Lise with a Parasol
Lise with a Parasol | |
---|---|
Lise with an umbrella | |
Artist | Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
Year | 1867 |
Medium | oil paint, canvas |
Dimensions | 184 cm (72 in) × 115 cm (45 in) |
Location | Museum Folkwang |
Accession No. | G 144 |
Lise with a Parasol (French: Lise – La femme à l'ombrelle) is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, created in 1867 during his early Salon period. The full-length painting depicts model Lise Tréhot posing in a forest. She wears a white muslin dress and holds a black lace parasol to shade her from the sunlight, which filters down through the leaves, contrasting her face in the shadow and her body in the light, highlighting her dress rather than her face. After having several paintings rejected by the Salon, Renoir's Lise with a Parasol was finally accepted and exhibited in May 1868.
The painting was one of Renoir's first critically successful works. At this time, Renoir's technique was still influenced by Gustave Courbet, but he continued to develop his unique style painting filtered light which he would return to in The Swing (1876) and Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876). The almost life-size portrait and unusual contrast in Lise with a Parasol led several critics to ridicule the work. Théodore Duret, a passionate supporter of the nascent Impressionists, bought the painting from Renoir, who was unable to sell it. Karl Ernst Osthaus, a German patron of avant-garde art, acquired Lise with a Parasol in 1901 for the Museum Folkwang.
Background
In November 1860, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) entered the private studio of Charles Gleyre (1806–1874) and was later admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in April 1961.[1] In Gleyre's studio, Renoir became friends with fellow students Claude Monet (1840–1926), Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), and Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870).[2] During the summer of 1862, Renoir and his friends painted landscapes in the Forest of Fontainebleau, following in the tradition of the Barbizon school before them. It was in the forest where first Renoir met Narcisse Virgilio Díaz (1807–1876), who, according to popular anecdote, saved Renoir from a vicious beating by using his cane to beat away the attackers. Díaz became his mentor and helped buy him art supplies.[3] Renoir would later credit Díaz for helping to influence and change his style, and to lighten his palette by discouraging his then overuse of bitumen.[4]
Around 1865, Renoir met Lise Tréhot through his friend, architect and painter Jules Le Coeur, who was involved in a relationship with Clémence, Lise's sister. Jules was featured in two of Renoir's works in 1866, Mother Anthony's Tavern and Jules Le Coeur in Fontainebleau Forest. From around 1865 to 1872, Lise modeled for Renoir and was his lover and companion during his early Salon period. Meanwhile, Renoir continued to face rejection at the Salon with Paysage avec deux figures (1866) and Diana (1867), two works featuring Lise as a model.[5] Renoir's innovative work brought great ridicule and poverty, as he was unable to sell his paintings. He survived by devoting himself to painting portraits for wealthy patrons like the Le Coeur family.[6]
For about a decade, Renoir painted portraits and still lifes for the Le Coeur's and received a commission to paint a mansion outside Les Invalides that Jules' father Charles (Charles Le Coeur, 1874) was building for George Bibescu (son of Gheorghe Bibescu).[7] Later, in 1874, their ten year patronage came to an abrupt end when Renoir sent Marie, (Portrait of Marie Le Coeur, 1870) the Le Coeur's 16-year-old daughter, a love letter, leading to his permanent ban from the Le Coeur residence.[8] The Le Coeur family were the first collectors of Renoir's work and held on to his paintings until the 1920s.[9] Art historian Douglas Cooper notes, "Like Lise, the Le Coeurs had given moral support and encouragement to Renoir during those bleak years when he was struggling, in the face of poverty and frustration, to overcome the difficulties of allowing his artistic personality and vision to develop. And like Lise, too, they disappear out of Renoir's ambiance just at the moment when his style first attains to maturity and shortly before he was to experience his first worldly successes."[10]
Development
Renoir was 26 years old when he began painting Lise with a Parasol in the summer of 1867, possibly in August. Previously, it was assumed that Renoir had composed the painting in the Fontainebleau forest, close to Chailly-en-Brie near Bourron-Marlotte, just like he had done with Mother Anthony's Tavern (1866).[11] More recent scholarship, however, points to the Chantilly Forest of Chantilly, Oise.[note 1] It is now known that Renoir spent the summer of 1867 in Chantilly for two months, from July to August.[13] Renoir's friend, Edmond Maître (1840–1898), sent a message to Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870) about how Renoir's technique had recently changed, writing on August 23 that Renoir was in Chantilly at the moment, but the last time Maître saw him in Paris, Renoir was "painting strange canvases, having traded turpentine for an infamous sulfate and using, instead of a knife, the little syringe that you know."[14] It is unknown if Renoir completed the painting in the studio or en plein air in the forest.[note 2]
