In the mainland auction market, Renoir's works are rare. But in the 2016 Xiling Autumn Auction, one of Renoir's most famous works in his later years, "Nude Woman on the Grass", sold for 6.9 million yuan.
Most Impressionists had their own peculiarities in landscape painting, such as Monet. Renoir focused on depicting the human body. "Nude on the Grass" is one of Renoir's most famous works in his later years, and an important business card of Impressionist painting, the original is stored in the Musée d'Orsay in France, and the initial version of the debut in the domestic auction field can be described as amazing.
Women are a gift from God to Renoir, a mortal spirit, who once said, "When I was not yet able to walk, I fell in love with women." Renoir created more than 6,000 oil paintings in his lifetime, of which more than 4,000 were human bodies. Representative works include "Bath Girl", which is known as the originator of the French Impression School in the nineteenth century.
Painted in 1876, Nude in the Sun was the first work by Renoir to successfully apply the color techniques of Impressionism to the body painting, which was equivalent to a revolution in human painting in the art world at that time, and was regarded as a classic in the entire Impressionist human body work. The streamlined silhouette of the work blends the human body with its surroundings. In the blink of an eye, people store the impression of what they see in their minds, but often do not try to understand the posture and trajectory of the light dance. Renoir's bold brushstrokes reveal how space and light subtly exert influences on the human body.
He once said, "God's most beautiful creation is the human body." And in my opinion, it is the female body. Renoir's own paintings have always adhered to this phrase, and his life has been devoted to depicting the human charm of women. From "The Great Bathing Girl" and "The Bather" to "Nude Woman in the Sun", etc., the nude women he has painted can be said to have run through his life.
As one of Renoir's friends put it: "Kissing the canvas excites Renoir even more than hugging a woman." ”
Even in his old age, his physical condition became extremely bad, his vision blurred, and his grip decreased, he still had to paint, to paint the he liked. For Renoir, this is probably the most healing way to heal him.
His father, Jean Renoir, commented that his work "paints the purest female body in the history of art."