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Lot Essay
Inspired by the deep blue skies and sun-drenched climes of Cagnes on France’s Côte d'Azur, Renoir purchased Les Collettes in 1907. Enchanted by the flowing, sonorous rhythm of daily life among the shimmering olive trees, this modern Arcadia would serve as the inspiration for some of the artist’s most celebrated landscapes.
Settling into his new home, Renoir commissioned a specially constructed studio with windows large enough to capture the panoramic vistas and warm Mediterranean light. Taking full advantage of the rich pictorial possibilities of his new surroundings, the studio enabled the artist to paint en plein air regardless of weather. As his son Jean later reminisced, 'The light came [in] from all directions. [The] shelter was situated among the olive trees and rank grass. It was almost as if he were working out of doors' (J. Renoir, Renoir, My Father, trans. R. & W. Weaver, London, 1962, p. 400).
‘The story of Cagnes and Renoir is a love story', Jean recalled, and it is to this period of deep-seated pleasure that the present lot belongs (ibid., 1962, p. 379). Capturing the rhythmic harmony of the unspoilt countryside which at once proved so restorative to his health, and so rejuvenating to his art, Paysage de Cagnes pulses with the warmth of the midday sun. Presented as a verdant tapestry of rich greens and yellows, the landscape unfolds towards the hills, as elegant touches of pink and red gently lead the viewer’s eye along the composition.
In response to Renoir’s work exhibited at a Durand-Ruel, J.F. Schnerb commented on the artist’s late oeuvre, ‘M. Renoir more and more loves his canvas being full and sonorous. He loathes empty spaces. Every corner in his landscapes offers a relationship of colours and values chosen with a view of embellishment of the surface. His recent studies of the Provençal landscape have led him to transpose the themes furnished by nature into the most sonorous colour range and to assemble the largest possible number of elements in the canvas, like a musician who ceaselessly adds new elements to the orchestra’ (quoted in J. House, Renoir, New York, 1985, pp. 276-77).
Settling into his new home, Renoir commissioned a specially constructed studio with windows large enough to capture the panoramic vistas and warm Mediterranean light. Taking full advantage of the rich pictorial possibilities of his new surroundings, the studio enabled the artist to paint en plein air regardless of weather. As his son Jean later reminisced, 'The light came [in] from all directions. [The] shelter was situated among the olive trees and rank grass. It was almost as if he were working out of doors' (J. Renoir, Renoir, My Father, trans. R. & W. Weaver, London, 1962, p. 400).
‘The story of Cagnes and Renoir is a love story', Jean recalled, and it is to this period of deep-seated pleasure that the present lot belongs (ibid., 1962, p. 379). Capturing the rhythmic harmony of the unspoilt countryside which at once proved so restorative to his health, and so rejuvenating to his art, Paysage de Cagnes pulses with the warmth of the midday sun. Presented as a verdant tapestry of rich greens and yellows, the landscape unfolds towards the hills, as elegant touches of pink and red gently lead the viewer’s eye along the composition.
In response to Renoir’s work exhibited at a Durand-Ruel, J.F. Schnerb commented on the artist’s late oeuvre, ‘M. Renoir more and more loves his canvas being full and sonorous. He loathes empty spaces. Every corner in his landscapes offers a relationship of colours and values chosen with a view of embellishment of the surface. His recent studies of the Provençal landscape have led him to transpose the themes furnished by nature into the most sonorous colour range and to assemble the largest possible number of elements in the canvas, like a musician who ceaselessly adds new elements to the orchestra’ (quoted in J. House, Renoir, New York, 1985, pp. 276-77).