Althouse: "In 1897 he railed against the automobile as an ‘idiotic thing’ and a symbol of ‘decadence’, insisting that ‘there is no need to go so fast’..."

March 7, 2018

"In 1897 he railed against the automobile as an ‘idiotic thing’ and a symbol of ‘decadence’, insisting that ‘there is no need to go so fast’..."

".. he denounced the invention of the railway as a ‘crazy idea’ which had resulted in ‘too much coming and going’; in 1904, he confessed to the journalist C L de Moncade (with some justice), ‘I am the worst old fogey there is among the painters.’ This suspicion of modern technology went hand in hand with a suspicion of broader social changes. Extremely needy for male friendship, Renoir took a dim view of women’s intellectual abilities and described feminist authors such as George Sand and Juliette Adam as ‘calves with five hooves’. At the height of the Dreyfus Affair in the 1890s, Renoir threw in his lot with the conservative Right and slandered French Jews as rootless cowards."

From a review of a "Renoir: An Intimate Biography."

The notion that Renoir was a bad painter has already been discussed on this blog here, here, and here.

50 comments:

Henry said...: I wonder when the word "intimate" will be barred from biography titles.; 3/7/18, 2:48 PM
Wince said...: "The world went and got itself into a big damn hurry."; 3/7/18, 2:53 PM
Rob said...: Some artists took a more enthusiastic approach toward automobiles. Asked by Ford for suggestions to name the car that became the Edsel, poet Marianne Moore offered, among others, Silver Sword, Resilient Bullet, Ford Faberge, Mongoose Civique, Varsity Stroke and Utopian Turtletop.; 3/7/18, 2:54 PM
traditionalguy said...: I bet he didn't think much of American tourists either.; 3/7/18, 3:01 PM
john mosby said...: I was just talking about the impressionists and technology with my wife last night. I remarked that their whole technique depended on industrialism: grab a few tubes of mass-produced oils, jump on a train to get out to some pretty place, paint your impression, then get yourself or at least the paintings quickly to paris or london, where telegraphs will spread the word of your breakthrough.

The photography of the time, especially in the early part of their careers, was probably more artisanal than painting.

Without hi-tech transportation, communications, and manufacturing, these guys would have been local curiosities, with their rate of production limited by their ability to source and hand-grind pigments.

JSM; 3/7/18, 3:05 PM
Achilles said...: I bet he ogled some women or something at some point too.; 3/7/18, 3:06 PM
buwaya said...: Bad artist !

Only in some bizarre definition of art, of the sort Tom Wolfe skewered.

Check out "Boating Party" - that's not just a bunch of superb portraits in context (he married the girl with the dog btw) but the atmosphere and social ambiance of that place and that society - a bunch of young influencers pretty much, and their hangers-on. Not a bad lot at all, the arty yuppies of France in the 1880's.; 3/7/18, 3:07 PM
Daniel Jackson said...: "The photography of the time, especially in the early part of their careers, was probably more artisanal than painting."

Still is that way; there is a legal difference in France between "artists" and "artisans" and photography is in both categories. Most professional photographers in France are legally artisans, not artists.

It changes the way one approaches their craft.

Anyway, Renoir should talk. He was just Rubens with proper color.; 3/7/18, 3:12 PM
jwl said...: De gustibus non est disputandum.

And I second what traditionalguy wrote last time this discussion occurred, Renoir was a decent painter for a Frenchman.; 3/7/18, 3:17 PM
Henry said...: It saddens me that Mr. Stammers missed an obvious wordplay:

In 1897 he railed against the automobile as an ‘idiotic thing’ and a symbol of ‘decadence’, insisting that ‘there is no need to go so fast’; he mobilized against the invention of the railway as a ‘crazy idea’ which had resulted in ‘too much coming and going’; 3/7/18, 3:17 PM
Luke Lea said...: Well, I'll just disclose right off the top that Renoir is my favorite impressionist painter. If that means I have bad taste, so be it. Now, I'll see what Ann has to say.; 3/7/18, 3:28 PM
Luke Lea said...: Is it just me or does that first Renoir in this series look like Donald Trump? https://www.instagram.com/renoir_sucks_at_painting/

