As a rule Renoir does nothing for me. I have the misfortune to have seen a vast Renoir retrospective at the Grand Palais many year ago - I recall of blur of garish colors and identically fleshy nudes (women) on identical sofas of different patterned cloth - and since that time I've thought him no more than the father of motel art, the Puccini of the impressionists (though I like Puccini). But this shepherd... It's definitely all about flesh, and in what seems a vaguely indiscreet way. Not because skin actually looks like this! (And the face is a mask, a gargoyle.) I'm not sure how to describe what it is about this flesh - it is and isn't gauzy, it is and isn't luminous, you do and don't want to stroke it, you almost feel its temperature and humidity. This isn't just an aesthetic appreciation (if it's that at all), it seems to breeze past the visual to something else (and I don't mean lust, exactly). It makes clear that you have a more intimate - physically, sensually intimate - relation with the human than with objects in paintings. Being a prude I still think it's almost soft porn, but I kept coming back.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Done by Renoir
Spent the afternoon at the RISD Museum of Art (RISD: Rhode Island School of Design) in Providence, a very impressive place. They've recently renovated a grand hall which has royal blue walls covered with three rows of paintings one next to the other, just like galleries 150 years ago; but their collection extends from ancient Egypt to contemporary work in styrofoam, by way of an impressive American collection, the biggest Japanese Buddha in America (an 11th c. wooden Dainichi Nyorai who fills a room), and some interesting impressionists - including the first Renoir I've ever been even tempted to like - this portrait of Alexandre Thurneyssen as a young shepherd. 
As a rule Renoir does nothing for me. I have the misfortune to have seen a vast Renoir retrospective at the Grand Palais many year ago - I recall of blur of garish colors and identically fleshy nudes (women) on identical sofas of different patterned cloth - and since that time I've thought him no more than the father of motel art, the Puccini of the impressionists (though I like Puccini). But this shepherd... It's definitely all about flesh, and in what seems a vaguely indiscreet way. Not because skin actually looks like this! (And the face is a mask, a gargoyle.) I'm not sure how to describe what it is about this flesh - it is and isn't gauzy, it is and isn't luminous, you do and don't want to stroke it, you almost feel its temperature and humidity. This isn't just an aesthetic appreciation (if it's that at all), it seems to breeze past the visual to something else (and I don't mean lust, exactly). It makes clear that you have a more intimate - physically, sensually intimate - relation with the human than with objects in paintings. Being a prude I still think it's almost soft porn, but I kept coming back.
As a rule Renoir does nothing for me. I have the misfortune to have seen a vast Renoir retrospective at the Grand Palais many year ago - I recall of blur of garish colors and identically fleshy nudes (women) on identical sofas of different patterned cloth - and since that time I've thought him no more than the father of motel art, the Puccini of the impressionists (though I like Puccini). But this shepherd... It's definitely all about flesh, and in what seems a vaguely indiscreet way. Not because skin actually looks like this! (And the face is a mask, a gargoyle.) I'm not sure how to describe what it is about this flesh - it is and isn't gauzy, it is and isn't luminous, you do and don't want to stroke it, you almost feel its temperature and humidity. This isn't just an aesthetic appreciation (if it's that at all), it seems to breeze past the visual to something else (and I don't mean lust, exactly). It makes clear that you have a more intimate - physically, sensually intimate - relation with the human than with objects in paintings. Being a prude I still think it's almost soft porn, but I kept coming back.
