The Picture of Bathers by Renoir - Coursework Example

• According to the author, how is Renoir’s Bathers “aesthetically incongruous”, with particular respect to the composition and brushstroke? What are its effect and result? (pp. 107-111)

 - The Bathers is aesthetically incongruous because it lacks unity of style. The left and right sides of the painting differ in form, composition, color, and execution. The left is predominantly linear, classical, and realistic, whereas the right is Impressionist. Impressionist landscape creates a contradictory effect that isolates the bather from nature.

• What works of art from his own previous paintings of single nudes does Renoir’s Bathers recall? (p. 111)

 . - The picture combines a left side that is realistic (like Diana), classical (like the Blond Bather), and linear (like the Bather Arranging Her Hair) with a right side that is Impressionist (like the Nude in the Sunlight)

• According to White, how did the split among the Impressionist group affect Renoir? (pp. 113-114)

 - While maintaining a Paris studio, Renoir traveled a great deal, staying in rural spots where living was cheaper - Essoyes, La Rochelle, La Roche- Guyon, Wargemont.16 These peaceful country settings inspired the landscape and stream in the Bathers and in several of the preparatory drawings. Because he was a sociable artist who liked to work with colleagues, Renoir missed the old community of painters. In May 1884, he drafted a program for "La Socidtd des Irregularistes" that was partly motivated by a desire to re-establish an artistic fellowship. To his disappointment, society was never formed.

• According to the author, how may have Renoir’s relationship with Aline and the birth of their son affect the Bathers? What proof does White offer? (p. 114)

 - Aline was Renoir's model and mistress from the late 1870s. She posed for the 1881 Blond Bather and for the central nude who faces us in the 1887 Bathers.

• How did Renoir attempt to seek progress and “irregularity” in his work during 1884-87? (p. 115)

 - it seems that 1884-87 was a period of experimentation that culminated in the large Bathers. During these years Renoir may have been guided by a theoretical idea of irregularity which contributed to the stylistic diversity of the painting.

• According to White, the influence from which contemporary writers in the literary and musical world prompted Renoir’s divergence from naturalism towards a new classicism? (p. 118)

 - Several writers in the literary and musical world are likely to have encouraged Renoir's classicism. Among them, Mallarme was the most notable. In the mid-188o's Mallard and Renoir became acquainted at Morisot's Thursday evening dinners. Morisot's correspondence reveals their friendship.

• How did the influence of tradition impact Renoir’s aesthetic shift during his “sour” period? (pp. 119-121)

 - Ingres's classical influence can be seen in the structural clarity that Renoir has given to the monumental closed forms in the foreground of The Bathers. His ordering of forms reads as both a bas-relief and a pyramid; triangles relate the two girls at the left as well as the three foreground girls in a relationship of glances, gestures, and leg movements.

• According to the author, why was Renoir vulnerable to the popular taste of the wealthy class? Which artists did Renoir, essentially, look to in an attempt to “sell out”? How did Renoir try to improve his financial situation? How did his peers respond to this shift and what was the end result? (pp. 121-125)
• Renoir's vulnerability to haut bourgeois taste was necessarily a function of his financial situation. In 1886 and 1887, because of his extreme poverty and his new family responsibilities, Renoir came closest to Ingres-Bouguereau realism in the hope of improving his situation.
• One of the ways in which Renoir tried to improve his financial situation was to exhibit at fashionable shows.
• some of Renoir's friends, including Monet, Morisot, and Wyzewa, liked the Bathers. Others disliked the linear style of The Bathers. Pissarro told of similar unfavorable responses from Hoched6, Petit, and Bracquemond.90 The influential writer Huysmans was also negative and found Renoir "Vieille" (old-fashioned). Most important, Renoir's close friends Georges Rivibre and Theodore Duret disliked the Bathers. These strictures from people he respected must have raised doubts in Renoir's mind about his "irregular" style.
• Unfortunately, the Bathers did not achieve the financial success Renoir had hoped for. The painting was not sold until two years later.