RENOIR. ROCOCO REVIVAL

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) is one of the outstanding painters of French Impressionism. Venturing beyond the bounds of that characterization, the Städel Museum is now staging a major special exhibition that takes the first-ever in-depth look at the surprising connections between Renoir’s art and Rococo painting. Whereas the latter was considered frivolous and immoral after the French Revolution, it underwent a revival in the nineteenth century and was widely visible in Renoir’s lifetime. He was also intimately acquainted with the imagery of artists such as Antoine Watteau, Baptiste Siméon Chardin, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard from his training as a porcelain painter. He shared the Rococo’s predilection for certain themes, among them promenaders in the park and on the riverbank, moments of repose in the out of doors, and the garden party. Renoir also frequently devoted himself to the depiction of domestic scenes and family life as well as intimate moments such as bathing, reading, or making music. Yet he not only took orientation from the motifs of the Rococo, but also particularly admired its loose and sketchy manner of painting as well as its brilliant palette, aspects that would have a formative influence on him and many other artists of the Impressionist circle.

Digitorial: https://renoir.staedelmuseum.de/en/