Exhibition
Simply titled Lise, Renoir submitted the painting to the Salon of 1868 and it was accepted where it received positive feedback.[16][note 3] It was Renoir's first critically successful work, but according to art historian Gary Tinterow, "the jury had stigmatized Renoir as a rebel, along with Courbet, Manet, and Monet."[18] The attention Renoir garnered with Lise led the administrators of the Salon to move Lise, along with paintings by Bazille and Monet, to a remote gallery known as the "rubbish dump" (dépotoir).[16] When Renoir's work was exhibited by the Salon early in his career, it was often skied,[19] a process where his paintings were deliberately hung in areas such as high places and corners where it was difficult for the public to view and would receive the least attention.[20] Art historian Jane M. Roos notes that "relegating works to the dépotoir was a favorite tactic of the administration, a "humiliation" in Castagnary's words and a sure sign that a painting had displeased the establishment or, perhaps, pleased the public too much."[16]
Description
Lise with a Parasol is a full-length, almost life-size portrait of a young woman, standing in a forest clearing. She wears a small, pork pie straw hat with red ribbons, and a long white muslin dress with a long black sash; the dress is modestly buttoned to the neck and has long sheer sleeves. Lise carries a black lace parasol to shade her head while her body is in strong sunlight, standing on a patch of grass. The initials of "A" (Auguste) and "L" (Lise) are marked as an arborglyph on the trunk of the tree in the shade behind her.[21]
Art historian John House notes that the work "explore[s] the borderlines between portraiture and genre painting".[22] Renoir's decision to name the painting using only the first name of his model indicates, according to House, that this is not a traditional portrait painting, as such works typically used family names or initials. By using Lise's first name as the title, House argues that Renoir was pointing to her status as a mistress (or an unmarried female lover and companion).[22]
Critical reception
In the late 1860s, Renoir was still in the process of developing his own unique style and technique. Critics noted that Lise with a Parasol, like several of Renoir's earlier paintings, Le Cabaret de la mère Antony à Bourron-Marlotte (1866) and Diana (1867), showed the influence of other artists, notably French Realist painter Gustave Courbet.[24]
Lise with a Parasol evoked comparisons by critics with previous paintings and artists, particularly the image of the Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1861-62) by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the image of Olympia (1863) by Édouard Manet, and the painting of Camille (1866) by Claude Monet.[25] Art critic Zacharie Astruc and writer Émile Zola viewed Renoir's Lise with a Parasol as a continuation of Monet's Camille.[26] Astruc, who was also Renoir's friend, described Lise with a Parasol as the "likeable Parisian girl in the woods",[27] and viewed the painting as part of a trinity beginning with Manet’s Olympia, followed by Camille and ending with Lise with a Parasol.[28]
There was no major opposition to Lise with a Parasol at the Salon.[29] Art critic Théophile Thoré, an early supporter of the Impressionists, praised the work.[30] Thoré wrote: "The dress of white gauze is in full light, but with a slight greenish cast from the reflection of the foilage. The head and neck are held in a delicate half-shadow under the shade of the parasol. The effect is so natural and so true that one might very well find it false, because one is used to nature represented in conventional colors, but does not color depend on the environment which surrounds it?"[31]
Tinterow attributes direct criticism of the painting to Renoir's decision to shadow Tréhot's face in darkness and emphasize the reflection of sunlight from her white dress instead. Several critics noticed this unusual contrast and ridiculed Tréhot's appearance.[15] In Le Salon Pour Rire, French caricaturist André Gill likened Tréhot in Lise with a Parasol to "a nice semisoft cheese out for a stroll",[32] while Ferdinand de Lasteyrie described the painting as "the figure of a fat woman daubed with white".[33]
Provenance
In a letter from Renoir to Frédéric Bazille in September 1869, Renoir writes about his desperation for money: "I exhibited [the portraits of] Lise and Sisley at Carpentier's. I am going to try to stick him for about 100 francs, and I'm going to put my woman in white up for auction. I'll sell it for whatever price it goes for; it's all the same to me."[34] Renoir was unable to sell the painting.