Anyway, shouldn't Monsour Renoir be judged by his best work, not his worst? How about Bal du moulin de la Galette or Luncheon of the Boating Party or one of those maidens in a garden?; 3/7/18, 3:41 PM
BuckIV said...: Somewhat related
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2018/03/07/piss-right-off-brooklyn-journos-anti-car-crusade-crashes-and-burns/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget; 3/7/18, 3:58 PM
Bilwick said...: Renoir felt there is no reason for automobiles to be in civilian hands.; 3/7/18, 4:07 PM
The Godfather said...: I've always liked Renoir's paintings because they're pretty (that sound you hear is a bunch of art critics rolling over in their graves), so I'd forgive most of his errors about the modern world, but NOT his joining the wrong side in the Dreyfuss case.; 3/7/18, 4:22 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Extremely needy for male friendship, Renoir took a dim view of women’s intellectual abilities

Is there any casual relationship being implied here? Can't one need male friendship & still think highly of women? Or, conversely, be a loner & think badly of women (rh springs to mind)?

I guess editors don't edit any more.; 3/7/18, 4:24 PM
Etienne said...: During Renoir's lifetime French automobiles were crap.; 3/7/18, 4:30 PM
Earnest Prole said...: It sounds like Renoir had a thing against travel.; 3/7/18, 4:31 PM
Howard said...: JSM: That's a great point... and there's more. In addition to tubing paint, the new industrial pigments sent painters en Plein Aire to create an artistic revolution that evolved into cubism, fauvism, pointillism, expressionism, surrealism, abstract...

Further evidence that this is a capitalist revolution is that they created a market for painting that did not have to compete head to head with photography. Attractive to a Luddite like Renoir.

by practical necessity the tubed paint was/is very thick and stiff to prevent escape from the tube. Also, absent were the myriad solvent, resin, oil, metal and wax admixtures (called "mediums") that were commonly used in studio to create brillant three-dimensional and realism effects by glazing and scumbling layer after layer.

The hurry-up outdoor limits coupled with the new, dry paints forced painters into applying bright colors with Alla Prima and Al Pasto methods.; 3/7/18, 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: JSM: Without hi-tech transportation, communications, and manufacturing, these guys would have been local curiosities, with their rate of production limited by their ability to source and hand-grind pigments.

Painters had international reputations, international careers, and international clientele long before the industrial revolution. (And some of them had a prodigious output.); 3/7/18, 4:36 PM
Daniel Jackson said...: "It sounds like Renoir had a thing against travel."

He had a great house, a nice life (especially later in life with his government pension), and did not like to leave his nest. Most French are like that as they age. They go on a holiday or two but STAY HOME. In the south, most people die in the town or near the town in which they were born. The idea of changing states let alone a job for a career move (okay spouses, yes) is foreign. Moving requires paperwork, which necessitates functionaries. Kings used functionaries to keep the rabble in their places.

Cars are bad.; 3/7/18, 4:43 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Renoir's work (with Van Gough and a few others) was essential in diverting the focus of modern art from objective to subjective experience, which some dislike for aesthetic and moral reasons.; 3/7/18, 4:45 PM
TheThinMan said...: "Renoir threw in his lot with the conservative Right and slandered French Jews as rootless cowards."

Obviously the writer is a liberal who, like all good liberals, reinterprets what was historically Left or Right according to what would make the current Left look good and right look bad.

Socialism and antisemitism have always gone hand in hand, from Stalin up to the present day hatred of Israel. But when one faction (the National Socialist German Worker's Party) got too flagrant about it and killed too many within too short a time period, they got recategorized as rightwing,

During the cold war, if an anticommunist group behind the Iron Curtain managed to get worldwide attention, the news would describe them vs. their government as Left vs. Right.

