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| Claude
Oscar Monet, (1840-1926), French Impressionist painter, who brought
the study of the transient effects of natural light to its most refined
expression. Lilly pond, 1926, at Giverny.
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| Pierre
Auguste Renoir, (1841-1919), French Impressionist painter. He is
recognized as one of the greatest and most independent painters of his
period, and is noted for the brilliance of his colour and the intimate
charm of his work, which takes in a wide variety of subjects. Unlike other
Impressionists, he was as much interested in painting the human figure or
portraits as he was in landscapes; unlike them, too, he did not
subordinate composition and form to a fascination with rendering the
effect of light. Renoir was born in Limoges on February 25, 1841. As a child he worked in a porcelain factory in Paris, painting designs on plates and other tableware. In 1862-1863 he studied painting formally at the academy of the Swiss painter Charles Gabriel Gleyre in Paris. Renoir first exhibited his paintings in Paris in 1864. One of the most famous of all Impressionist works is Renoir's Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette (1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), an open-air scene of a café, in which his mastery of figure painting and in representing light is evident. Outstanding examples of his talents as a portraitist are Madame Charpentier and Her Children (1878, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Jeanne Samary (1879, Musée d'Orsay). Renoir fully established his reputation with a solo exhibition held at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in Paris in 1883. In 1887 he completed a series of studies of a group of nude female figures known as the Bathers (Philadelphia Museum of Art). These reveal his extraordinary ability to depict the lustrous, pearly colour and texture of skin and to impart lyrical feeling and plasticity to a subject; they are unsurpassed in the history of modern painting in their representation of feminine grace. Many of his later paintings also treat the same theme in an increasingly bold rhythmic style. During the last 20 years of his life Renoir was crippled by arthritis; although unable to move his hands freely, he continued to paint by using a brush strapped to his arm. Renoir died at Cagnes, a village in the south of France, on December 3, 1919. Other notable paintings by Renoir include La Loge (1874, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London); Woman with Fan (1875) and The Swing (1875), both in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris; The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.); and Vase of Chrysanthemums (1895, Musée de Beaux-Arts, Rouen)—one of the many still life of flowers and fruit he painted throughout his life.
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| Camille Jacob
Pissarro, (1830-1903), French Impressionist painter, whose friendship
and support provided encouragement for many younger painters. Pissarro was born in St Thomas, Virgin Islands, and moved to Paris in 1855, where he studied with the French landscape painter Camille Corot. At first associated with the Barbizon School, Pissarro subsequently joined the Impressionists and was represented in all their exhibitions. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), he lived in England and made a study of English art, particularly the landscapes of J. M. W. Turner. For a time in the 1880s Pissarro, discouraged with his work, experimented with Pointillism; the new style, however, proved unpopular with collectors and dealers, and he returned to a free Impressionist style. A painter of sunshine and the scintillating play of light, Pissarro produced many quiet rural landscapes and river scenes; he also painted street scenes in Paris, Le Havre, and London. He was an excellent teacher, counting among his pupils and associates Paul and Paul Cézanne, his son Lucien Pissarro, and the American Impressionist Mary Cassatt. Pissarro was a prolific artist; many of his paintings, watercolours, and graphics hang in the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris.
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