I had the great fortune of seeing an exhibition of Renoir paintings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this week. Out of the paintings there, this was one of my favorites.
The painting, completed in 1910, is of the artist's son, Jean. He was asked about the painting and remembers having to pose for it.
"When I was fifteen years old, I wore a jacket that reminded my father of a hunter, so he had me pose with a gun and with Bob for a hunting dog. The gun was borrowed from one of our farmers."
-Jean Renoir
What I really like about this painting is the fact that you can see the strokes of the paintbrush, but it's not huge strokes that make the whole picture blurry. They don't force you to have to step away from it in order to see the subject.
One of the things you see in many of Renoir's paintings in the background. It's there, and you know the subject is not floating in space, but it is done in a way that forces you to focus on the subject, not what's around it.
Renoir was an impressionist painter, even though later in his life he tried to separate himself from the impressionists. But even when you compare his painting to those of other impressionists, you can clearly see the difference; you don't even have to be very familiar with his art in order to be able to tell if it's Renoir or not. He paints in a way that you can really tell that it's a painting, not a photo. I admire the fact that some people can paint something that looks like a photo, but what's the point? That person didn't leave their mark, their style on it. Renoir found a perfect balance between accurateness and an artist's touch.
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