Besides the family, however, there was one other major educator in Renoir’s life – Paris. In his conversations with his son Jean, the artist constantly recollected those little corners of the capital where he had spent his childhood and youth, many of which had disappeared before his eyes. One might see the hand of fate in the fact that after moving from Limoges, Léonard Renoir installed his family in the Louvre. The houses constructed in the sixteenth century between the Louvre palace and the Tuileries for noble members of the royal guard had by the middle of the nineteenth century lost their former imposing appearance.

      Bathing on the Seine (La Grenouillère)

      1868

      Oil on canvas, 59 × 80 cm

      Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

      Only remnants of the old decoration – coats-of-arms, capitals, empty niches that once held statues – served as reminders of the past. Now occupied by lower class Parisians, this little district had a special atmosphere about it, oddly combining the everyday and the elevated. The Renoirs lived on the Rue d’Argenteuil, which ran through the whole area down to the Seine. Here, in the courtyard of the Louvre, the little Renoir played with other boys.

      Léonard Renoir, the Artist’s Father

      1869

      Oil on canvas, 61 × 46 cm

      Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis

      It was entirely natural to go inside the palace which had become a museum at the time of the French Revolution. “When I was a boy, I often went into the galleries of ancient sculpture, without even knowing precisely why. Perhaps because I passed through the courtyards of the Louvre every day, because it was easy to get into those halls, and because there was never anyone there. I stayed there for hours, lost in day-dreams,” Renoir told the artist Albert André.

      La Grenouillère

      1869

      Oil on canvas, 66 × 80 cm

      Statens Konstmuseer, Stockholm

      The young Renoir’s wanderings covered a far wider area than the Louvre district. An organic, almost physical sense of himself as part of the city was even then, in childhood, shaping the future artist’s work. He saw beauty in the narrow, almost mediaeval streets of old Paris, in the heterogeneity of the elements of Gothic architecture, in the never-corseted figures of the female market traders. And he suffered from the fact that the old Paris, his Paris, was being destroyed.

      Flowers in a Vase

      c. 1869

      Oil on canvas, 64.9 × 54.2 cm

      Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

      Ironically, it was the period of Renoir’s childhood and youth that saw the greatest burst of reconstruction and modernization in the history of the city. For a time, probably in 1859, Renoir worked for a Monsieur Gilbert on the Rue du Bac painting screens which served as portable religious images for missionaries. At this time he bought all he needed to work professionally in oils and painted his first portraits. The archives of the Louvre contain a permit issued to Auguste Renoir in 1861 to copy paintings in the museum.

      Bather with a Griffon

      1870

      Oil on canvas, 184 × 115 cm

      Museu de Arte, São Paulo

      Finally, in 1862 Renoir passed the examinations and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and, simultaneously, one of the independent studios, where instruction was given by Charles Gleyre, a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

      The second, perhaps even the first, great event of this period in Renoir’s life was his meeting, in Gleyre’s studio, with those who were to become his best friends for the rest of his days and share his ideas about art.

      Algerian Woman

      1870

      Oil on canvas, 69.2 × 122.6 cm

      National Gallery of Art, Washington

      In the studio Renoir immediately noticed a tall youth “with the elegance of people who let their servant put some wear on a new pair of boots for them.” Jean-Frédéric Bazille was indeed from a rich family. His parents owned an estate near Montpellier and were able to provide him with enough money to rent a studio in Paris. Even more important was the fact that his parents knew Edouard Manet, and Bazille had visited his studio many times.

      The Algerian (Madame Clémentine Stora in an Algerian Costume)

      1870

      Oil on canvas, 84.5 × 59.6 cm

      Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco

      “You understand, Manet is as great for us as Cimabue and Giotto for the Italians of the Quattrocento. Because a Renaissance is beginning and we need to take part in it,” he told Renoir. It was Bazille who first began, even at that time, to speak of the need to form a group. It did happen, but at a later date, when Bazille had already met his untimely death in the Franco-Prussian War. He never did get to exhibit together with the others but he was nonetheless dubbed an Impressionist.

      Promenade

      1870

      Oil on canvas, 80 × 64 cm

      British Rail Pension Fund, London

      According to Renoir, Bazille was the one who brought Alfred Sisley to Gleyre’s studio. Perhaps, he was mistaken though, and Sisley found his own way there.

      Sisley was born in Paris, to a French mother and an English father. When Jean-Frédéric Bazille first walked home from the studio with Renoir, they dropped into the Closerie des Lilas and Renoir asked him why he had wanted to talk to him. “Because of your way of drawing,” Bazille replied. “I think you are somebody.”

      Lise Wearing a White Shawl

      1872

      Oil on canvas

      E. Reves collection

      Besides, Renoir made a brilliant showing in all the compulsory competitions, earning the highest awards for drawing, perspective, anatomy and “likeness”, which is incontestable evidence of the fact that his years with Gleyre were not spent in vain. Renoir told his son with satisfaction that he had once painted a nude following all the rules that Gleyre had taught them. The Professor was astonished: it seems that his pupil, having perfectly mastered the science of painting, nevertheless continued to work “for his own amusement”.

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