adults) Renoir accomplished this by using pure colors on his palette and blending them together on the canvas, rather than the palette, so that they would produce the desired hue when the paintings were viewed from a distance. Unlike other Impressionists, Renoir was better known for his paintings of figures rather than landscapes.
During the 1880s he slowly separated himself from his fellow Impressionists because he was dissatisfied with the loose style of his paintings. He traveled to Italy looking for fresh inspiration and was impressed with the art of Raphael. Renoir's paintings during this time are considered the least successful of his paintings. By the end of the 1880s he had passed through his "dry" period and his paintings were described as "a glorious outpouring of monumental nude figures, beautiful girls, and lush landscapes." (Encyclopedia of World Biography)
In 1903, his health deteriorated due to rheumatoid arthritis. During his last years of life the only way he was able to paint was to have the brush tied to his hand. Pierre-Auguste Renoir died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on December 3, 1919.
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