In 1872, Théodore Duret (1834–1917), now known as "one of the earliest and most ardent defenders" of the Impressionists,[35] met Renoir for the first time through Edgar Degas (1834–1917). At the time, Duret was not impressed by Renoir's Bohemian approach. However, Degas praised Renoir's work, which encouraged Duret to seek out his paintings in local galleries. In March 1873, Duret purchased Renoir's In Summer (1868) for 400 or 500 francs, possibly at an art gallery in Montmartre. Now interested in what Renoir had to offer, Duret went searching for the artist. Renoir told Duret that he was unable to pay rent for his studio and needed to quickly sell his paintings. Duret met with Renoir in his studio and chose to purchase Lise, the painting Duret liked most, on the spot for 1,200 francs. Before Duret purchased Lise, the canvas was sitting on the floor rolled up because Renoir was forced to sell the stretcher bar. "Nobody wanted the canvas", wrote German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe.[36]
Duret later sold the painting to Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris on June 5, 1890; German art dealer Paul Cassirer bought it on May 10, 1901.[37] Later that month, on May 23, Karl Ernst Osthaus, a patron of the European avant-garde, paid 18,000 Goldmarks for Lise with a Parasol and brought it to his Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany.[38] The painting was moved to Essen when the museum relocated in 1922 as the Museum Folkwang.[39]
Related work
In May 1878, Duret published Les Peintres Impressionnistes, one of the first historical works about the Impressionist movement. Renoir made a drawing of Lise with a Parasol for Duret's book and it was used as a frontispiece; it is the only image of a painting from the Impressionist movement in the book.[40]
A sister painting, Portrait of Lise (Lise holding a bouquet of wild flowers) (1867), was completed around the same time as the larger Lise with a Parasol. In both works, she appears in a forest wearing a similar dress and the same earrings, but in Portrait of Lise she wears a blue rather than a black sash.[41] House notes the thematic and narrative similarity between Lise with a Parasol and La Promenade (1870), as the expectations of the waiting woman in Lise with a Parasol are fulfilled in La Promenade, with the private, romantic rendezvous between lovers in the forest, a popular nineteenth century theme.[42] A later painting, Woman with Parasol Seated in the Garden (1872), features Lise seated, modeling a similar dress with a red sash, hat, and parasol.[43]
Lise with a Parasol was the first of Renoir's paintings to feature a human figure with light filtering through plant leaves from above. Later works by Renoir that make use of this same style include The Swing (1876) and Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876).[44]
Year | Image | Title | Type | Dimensions | Gallery | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1867 | Portrait of Lise (Lise holding a bouquet of wild flowers) | Oil on canvas | 156 cm × 129 cm | Private collection | The sister painting to Lise with a Parasol. Once owned by French haute couture fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin.[41] | |
1870 | La Promenade | Oil on canvas | 813 cm × 648 cm | Getty Center | The romantic rendezvous hinted at in Lise with a Parasol | |
1872 | Woman with Parasol Seated in the Garden | Oil on canvas | 46 cm × 37.9 cm | Private collection | Similar outfit to Lise with a Parasol |
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ There is some debate about where the painting was made. Douglas Cooper argues that the painting was probably completed in Chantilly, not Fontainebleau as commonly assumed according to Vollard.[12]
- ^ Gary Tinterow: "Even if Renoir largely worked on the painting in the studio—we do not know enough about his practice in the 1860s—he presented his subjects as plein air painting."[15]
- ^ The social and economic importance of the Salon as an institution accepting Renoir's work is best explained by Gérard Monnier: "The Salon in the nineteenth century was [...] the place where the artist established his relationship with power—administrative power, academic power and economic power. Stemming from its status as a shop-window, demonstrative of the realities operating elsewhere, the Salon was transformed into a place of confrontation and competition, a place of sales, a place determining the extent of the social existence of the artist."[17]
References
- ^ Tinterow 1994b, pp. 304-305.