I promise you, a book mentioning Bibi 50-100 years from will say he was a liberal and those against him were conservatives.; 3/7/18, 4:46 PM
LYNNDH said...: So he was not a feminist? I guess that means that we need to destroy all of his painting, put them on a bonfire and light it up.; 3/7/18, 4:55 PM
Darrell said...: He was no Earl Scheib, but his work still had merit.; 3/7/18, 5:00 PM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Renoir's style is too modern for my taste. Give me Rembrandt any day!; 3/7/18, 5:11 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Most French are like that as they age.

When I tell my French relatives that in the American West I regularly drive the equivalent of Paris to Rome in a single day, they find it literally incomprehensible. For them a three-hour drive is a grueling once-a year ordeal.; 3/7/18, 5:11 PM
buwaya said...: The wrong side ultimately won in the Dreyfus case, perhaps, as far as French war preparations went. This was to cost France terribly in 1914 and arguably the rest of the Great War. The Dreyfus case was not independent of very nasty politics regarding the French Army and the ideas behind its structure, training and technology, which also included social and cultural conflict vs its cadre, of the French Liberal Left vs the conservative Catholic Army.

The ultimate victory of the Dreyfusards led to a purge and anti-clerical persecution of the core of conservative Catholic officers, and numerous politically motivated personnel decisions that ultimately locked France into a disastrous offensive strategy in 1914, having overruled a saner defensive posture that correctly anticipated German plans. The conflict also led to constant churn in the political leadership of the military which led to similarly disastrous delays in upgrading its equipment and tactics.; 3/7/18, 5:15 PM
TWW said...: And Harper Lee is a bad writer.; 3/7/18, 5:18 PM
Trumpit said...: I remember a true story about two Jewish musicians in a Nazi concentration camp. The guard in charge asked the inmates whoever could play an instrument to come forward. One prisoner was an accomplished concert pianist, and the other was a "fiddler" who could play popular beer hall songs. The guard was the equivalent of today's deplorable Trump supporters. He couldn't tell the difference between a Renoir from a bland painting by Hitler. So, naturally he sent, straight away, the classically-trained artist to the gas chambers. The fiddler was given a reprieve to amuse the guards by playing his folksy ditties. Bad taste can lead to bad consequences even someone's death.; 3/7/18, 5:36 PM
Roughcoat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/7/18, 5:38 PM
David Begley said...: Some people may be of the opinion that Renoir was a bad painter, but Mr. Market disagrees. What was the price of the last Renoir at auction?; 3/7/18, 5:57 PM
David Begley said...: “A smaller version of [Renoir’s] the "Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette" is believed to be in Switzerland after being sold in 1990 in New York for $78 million. At the time it was one of the two highest-priced paintings at auction, the other being Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet."; 3/7/18, 6:03 PM
dustbunny said...: Renoir was a sentimental painter but his son, Jean, was a brilliant film director, one of the rare instances in which a son surpasses his very famous father; 3/7/18, 6:34 PM
Howard said...: Blogger Angle-Dyne, Angelic Buzzard said...

"JSM: Without hi-tech transportation........... hand-grind pigments."

Painters had international reputations, international careers, and international clientele long before the industrial revolution. (And some of them had a prodigious output.)
Yes and the big-time pre-industrial artists had uber rich patrons and scads and scads of apprentices, maids, models, technicians, etc. They also used expensive cameras and lenses to help with the drawings. These were like mini-factories.

Tubed paint made painting more egalitarian where a one-man-band could have a career.; 3/7/18, 6:36 PM
Howard said...: Blogger Earnest Prole said... Renoir's work (with Van Gough and a few others) was essential in diverting the focus of modern art from objective to subjective experience, which some dislike for aesthetic and moral reasons.
I understand that this statement is a popular notion, but it's the reverse of reality.

The pre-photographic classical masterpiece artists were making staged paintings of religious/mythological allegory or of the face a rich and powerful Brahmin designed to create a brand. The very definition of subjectivity. I'll grant you, they do it in an uber-realistic way. However, if you get close enough, you can see smaller-scale examples of the painterly-ness more explicitly and boldly used by the impressionists.

