Day 327 - Renoir still lifes

 January 2023

Auguste Renoir painted 10 of the 17 works in Gallery 824.  (Others are by Morisot, Sisley, Cassatt, and Caillebotte.)  The Renoir works on display include the grand portrait of Madame Georges Charpentier and her two children. In this day when gender fluidity is much discussed, it’s still rather shocking to realize that one of the two children - both of whom have long, curly blond hair and are dressed identically in short blue frocks with white bows at the shoulders -  is a boy. Apparently, dressing young boys in this way was the fashion of the times. It’s the large shaggy dog (a Saint Bernard?) lying outstretched in front of the divan that makes the painting irresistible to me:  Renoir has perfectly captured the animal's  placid nature and its fluffy black and white coat, whose colors echo the white frills at the hem of Madame Charpentier’s black dress.  I read that Madame Charpentier, whose husband was a prominent publisher, hosted a salon frequented by  Flaubert. Zola, and the Goncourt brothers. Nice to know that she put her wealth into promoting the arts.

I'd never particularly thought of Renoir as a painter of still lifes, but two of these, hung near each other,  intrigue me. They were painted in the same year (1881) and are similar in format (about 24 inches wide and 18 inches high) and subject (peaches nestled in a blue and white ceramic dish called a jardiniere atop a white tablecloth). In one painting, the background is a plain blue wall; bunches of purple and blue grapes sit on the tablecloth beside the jardiniere. In the second painting, the background is a patterned wallpaper whose red , gold, and blue tones pick up those of the peaches and the jardiniere; four additional peaches sit on the tablecloth. I find myself liking the first painting much more for its simplicity and restfulness; the second seems too buy for me. But if I owned both, would I find the second more interesting to look at over time than the first one? Perhaps.