- ^ Eitner 1992, p. 369.
- ^ Tinterow 1994b, p. 306.
- ^ Tinterow 1994b, p. 453.
- ^ Distel 1995, pp. 21-24.
- ^ Duret 1910, pp. 160-169.
- ^ As cited in Chiliman Juvara 2009, pp. 343–348.
- ^ Cooper 1959b, p. 328.
- ^ Distel 1990, pp. 11-16.
- ^ Cooper 1959b, p. 328.
- ^ Bouret 1973, pp. 208, 234, 239, 255.
- ^ Cooper 1959a, p. 167.
- ^ Tinterow 1994b, p. 319.
- ^ Tinterow 1994a, p. 141.
- ^ a b Tinterow 1994a, p. 140.
- ^ a b c Roos 1996, p. 118-119.
- ^ Monnier 1995, p. 129, as cited in Maloon 2005, p. 244.
- ^ Tinterow 2003, p. 516.
- ^ Kingsley 1899, pp. 442–443.
- ^ Borgmeyer 1913, p. 146.
- ^ Distel 2010; Lucy & House 2012, pp. 2, 69; Patry 2022.
- ^ a b Lucy & House 2012, p. 69.
- ^ Tinterow 1994a p. 140; Distel 1995, p. 25.
- ^ Wintle 2009, p. 634.
- ^ Denvir 1993, p. 51-52; Distel 1995, pp. 24-26.
- ^ Tinterow 1994a p. 140; Loyrette 1994, p. 210.
- ^ House 2013, pp. 29-30.
- ^ Loyrette 1994, p. 210.
- ^ Duret 1910, p. 111; Borgmeyer 1913, p. 146.
- ^ Schneider 1958, p. 91.
- ^ Denvir 1990, p. 36.
- ^ Distel 1995, p. 25.
- ^ White 2010, p. 28.
- ^ Distel 1990, p. 53; House 1997, pp. 45-46; 57.
- ^ Alexandre 1892, pp. 13-14.
- ^ Meier-Graefe 1920, p. 10-12.
- ^ Patry 2022.
- ^ Parent 2000, p. 124.
- ^ Museum Folkwang 2022.
- ^ De Grada 1989, p. 14; Denvir 1993, p. 109; Duret 1878.
- ^ a b Christie's 2008.
- ^ House 1997, pp. 45-46; 57.
- ^ Whitmore 2014, pp. 346-347; 359.
- ^ Duret 1910, p. 162-163.
Bibliography
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- Borgmeyer, Charles Louis (March 1913). "The Master Impressionists (Chapter IV)." Fine Arts Journal, 28 (3): 146. doi:10.2307/25587164.
- Bouret, Jean (1973)[1972]The Barbizon School and 19th Century French Landscape Painting. Thames and Hudson. New York Graphic Society. OCLC 949368.
- Chiliman Juvara, Alexandra (2009). "Reședința Principelui George Bibescu de la Paris. Componente artistice", in Monumentul. Lucrările Simpozionului Național Monumentul – Tradiție și Viitor. XI: 341–348.
- Portrait de Lise (Lise tenant un bouquet de fleurs des champs) Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine. Christie's. June 24, 2008.
- Cooper, Douglas (May 1959a). "Renoir, Lise and the Le Cœur Family: A Study of Renoir's Early Development-1 Lise Archived 2019-03-02 at the Wayback Machine." The Burlington Magazine, 101 (674): 162–171. OCLC 53397979. (subscription required)
- Cooper, Douglas (Sept–Oct 1959b). "Renoir, Lise and the Le Cœur Family: A Study of Renoir's Early Development-II: The Le Cœurs." The Burlington Magazine, 101 (678/679): 320, 322–329. OCLC 53397979. (subscription required)
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- Denvir, Bernard (1993). The Chronicle of Impressionism. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 9780500236659. OCLC 954795365.
- Distel, Anne (1990). Impressionism: The First Collectors. Trans. by Barbara Perroud-Benson. Harry N. Abrams. p. 53. ISBN 0-8109-3160-5. OCLC 20566765.
