RENOIR PIERRE - AUGUSTE

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) is now universally acclaimed: museumspride themselves on his paintings, crowds flock to his retrospectives. Hiswork shows art at its most light-hearted, sensual and luminous. Renoirnever wanted anything ugly in his paintings, nor any dramatic action. "Ilike pictures which make me want to wander through them when it's alandscape," he said, "or pass my hand over breast or back if it's awoman." Renoir's entire oeuvre is dominated by the depiction of women.Again and again he painted "these faunesses with their pouting lips"(Mallarme) and invented a new image of feminity.