Pierre Auguste Renoir

In 1870's, a group of young painters tried to find a new art orientation in order to re-new traditional paintings that had existed since The Renaissance in European countries. Pierre Auguste Renoir (25 Feb, 1841 - 3 Dec, 1919) who was a French painter, was one of the leaders in the development of School of Impressionism. He was an artist who had always given prominence to beauty, especially that of women's body. The miraculous property of light and air, the special characteristic of the model, the poetic flavor of natural landscapes were recorded on the fabric frames. This famous painter had over six thousand paintings in about sixty years. His achievement was only ranked below that of Pablo Picasso.

In 1873, the "Societe anonyme cooperative" (Translation: Anonymous cooperative society) was founded. A year later, this group held a painting exhibition on Capucines Boulevard. Six of Renoir oil paintings were displayed in this show. Other paintings of Monet, Pissarro and Sisley were also presented. However, the first exhibition of this group encountered the criticism from Louis Leroy, who claimed that the art works of Impressionist painters were slovenly, not lively and lack of attention to details. Nowadays, many people find it hard to understand why such paintings with direct way of description, in such a graceful manner received the opposition from people living in that period.

Pierre Auguste Renoir paintings came from inspiration of the real life, real living of the rich who he was dependant on, and also from the life of middle class Bohemian. His works do not express agonies, do not have competitive nature.

He passed away in 1919 in Cagnes.