- Distel, Anne (1995). Renoir: A Sensuous Vision. "Abrams Discoveries" series. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810928756. OCLC 34704757.
- Distel, Anne (2010). Renoir. Abbeville Press. pp. 23, 62–73. ISBN 978-0789210579. OCLC 435419243.
- Duret, Théodore (1910). Manet and the French Impressionists. Trans. by J. E. Crawford Flitch. G. Richards. OCLC 744658.
- Duret, Théodore (1878). Les peintres impressionistes: Claude Monet-Sisley- C. Pissarro-Renoir-Berthe Morisot. Librairie Parisienne. OCLC 1333449543.
- Eitner, Lorenz (1992). An Outline of 19th Century European Painting: From David through Cézanne. Volume I. Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-432976-3. OCLC 49225406.
- Feist, Peter H. (1987). Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841–1919: A Dream of Harmony. Taschen. ISBN 9783822800652. OCLC 19524758.
- House, John (1997). Pierre-Auguste Renoir: La Promenade Archived 2015-07-03 at the Wayback Machine. Getty Publications. pp. 17, 55, 57. ISBN 9780892363650. OCLC 37109128.
- House, John. (2013). "The Many Faces of Lise Tréhot: Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Portraits of Parisiennes Archived 2022-02-17 at the Wayback Machine." In Heather MacDonald (ed.) Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at the Dallas Museum of Art. The Richard R. Brettell Lecture Series. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18757-1. OCLC 844731572.
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- Maloon, Terence (2005). Camille Pissarro. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300115529. OCLC 68187386.
- Meier-Graefe, Julius (1920). Auguste Renoir. (in German) R. Piper. p. 10–14, 110. OCLC 697606917.
- Museum Folkwang - Collection Online Archived 2022-02-17 at the Wayback Machine. Essen. "Acquired in 1901 for the Museum Folkwang, Hagen, since 1922 Essen". Retrieved September 15, 2022.
- Parent, Thomas (2000). Das Ruhrgebiet: vom "goldenen" Mittelalter zur Industriekultur. DuMont Reiseverlag. ISBN 9783770131594. OCLC 237374514.
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- Strieter, Terry W. (1999). Nineteenth-century European Art: A Topical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29898-1. OCLC 185705650.
- Tinterow, Gary (1994a). "Figures in a Landscape". Origins of Impressionism Archived 2016-06-03 at the Wayback Machine. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 125–148. ISBN 9780870997174. OCLC 30623473
- Tinterow, Gary. Henri Loyrette (1994b). Origins of Impressionism Archived 2016-06-03 at the Wayback Machine. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 410, 454. ISBN 9780870997174. OCLC 30623473.
- Tinterow, Gary; Geneviève Lacambre (2003). Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9781588390400. OCLC 216911741.
- Turner, Jane (2000). The Grove Dictionary of Art: From Renaissance to Impressionism: Styles and Movements in Western Art 1400-1900. Macmillan. p. 163. ISBN 9780312229757. OCLC 43076942
- White, Barbara Ehrlich (2010). Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters. Abrams. ISBN 9780810996076. OCLC 503442731.
- Whitmore, Janet (Spring 2014). "Review: Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity Archived 2016-05-21 at the Wayback Machine." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, 13(1): 338-359. ISSN 1543-1002.
- Wintle, Justin (2009). "Renoir, Pierre-Auguste". The Concise New Makers of Modern Culture. Routledge. ISBN 9781134021390. OCLC 228374446.
Further reading
- Adams, Steven (1994). The Barbizon School & the Origins of Impressionism. Phaidon Press. ISBN 0-7148-2919-6. OCLC 34355336.
- Bailey, Colin B. (2007). Renoir landscapes: 1865-1883. National Gallery Company. ISBN 9781857093179. OCLC 72868889.
- Migliaccio, Luciano (2008). Marques, Luiz (ed.). Catalogue of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. MASP. Retrieved September 26, 2022.
- Vollard, Ambroise (1925). Renoir: An Intimate Record. Trans. by Harold L. Van Doren and Randolph T. Weaver. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780486264882. OCLC 23082906.
External links
- Description at the Museum Folkwang