RENOIR AN INTIMATE RECORD \ I 4 Ag <7 + Ae , tS OD ALANA od * ok eS . meg moereyines Dia ey JA eal dlp ody Se SO : fet Le SE ett eS Abn 6 Crh estoy 1.04 ils cnet amet ty PORTRAIT _OF A -YOUNGHGI Camondo Collection, Louvre Museum, Paris RENOIR AN INTIMATE RECORD BY AMBROISE VOLLARD AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY HAROLD L. VANDOREN AND RANDOLPH T. WEAVER eterna een nameene te meen mens mae ae neneminemurr | NEW YORK : ALFRED: A: KNOPF 1925 COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. Kh H MANUFAOTURED IN 1 3 ; TRANSLATORS’ NOTE Because of the irregular order of the episodes in the ensuing pages, a brief outline chronology of the life of the artist has been given to clarify any confusion which might ensue from the author’s arrangement. In addi- tion, there will be found a very condensed list of his principal works. Some of the longer footnotes have likewise been relegated to the appendices, in order to interrupt the narrative as little as possible. Only those which are indispensable to the text have been preserved in situ. Titles of pictures have been occasionally left in French where translation was difficult. The translators wish to express their sincere thanks to Messrs. Jean and Pierre Renoir, sons of the painter, Georges Riviere, author of Renoir et ses Amis, and J. Durand-Ruel, for valuable assistance in compiling the appendices. dvi ‘3 K At tay sae ES Mee cist Paving bie PRA OR hAuet . oe ’ ‘| st i rey ; OF tihad fe (eee See ae gach dnd)” aldidend pa aha \4 2 as Be 4 P ’ oi bepprenyie peed Sen tee afi Li St . a - on wh ieee wits ee we Veal Di tekeh aoe NGO, SVB ey Oks Ba ; - ieee SH PPLE tl EE 2 ee ag ae eal, ining, wet to eat, Ron af) ta t Death BS Sore et COS Hh Gaes eR «ole whe. t \ . 4 a ¢ ’ Rie 4 ¥ : 73 Ly “a Name ; ’ : a, Chat Oy vi FOREWORD The book presented herewith is in no sense a formal biography. It has been composed of a_ thousand touches: interrupted conversations with Renoir about the events of his life and the tendencies of ancient and modern art; observations of the characteristic gestures of the painter; details of his family and his circle of friends. The author has also endeavoured to present certain figures in the world of art: the collector- speculators, the snobs of painting, the critics, the mod- ern Mecenases. The classification of a great number of notes and the co-ordination of many disparate elements have been no easy task. But it is hoped that the reader will find in this intimate record, told almost entirely by the artist himself, something more than a mere biography. om a y t ious q we, a. CONTENTS How I Mabe THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR THE BEGINNINGS THE GLEYRE STUDIO “MoTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” La GRENOUILLERE DuRING THE War oF 1870 AND UNDER THE ComM- MUNE THE EXHIBITIONS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS “SERIOUS” PURCHASERS THE CAFE GUERBOIS, THE NOUVELLE ATHENES, THE CAFE TORTONI THE SALON OF MADAME CHARPENTIER EARLY TRAVELS THE IMPRESSIONIST THEORIES Renoir’s Dry MANNER THE TRIP TO SPAIN Lonpon, HoLLtanp, MunNIcH RENOIR AT PONT-AVEN THE PorTRAIT OF MapDAME MorisoT THE FAMILY EssovEs, CAGNES THE MobDELs AND THE Malps 15 22 30 42 49 55 61 71 81 88 99 I11 118 126 134 140 142 146 153 159 XX] XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI CONTENTS RENOIR AND His PATRONS PoRTRAIT OF A GREAT COLLECTOR ReENoIR Paints My PortTRAIT LUNCHEON WITH RopIN ARTISTS OF FoRMER Days THE Last YEARS APPENDIX [ APPENDIX II 172 178 189 205 215 221 227 234 ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL Frontispiece Lisa (1867) 18 Lisa (1869) 26 PorTRAIT OF CHOQUET (1876) 36 La Moutin DE LA GALETTE (1875) 46 MADAME CHARPENTIER AND HER CHILDREN (1878) 52 LUNCHEON OF THE BoOATMEN AT BOUGIVAL (1881) 62 THE SEINE AT ARGENTEUIL. (1873) 68 BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK (1889) 76 MoTHER AND CHILD (1888) 86 SKETCH FOR THE “BATHERS” OF 1885 94 SLEEPING GIRL WITH A CaT (1880) 104 THe UmpreELtas (1883) 116 BATHER (1891) 128 Boy Drawinc (1888) 138 La BOHEMIENNE 146 NursE AND CHILp (1903) 154 STILL LIFE : 164 _ STUDIES 176 GIRL WITH A TAMBOURINE—Drawing 182 THE APPLE VENDOR (1889) 190 ILLUSTRATIONS NuDE PorTRAIT OF CoLONNA Romano (1913) SLEEPING BATHER Renorr IN His 78TH YEAR Tue Sprinc (1912) 198 206 214 218 224 CHRONOLOGY; 1841. Born at Limoges, February 25. 1845. Removal of family to Paris. 1854. Apprenticed to a porcelain-decorator. 1858. Enters the studio of Gleyre. 1863. First picture exhibited at the Salon: Esmeralda. 1864. Exhibits at the Salon des Refusés, having been re- jected at the Salon. 