Renoir A Dream of Harmony

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is now universally acclaimed: museums pride themselves on his paintings, crowds flock to his retrospectives. His work shows art at its most light-hearted, sensual and luminous. Renoir never wanted anything ugly in his paintings, nor any dramatic action. I like pictures which make me want to wander through them when it's a landscape, he said, or pass my hand over breast or back if it's a woman. Renoir's entire oeuvre is dominated by the depiction of women. Again and again he painted these faunesses with their pouting lips (Mallarme) and invented a new image of feminity.