The societal view of men verses women depicted in artwork during the nineteenth century differs from todays view on the same subject. Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), an impressionist painter in the European Arts, began his career in the early 1860s. Many of the impressionistic painters of this time focused their paintings on landscapes, flower pieces and still-life works. Renoirs work was mainly focused on portraits, largely female portraits.
Renoirs chosen subject matter, this being women, was odd and difficult for other artists and art critics to grasp at the time due to the lack of importance and significance women held in societal roles. Society continued to be male dominated during Renoirs time in history. The ways Renoir depicted the concept of a woman through portraits and everyday genres, showed how he placed women on a higher physical and primitive level beyond where culture held the rights of women at the time.
In Renoirs painted works of the female nude, the idea of an ideal image of fantasy is shown. After 1886, Renoir stopped including males as subjects in his paintings. Realizing the overwhelming fact that the century continued to be male dominated, Renoir wanted to show women as his subjects giving them their own sense of individuality. Women of the nineteenth century were viewed as homemakers, not able to perform in society with men. Compared to men, women were seen as being worth almost nothing and were only worthy of bearing children.
Stepping out of the norm once again during his time as a painter, Renoir decided to paint a subject that other impressionist artists rejected at the time stating that the idea was too academic: the female nude. After experimenting with the idea of painting the female nude, Renoir decided to make it his new main theme. Renoir chose to use models that he knew in real life. Each of the models was shown as their true self which Renoir showed through his personal relationships he had with each individually. There were two main models which reoccurred in Renoirs paintings; one being his wife and the other being a family member.
When the models were not painted in the nude showing their natural beauty, Renoir placed the ladies in feminine clothing which accented their womanly features. During the Renaissance time period, the positioning of a nude woman had progressed changing the naturalistic view of the female nude to a more erotic feel. The reclined positioning of the female nude copies that of the past images created of Venus. Images of reclining Venus were viewed in a sexual manner and the idea originated from Greek mythology.
Renoir justified the positioning of the female nude as its not her person but her spirit that stands in the nude, this being the reason he continued to paint women in this position and not have any erotic ideas attached with it. Renoirs idea behind painting the female nude was not one deliberately created to be erotic in character; they were painted for the sake of art itself, and no other reason. The idea of knowing one of Renoirs models could have been viewed as an erotic piece would have interfered with the ideals he had set for himself.
Showing his models in an erotic fashion would take away from the naturalism which Renoir was trying to achieve. If Renoir truly wanted to show an erotic feel through his paintings, he would have created a conscious attitude seen in his work and he wanted his art to be free of all literary elements. Not following in the ideas held by other artists, Renoir chose not to show literary works through his paintings. He wanted to paint an image and not have it tell a story, because cinema and television were taking away from the literary ideas of the past shown through paintings.
This new found idea of Renoirs gave him an edge over other artists and helped gain popularity for him. The use of light colors in his work also helped to separate his work from others of the time. While other artists were using more bold colors and had a greater sense of line in their work, Renoir chose to use the softer lighter colors including pink, green, yellow and blue. Renoir also chooses to not use distinct lines to break up his subject from the background so there would be no distraction to the viewer. Renoirs painting titled “The Great Bathers,” showed his image of idealized womens bodies.
This view emphasized the presence in the painting of an androgynous female figure in the foreground looking at and playfully splashing the two fuller, rounder figures who sprawl on a rock to the left. His depiction of the voluptuous female nudes frolicking has drawn out much critical response from art historians, particularly during the past few decades as feminist theory entered the discourse of art criticism. Renoir felt as though his painting displayed an image of abundance, strength, softness, and female sensuality in each of his female nude subjects.
During the time in which the painting of The Great Bathers also know as The Nymphs (1919) was created, female viewers may not have seen the painting offensive due to the freedom of the individual woman shown. This painting may not have been seen as negative in nature because it shows the liberating fantasy lifestyle of the women depicted. Freely showing their flesh to the viewer was expressing the message of a womans found pleasure in life though still living in a male dominated society and having little to no influence on daily life.