1865-8. Frequent sojourns to the environs of the Forest of Fontainebleau: Marlotte, Chailly, Barbizon, etc. Meeting with Diaz. 1870-1. Franco-Prussian war. Enlists in the 10th chasseurs a cheval. 1871. Returns to Paris under the Commune. 1873. Meeting with Durand-Ruel, the first dealer to put any faith in his work. 1874. First exhibition of the Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers, later called the Impressionists. 1876. Disastrous sale organized by the Impressionists at the suggestion of Renoir at the Hotel Druot. 1877. Second exhibition of the Impressionists. (The Moulin de la Galette, The Swing and several other important canvases figured at this exhibition.) 1879. Trip to Algeria. 1880. Marriage. Trip to the Isle of Guernsey. 1880-1. Voyage to Italy. 1881. Second trip to Algeria. 1884-90. Experiments in fresco colour and painting on ce- ment: called the “dry” manner. CHRONOLOGY, 1890-3. Pont Aven. 1892. 1895. 1899. 1900. 1907. 1911. 1919. Retrospective exhibition at Durand-Ruel’s, and be- ginning of the public acceptance of his work. Trip to Spain. First attack of rheumatism which was later to deprive him of the use of his limbs. Decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour. (Later made an officer and finally a commander.) Purchase of Les Collettes and final establishment at - Cagnes. (Previous to this, one year was spent at Cannet and three at Magagnosc.) Permanently confined to his wheel chair. Died at Cagnes, December 3. Renoir is buried at Essoyes. RENOIR AN INTIMATE RECORD A Agreed Cy gare > - a = A - ; . * a > 2 ‘ * ~~ 5 7 5 * , a , 2 Pee 5 . - = \ _ : . . ; ; = “ 4 * - \ ¥ = * *% & ’ - : = J» 4 . , — aoe ‘ ry aan aif ie te de ; a = as 4 s : ? a ¢ - 4 =~ Z i 4 ¢ g i; " ; ! 4 P 7 5 2 r ws CHAPTER ONE HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR I WANTED to know who had posed for a Manet in my possession. It was a canvas representing a man seated on a camp-stool in a pathway of the Bois de Boulogne, wearing a grey hat, a mauve jacket, a yellow vest, white trousers, and varnished pumps—and I nearly forgot to mention a rose in his buttonhole. I had been told that Renoir would know who it was, so | set out to look for him. I found that he was then living in an old house in Montmartre called The Chateau in the Mist. In the garden I found a housemaid, dressed in bohemian fash- ion; she told me to wait, and pointed to the hallway of the house. Just then a young woman appeared, who was as buxom and amiable as one of those pastels by Perroneau of some good lady of the time of Louis XV. It was Madame Renorr. “Oh, didn’t the maid ask you to come in? . . . Gabrielle!” The maid was taken aback by her mistress’s tone of rebuke. | “But it’s all muddy outside! And La Boulangére? forgot to put the mat back in front of the door!” Madame Renoir went to call her husband, leaving 1“The Bakery Girl,” the nickname of one of Renoir’s servants. RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD me in the dining-room, where | found the finest Renoirs I had yet seen on the walls. The painter soon came in. It was the first time that I had ever seen him. He was a spare man, sharp- eyed, and very nervous, giving one the impression that he never stood still. I explained the occasion of my visit. “Your man is Monsieur Brun, a friend of Manet’s,” he said. “But we can talk better upstairs. Will you come up to the studio?” Renoir showed me into the most commonplace sort of room. There were two or three badly matched pieces of furniture, a mass of coloured stuffs, and some straw hats, which the painter was apparently accustomed to crumple in his fingers while posing the models. Can- vases everywhere, stacked one against the other. Near the model’s chair I observed a pile of copies— their wrappers unbroken—of La Revue Blanche, an “advanced” magazine very popular'with the public. I remembered having read many a eulogy of Impression- ist art in its pages. “That is a very interesting magazine,’ I observed. “Yes, indeed,” Renoir replied. “My friend Natan- son sends it to me; but | must confess that I’ve never looked at the thing.” And as I reached out to pick up a copy, Renoir ex- claimed: “Don’t touch them! I put them there for the model to rest her foot on.” Renoir had sat down before his easel and opened his colour-box. I was amazed at the order and clean- 16 HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR liness of it: palette, brushes, tubes flattened and rolled up as they were emptied—all gave an impression of an almost feminine neatness. I told the painter how delighted I had been with the two nudes in the dining-room. “They are studies of the maids. Some of our serv- ants have had