Pierre-Auguste Renoir on Art and Painting

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: On the Importance of Irregularity in the Arts

" As a matter of fact, students know that, despite the apparent simplicity of the laws which govern their formation, the works of nature are infinitely varied, whether they are great or small, and to whatever species or family they belong ..."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Formulas

" In painting, as in the other arts, there's not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. "

" There is something in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential. You come to nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat. "

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Impressionism

" [ About 1883 ] I had wrung impressionism dry, and I finally came to the conclusion that I knew neither how to paint nor how to draw. In a word, impressionism was a blind alley, as far as I was concerned ..."

" If the painter works directly from nature, he ultimately looks for nothing but momentary effects; he does not try to compose, and soon he gets monotonous. "

 

Source
Goldwater, R & Treves, M. 1976. Artists on Art, From the 14th to the 20th Century . John Murray.

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