Fascination: a portrait after Renoir

I've always loved Renoir's sensual works of the 1880s, especially "Luncheon of the Boating Party."

There is a stunning woman in the background who captured my attention with her softness and glittering eyes. Her name is Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise. Louise was the daughter of Alphonse Fournaise, the proprietor of the Maison Fournaise, one of Renoir's favorite restaurants.

Today, Maison Fournaise is both a restaurant and museum. It is on the Seine at Chatou.

On a pale linen ground, Renoir applied washes of color that had been thinned with turpentine. Then he began wet-n-wet, brushing on glazes followed by opaque passages. He let the painting dry, and commenced with wet-n-wet glazes and opaque passages again, and repeated the process until he was satisfied with the painting. Sometimes, he would scrape down to the linen canvas so that it's texture could play a part in the painting. Additionally, soft bristle brushes allowed Renoir to apply paint  without hard edges (versus Monet's hog bristles which were stiffer).

Fascination, 14 x 11, oil on archival panel
S. Lynne Price
(CLICK TO SEE DETAIL)

Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881
Pierre-August Renoir

In his last 25 years, Renoir painted on white grounds instead of pale grey and pale yellow grounds. Transparent paint has an almost stained glass effect on light grounds. Juxtaposed with opaque paint, the visual surface is magnificent, bedazzling the viewer with light and color.

I used a white panel as my substrate and Gamblin solvent-free gel as my medium. Gamblin's solvent-free gel is 100% fat and not fast drying, rather slow actually. I used it in all layers. It transparentizes and extends the paint. The easiest way to use it is to mix no more than 25% with every pile of pigment on your palette. If you give it a go, do not add Liquin or other alkyd/fast-drying mediums in the top layers or you'll experience cracking/delamination. Or your patrons will and that's really bad news.

It took me four sessions to complete "Fascination," which was an exercise in patience. I'm typically an alla prima painter unless I'm doing a traditional work (classical or academic). But I love the results. I can see having four paintings going at once. That's how you solve the waiting time problem.

I own at least 10 books about Renoir's life, techniques, and work. I am now taking a very serious look and learning how to apply his techniques to my own work. Forever learning, forever growing is the way.

If you found this article entertaining, let me know here or on social media.

Thanks for reading!

Lynne

Renoir's Tools and Techniques (Part I)

Renoir’s journey began as a porcelain painter utilizing glazes. Renoir's employer told the young craftsman that he was too good to continue painting on porcelain and should join an atelier to begin serious study. Renoir enrolled in Charles Gleyre’s atelier where he met Monet, Sisley, and Bazille, and discovered painting en plein air. They all painted together outdoors and petitioned the annual Salon for entry.

Accepted Salon works had been painted in the French Academic Method, a somewhat controlled, tight method. In the Salon of 1874, Louis LeRoy, a journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper Le Charivari scoffed at the works of the new avant-garde.  Upon seeing Monet's work, "Impression: Soleil  Levant" (Impression: Sunrise), LeRoy laughed and labeled the group "Impressionists" in a newspaper article meant to be derisive.  Hence, the beginning of the Impressionist Movement in France and the Modern era in art. 

Renoir continued to employ glazes in his paintings throughout his career. His paintings were built up almost entirely of transparent and semi-transparent paint in contrast to Monet who soaked the oil out of his paints creating a crumbly paint that created its own luminosity due to opacity and high-key tints.

Renoir would often execute a detailed drawing on his substrate in blue or red chalk. He then used a solvent and medium to lay in his first juicy washes in approximation of the final colors.  He may have used an earth red at times, likely to give scintillation to overlying greens and flesh tones. Renoir’s linen substrate was either white, pale yellow or pale grey. Often his canvas ground color has been described as a biscuit tone. During later periods he used a white substrate exclusively.

Renoir painted wet-n-wet in glazes, letting the painting dry and then reworking it (as did all of the Impressionists; they did not paint alla prima). Renoir mixed directly on the canvas, adjusting value and hue with colors next to one another on the color wheel. For instance, to lighten a red, he would add a yellow. To darken a red, he might add blue (not the complement green). Renoir’s medium was a fatty linseed oil and he would have used the fatty medium throughout his painting, adhering to the fat over lean principle.

At times, Renoir would pick up several colors from his palette on his brush and apply them to the canvas. We can see swirls of color as well as smoother passages in The Fisherman (1874).

The Fisherman, 1874

In the lower right of the painting, Renoir used viridian and alizarin swirled together to create the dark passage in the water. It's almost black but the alizarin adds depth and keeps the dark area from being a black hole in the canvas. Additionally, the area draws the eye, echoing the Golden Section

Detail of  The Fisherman with obvious swirling of colors to make the dark passage

I hope you enjoyed this important information  (alas, hard to come by) about Renoir. Enjoy and please comment.


In Renoir's Tool and Techniques (Part II), I will cover modern palette substitutes, mediums  and brushes.