RENOIR ✿

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a French artist, is one of the leading exponents of Impressionism. He was born on February 25, 1841 in Limoges, in central-western France. A few years after his birth, the family moved to Paris. Encouraged by his father, who works as a tailor, the young Renoir becomes a decorator of porcelain, then also of fabrics and fans.

Determined to study painting, he attended the Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts. During these years he met Claude Monet and other young painters with whom he began to paint outdoors, transferring the colors and light effects that he observes in nature to the canvas.

From the very beginning, Renoir's favorite subject has been the human figure, isolated or in a group, often painted outdoors, in moments of leisure in the midst of nature. He paints with an innovative style, based on bright and luminous colors, applied with quick brush strokes.

In the last years of his life Renoir suffered from a severe form of arthritis, but he continued to paint, having his brush tied to his hand. He died in Cagnes-sur-Mer on 3 December 1919 at the age of 78.