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Renoir
Landscapes
Last week we have seen
Renoir Landscapes at the National Gallery of Canada. For me
Renoir was One of the Great Ones but I had never realised how much
changes he had initiated in the painting world.
In listening to the
audio guide I learned that Renoir was one of the first artists to
paint "on the motive" i.e. outdoors. On the audio tape specially
prepare for the youngsters I seized that I never had really
understood the definition of the impressionism, which in fact is so
simple. The explanation came from the grandfather who tells his
grand daughter that the artist "wanted to leave an impression",
to put us in the atmosphere, to make us feel all the emotion that
occurs in the painting.
Another discovery was
that before the impressionists there were no figures in a landscape,
and especially not one seen from the back. Renoir was the first to
paint a figure seen from the back in a landscape.
When we speak about
the impressionists we realise that they brought much changes in
painting. The colour was not applied anymore in the same way;
whereas the traditionalists blended the colours one with the others,
without relief, the impressionists applied them using short strokes,
superimposing them, contrasting them, using even the knife. They
dared more bright colours, juxtaposing colours such as orange and
blue. They dared the daily scenes of life. They made in their time
the revolution of painting, integrating even photographic plans even
if that technique was at its very beginning.
In this exhibition you
will discover how Renoir and his contemporaries revolutionized the
landscape painting by giving it a different vision. You will see
marvellous artworks that have "survived through the time" because
even today after more than 100 years they are still of great beauty
and much appreciated by the public.
So, if during the
summer you are in the Ottawa region don’t forget to stop by the
museum, the Renoir Landscapes exhibition is worth the visit.
If the children accompany you, they will be delighted with the
comments on the audio guide, they are extremely interesting and
really adapted to their level of understanding (and of yours, of
course), and I personally found them pleasant and instructive.
July 7, 2007 |