Van Gogh and the impressionists painted from life and tried very hard to portray objective reality to bring art to life. If you stand back far enough, the stark realism shines through, especially the light.; 3/7/18, 6:46 PM
tim in vermont said...: He was right about all of it, of course.; 3/7/18, 7:19 PM
tim in vermont said...: Trumpit, you should get help.; 3/7/18, 7:21 PM
tim in vermont said...: Professional help, an not a therapist who will just feed your delusions either, somebody who can write scripts.; 3/7/18, 7:21 PM
Henry said...: During Renoir's lifetime French automobiles were crap.

Good grief. Renault was founded in his time. Léon Bollée was producing 3-wheeled cars that could go over 20 MPH.

Blogger Earnest Prole said... Renoir's work (with Van Gough and a few others) was essential in diverting the focus of modern art from objective to subjective experience, which some dislike for aesthetic and moral reasons.

This may be the first time ever that Renoir is paired up with Van Gogh as partners in any kind of diversionary activity. This is like saying "John Oates musicianship (with Paul Simon and few others) or John Hancock's writing (with Thomas Jefferson and a few others)"; 3/7/18, 7:41 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Van Gogh and the impressionists painted from life and tried very hard to portray objective reality to bring art to life.

You're conflating Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The former is an attempt to capture the objective reality of light; the latter captures the artist's subjective response to what he sees. Renoir was a transitional figure between the two styles; Van Gogh's highly subjective style makes him one of the first Post-Impressionists. Google post-impressionism and you'll see a bunch of images at a glance.; 3/7/18, 7:43 PM
Earnest Prole said...: Good grief. Renault was founded in his time. Léon Bollée was producing 3-wheeled cars that could go over 20 MPH.

French cars are still crap.; 3/7/18, 7:47 PM
Henry said...: @buwaya -- the French offensive suicide in 1914 was based on the wrong lesson learned in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Yours is an interesting counterfactual, but I think overdetermined.; 3/7/18, 7:52 PM
Henry said...: @Trumpit -- I remember a true story about two Jewish musicians in a Nazi concentration camp....

So were you the fiddler or the guard?; 3/7/18, 7:53 PM
Trumpit said...: "Trumpit, you should get help."

Stop trolling me, dweeb.; 3/7/18, 8:22 PM
tim in vermont said...: I call ‘em like I see ‘em.; 3/7/18, 8:28 PM
buwaya said...: "Yours is an interesting counterfactual, but I think overdetermined."

Anything can seem overdetermined, but history is weird and often turns on small things.

One line here runs through this fellow -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor-Constant_Michel

Who wanted a very different stance for the French Army, to oppose the German offensive with a defensive posture, and moreover to better cover the Belgian frontier. Kicked out due to, of course, the nasty state of French military politics.

An informed (and exceedingly detailed!) alternative-historical speculation here - fascinating stuff.

A different French strategy in WWI; 3/7/18, 8:50 PM
Howard said...: Earnest Prole: you make a good point that at least van Gogh does get a little strange, it is certainly more objective than the highly realistic art that took off in the Renaissance and was still very popular during the 19th Century via the 100% subjective Orientalism and Romanticism. These led to the golden era of Illustration (100% subjective) that didn't really die until 1985 when the Adobe Illustrator was born.; 3/7/18, 8:55 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: buwaya said...
The wrong side ultimately won in the Dreyfus case, perhaps, as far as French war preparations went.

Not lit up by your vision here. Dreyfus was accused of betraying military secrets to the Germans, when it was actually Esterhazy of (your favored) Catholic clique. If Benedict Arnold is in charge of your military strategy, you kinda need to revamp your military strategy whether you like it or not.; 3/8/18, 6:21 AM
tim in vermont said...: The [Nazi concentration camp] guard was the equivalent of today’s deplorable Trump supporters.

You should tell your therapist that you think that people who vote differently than you would are the same as Nazi concentration camp guards, BTW. You fellow Americans, whose thoughts you carefully guard yourself from hearing, but only view through the lens of partisan media outlets, never directly.; 3/8/18, 8:39 AM