Quotes & Sayings About Renoir

You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Berthe Morisot was a painter full of eighteenth-century delicacy and grace; in a word, the last elegant and 'feminine' artists since Fragonard. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

He bores me. He ought to have stuck to his flying machine.
[On Leonardo Da Vinci] — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I look at a nude. There are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The modern architect is, generally speaking, art's greatest enemy. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

(All those paintings of women, in art galleries, surprised at private moments. Nymph Sleeping. Susanna and the Elders. Woman bathing, one foot in a tin tub - Renoir, or was it Degas? both, both women plump. Diana and her maidens, a moment before they catch the hunter's prying eyes. Never any paintings called Man Washing Socks in Sink.) — Margaret Atwood

All great art is abstract. — Jean Renoir

Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I have a predilection for painting that lends joyousness to a wall. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today what they did was sounder. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

When a friend speaks to me, whatever he says is interesting. — Jean Renoir

My little Renoirs. Matisse describes having seen Renoir make these tiny canvases. When he had finished working, he would use up the color left in his brushes on them. — Jean Cocteau

The more they measure, the more they realize how much the Greeks departed from regular and banal lines in order to produce their effect. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I've spent my life making blunders. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I am against great themes and great subjects ... You can't film an idea. The camera is an instrument for recording physical impact. — Jean Renoir

One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Wilshire Boulevard ... It has no smell to it. — Jean Renoir

The so-called 'discoveries' of the Impressionists could not have been unknown to the old masters; and if they made no use of them, it was because all great artists have renounced the use of effects. And in simplifying nature, they made it all the greater. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The most important element in a picture cannot be defined. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I know now that he who hopes to be universal in his art must plant in his own soil. Great art is like a tree, which grows in a particular place and has a trunk, leaves, blossoms, boughs, fruit, and roots of its own. The more native art is, the more it belongs to the entire world, because taste is rooted in nature. When art is true, it is one with nature. This is the secret of primitive art and also of the art of the mastersMichelangelo, Czanne, Seurat, and Renoir. The secret of my best work is that it is Mexican. — Diego Rivera

It is not enough for a painter to be a clever craftsman; he must love to 'caress' his canvas, too. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

On the whole, the modern palette is the same as the one used by the artists of Pompeii ... I mean it has not been enriched. The ancients used earths, ochres, and ivory-black - you can do anything with that palette. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

White does not exist in nature. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Monet, Manet, Sisley, Renoir, Van Gogh and others went outside to paint for one simple reason - it looks different outside. — Mike Svob

Everyone has his reasons. — Jean Renoir

In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson argues that Brennan should have won awards for even better performances in To Have and Have Not (1944), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948), The Far Country (1955), and Rio Bravo (1959). Thomson counts no less than twenty-eight high caliber Brennan performances in still more films, including These Three (1936), Fury (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), and Bad Day At Black Rock (1955). Brennan worked with Hollywood's greatest directors - John Ford, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, King Vidor, and Fritz Lang - while also starring in Jean Renoir's Hollywood directorial debut, Swamp Water (1941). To discuss Brennan's greatest performances is also to comment on the work of Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Anne Baxter, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, and many other stars. — Carl Rollyson

The music began, passages of immense technical complexity fluidly bridging Caravaggio's chiaroscuro with Renoir's impressionism. The gloom and shadows of claustrophobic chambers contrasting with the vibrant radiance of a wide-open landscape. The realism of humanity down to its dirty nails and rotten wounds combined with the fleeting sanguinity of the moment. — Ella Leya

I had wrung impressionism dry and I finally came to the conclusion that I know neither how to paint nor how to draw. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The only reward one should offer an artist is to buy his work. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Is it possible to succeed without any act of betrayal? — Jean Renoir

There isn't a single person or landscape or subject which doesn't possess some interest, although it may not be immediately apparent. When a painter discovers this hidden treasure, other people are immediately struck by its beauty. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

If the professional schools should succeed in producing skilled workers trained in the technique of their craft, nothing could be done with them if they had no ideal. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

'Paint only what you see,' his hero Millet had admonished.
'Imagination is a burden to a painter,' Auguste Renoir had told him. 'Painters are craftsmen, not storytellers. Paint what you see.'
Ah, but what they hadn't said, hadn't warned him about, was how much you could see. — Christopher Moore

Nature is millions of things. And there are millions of ways of understanding its preoccupations. — Jean Renoir

I considered that the world, and especially the cinema, was burdened with false gods. My task was to overthrow them. Sword in hand, I was ready to consecrate my life to the task. But the false gods are still there. My perseverance during a half-century of cinema has perhaps helped to topple a few of them. It has likewise helped me to discover that some of the gods were real, and had no need to be toppled. — Jean Renoir