Renoirs abilities in representing the female body in a naturalistic and true form set him apart from other artists of the time; this being the main reason why his paintings were rejected from the Paris Salon. His work was said to be distanced from other work of the nineteenth-century due to his abilities and his political thoughts. The influence Renoir had on the idea of womanhood of the time and how his ideas of the female body fit into society are what took his traditional idea of the body and expressed it as if it were an extension of nature.
This is how Renoir fit his representation of the female nude into the impressionistic views of life. Renoirs goal in completing each of his paintings was to evoke emotion from the viewer. In doing so, Renoir wanted the viewer to feel as though they could walk into the painting and fit into the painted scene themselves. He wanted to invite the spectator in by drawing them into the scene as if they were on an equal plane as his subjects. Since women were not viewed as an equal to men in society, artists during this time did not paint women for the sake of art and each womans own sense of individualism was not shown.
Through Renoir painting portraits of women for arts sake, he was going against the beliefs of society and the time. Renoir did not agree with the idea of women not having importance in everyday life. Through his work he gave each woman which he painted an individual personality which others overlooked. For this reason alone, Renoirs work was ridiculed by critics and other artists and as an end result many of his portraits were not allowed entry into the Paris Salon. In giving his female models their own sense of individuality through his paintings, Renoir was able to pin point their character and show it though his work.
In society a woman may not have been viewed as much of a person, but shown in Renoirs paintings each female model had great detail put into their faces making them stand out as an individual for the first time in their life. The idea of personal identity that Renoir gave to his female models was not widely accepted in society. In painting art which included personalized female models, Renoir showed that his main focus was in showing the models true character and not the restricted life they were told to live.
Showing both the direct and objective observations of nature, Renoir created a shared experience in art ignoring the ideas behind having a piece which tells a story; other artists had not accomplished this idea during this time. Emperor Napoleon III suggested that all artwork not accepted by the Paris Salon should be shown in vacant rooms in the palace and it would be called Salon des Refuses. Napoleon suggested the rejected works be shown separately, thus emphasizing by comparison the superiority of the main Paris Salon.
Of the controversial works Renoir painted during this time, his depiction of the female nude received the most criticism. Wanting to show his paintings to the public and not just to critics and Salon members, Renoir entered some of his paintings in the Salon des Refuses. Reputations of artists not accepted into the Salon were broken and the chances for them to succeed in the art world were trivial. Highlighting the selection process of the Paris Salon, the artwork shown in the Salon des Refuses was viewed differently because each artist showed their own unique themes and styles not parallel with the ideals of the time.
Through out Renoirs time as an accomplished artist, he was seen as a decorative painter. Being a decorative painter helped him to accurately paint the female nude body showing the different pigments in the bodys skin tone. As a painter, Renoir favored models with pale skin and the voluptuous body style- this showed a womans true form. Many observers of Renoirs work were not pleased with how he chose to show the female as his main subject, especially the models shown in the nude. The skin covering the bodies of the nude female models have been said to have taken the light of the painting.
In each of the pieces showcasing the nude female body, Renoir chose to illuminate their bodies highlighting them and making them stand out to the viewer as the center of attention. In the painting titled, La Loge (1874), there is a man and a woman seated observing a musical production from balcony seats. The womans eyes gaze out to the viewer showing her distraction from the show. The man and woman are at the show together, but they do not look as though they are connected emotionally as a couple. Through the womans blank stare a sense of emptiness is portrayed.
Renoir wanted his models to be immune to tact, or any other attitude of the mind which is shown in her empty gaze out to the viewer. Although Renoir lived through times of war, poverty and the death of family members, an observer would never know what life was like for this artist. His pieces were all painted in an optimistic manner, leaving the viewer no signs of strain or trauma in the artists life. Reproducing his female subjects, which sat literally in front of him, Renoir wanted his female models to represent the living and the natural. A quote by Renoir explains why he chose to paint real life subjects rather than fantasies.
The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest. Through Renoirs work, his image of a woman is seen in the context as pervasive, dominant and reactionary within the nineteenth-century construction of womanhood. Heated debates over his work left his paintings to reinforce the non-verbal message he was sharing concerning his identifiable political position on his subjects. Renoir wanted to capture the beauty in his many female subjects, not for the sake of showing the nude body but to create truthful and naturalistic art for all to view even if he was painting out of his time.