I have arrived more definitely than any other painter during his lifetime; honours shower upon me from every side; artists pay me compliments on my work; there are many people to whom my position must seem enviable ... . But I don't seem to have a single real friend! — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true? — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The simplest subjects are the immortal ones. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Progress in painting, there's no such thing! ... One day I went and changed the yellow on my palette. Well, the result was, I floundered for ten years! — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Do not think that it is possible to repeat another period. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons. — Jean Renoir

I'm still afflicted with the malady of research. I don't like what I do, and I paint it out, and paint it out again. I hope this mania will come to an end ... I'm like a child at school. The white page must always be evenly written and slap! bang! and there's a blot! I'm still blotting and I'm forty years old. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

In Naples, Fla., I met a self-made man, a multimillionaire, whose round penthouse apartment is home to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Henry Moore, and Mickey Mantle. He had purchased the most coveted items auctioned by the Mantle family at Madison Square Garden in December 2003. — Jane Leavy

I like big butts, Renoir explained to Toulouse-Lautrec. — Christopher Moore

What is to be done about these literary people, who will never understand that painting is a craft and that the material side comes first? The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

There are some things in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

One can thus state, without fear of being wrong, that every truly artistic production has been conceived and executed according to the principle of irregularity. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

All technical refinements discourage me. Perfect photography, larger screens, hi-fi sound, all make it possible for mediocrities slavishly to reproduce nature; and this reproduction bores me. What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object. — Jean Renoir

Technology is mechanical and contrary to the emotions that inform a person's life. The country music field has especially been hit hard by this. All my songs have been written by people who went out of fashion years ago. Just like da Vinci and Renoir and van Gogh. Nobody paints like that anymore. But it can't be wrong to try. — Bob Dylan

Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and second, it must be inimitable. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I've never let one day go by without painting, or at least without drawing. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The purpose of painting is to decorate the walls. Therefore it has to be as rich as possible — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

An artist must eat sparingly and give up a normal way of life. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

It is universally agreed that Jean Renoir was one of the greatest of all directors, and he was also one of the warmest and most entertaining. — Roger Ebert

Everyone has his reasons." Octave (Jean Renoir) in "The Rules of the Game. — Jean Renoir

The only things that are important in life are the things you remember. — Jean Renoir

It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

It's with my brush that I make love. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons. — Jean Renoir

There's nothing more absurd than a connoisseur. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The foundation of all civilization is loitering. — Jean Renoir

What seems most significant to me about our movement [Impressionism] is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The real hell of life is everyone has his reasons. — Jean Renoir

The truly terrible thing is, everyone has his reasons — Jean Renoir

There is no realism in American films. No realism, but something much better, great truth. — Jean Renoir

I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell. If it doesn't turn out that way, I add more reds and other colors until I get it. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Food is a necessary component to life. People can live without Renoir, Mozart, Gaudi, Beckett, but they cannot live without food. — Grant Achatz

It is impossible to repeat in one period what was done in another.The pointof view isnotthesame, anymorethan are the tools, the ideals, the needs, or the painters' techniques. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

One should make movies innocently - the way Adam and Eve named the animals, their first day in the garden ... Learn from your own interior vision of things, as if there had never been a D.W.Griffith, or a Eisenstein, or a [John] Ford, or a [Jean] Renoir, or anybody. — Orson Welles

The day may come when, contemplating a world given back to the primeval forst, a human survivor will have no means of even guessing how much intelligence Man once imposed upon the forms of the earth, when he set up the stones of Florence in the billowing expanse of the Tuscan olive-groves. No trace will be left then of the palaces that saw Michelangelo pass by, nursing his grievances against Raphael; and nothing of the little Paris cafes where Renoir once sat beside Cezanne, Van Gogh beside Gauguin. Solitude, vicegerent of Eternity, vanquishes men's dreams no less than armies, and men have known this ever since they came into being and realized that they must die. — Andre Malraux

Manet wanted one day to paint my wife and children. Renoir was there. He took a canvas and began painting them, too. After a while, Manet took me aside and whispered, 'You're on very good terms with Renoir and take an interest in his future - do advise him to give up painting! You can see for yourself that it's not his metier at all. — Claude Monet

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him. — Jean Renoir

Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I believe that perfection handicaps cinema. — Jean Renoir

He had a thought that amused him. "Figures, still life, landscape, AND an animal! Zola, eat your hat!" he bellowed. — Susan Vreeland

How many books did Renoir write on how to paint? — Cyril Connolly

The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons. — Jean Renoir

I like a girl with a substantial bottom,' said Renoir, drawing in the air the size bottom he preferred. — Christopher Moore

If it [dabbling in art] didn't amuse me, I beg you to believe that I wouldn't do it. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

God, the king of artists, was clumsy. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I need to feel the excitement of life stirring around me, and I will always need to feel that. — Pierre-Auguste Renoir

With all their damned talk of modern painting, I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colours is black! — Pierre-Auguste Renoir