admirable figures, and have posed like angels. But I must admit I’m not hard to please. I had just as lief paint the first old crock that comes along, just so long as she has a skin that takes the light. I don’t see how artists can paint those over-bred females they call society women! Have you ever seen a society woman whose hands were worth painting? A woman’s hands are lovely—if they are accustomed . to housework. At the Farnesina in Rome there is a Venus Supplicating Jupiter, by Raphael. What mar- velous hands and arms! She looks like a great, healthy housewife snatched for a moment from her kitchen to pose for Venus! That’s why Stendhal thought that Raphael’s women were common and gross.” My visit was cut short by the arrival of a model. I said good-bye, and asked if I might come again. “As often as you like! But come preferably towards evening when I have finished my work.” Renoir’s existence was ordered like that of a bank employé. He went to his studio just as punctually as a clerk to his office. In the evening, after a game of chequers or dominoes with Madame Renoir, he went to bed early; he was afraid it would affect his work the 17 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD next day if he stayed up late. All his life, painting was his only pleasure, his only relaxation. I remember in 1911 meeting Madame Renoir as she was coming out of a hospital where Renoir was to be operated on. “How is he getting along?” I asked. “The operation has been put off until to-morrow,” she replied. “I’m afraid you will have to excuse me. I am in a great hurry. . . . My husband has sent me to get his paints. He wants to do the flowers that were brought to him this morning.” Renoir worked at these flowers the entire day and all the next morning until it was time to go on the operating-table. Another time, in 1916 (Renoir had passed his seventy-fifth birthday), during the course of a visit to his home in Cagnes, I was struck by his sudden look of discouragement. | asked about the canvas he was then working on. “There’s no use, I can’t paint,” he answered. “I’m no good for anything any more.” He closed his eyes dispiritedly, and I went down into the garden for fear | was not wanted. A moment later I heard La Grande Louise ? calling me. “Monsieur Renoir wants you in the studio,” she said. I found him at his easel, radiant. He was struggling with some dahlias. “Look, Vollard, isn’t that almost as gorgeous as a Delacroix battle-piecer I think this time I’ve got the secret of painting! . . . What a pity that every bit 2An old servant of the Renoirs. 18 LISA (1867) Folkwang Museum, Hagen, Westphalia . Ss ,» HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR of progress one makes is only a step towards the grave! If I could only live long enough to do a masterpiece!” It is easy to imagine how eager I was to take advan- tage of Renoir’s invitation to come again. The follow- ing week I called after dinner. This time he had just gone to bed! “I was all alone this evening,” he ex- plained, “‘so I went to bed earlier than usual. Gabrielle is going to read me La Dame de Monsoreau. You're invited to the party.” But La Dame de Monsoreau could not be found. “Well, then, Gabrielle,’ said Renoir, “see what there is in the library.” Gabrielle opened a little bookcase where twenty or more books were lying in a heap, and began reading the titles aloud: “Cruelle Enigme, Peint par Eux-Mémes, Lettres a Francoise, Les Confessions dun Amant, Deuxiéme Amour, Les Fleurs du Mal...” Renoir, interrupting: “I detest that book above all others! I have no idea who brought that here. If you had heard Mounet Sully (I think he was the one) re- cite La Charogne, at Madame Charpentier’s, as I did, with all those silly asses gushing around about it! ... It’s just as bad as the rest of the stuff Gabrielle was reading over. My friends are always trying to make me read a lot of rubbish.” Gabrielle continued: “Mon Frére Yves, La Chanson des Gueux, Les Misérables .. .” Renoir, who was listening indifferently, waved his hand in a gesture of annoyance on hearing this last title. 19 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD “They say that Hugo’s poetry is very beautiful,” | observed. “Anyone would be a fool to say that Hugo is not a man of genius,” Renoir replied, “but as far as I’m con- cerned, I don’t like him. The chief grievance I have against him is that he has got the French people out of the habit of using simple language. Gabrielle, I want you to get me La Dame de Monsoreau to-morrow without fail.” Then, turning to me: “There’s a masterpiece for you! . ... The chapter in which Chicot blesses the pro- cession is simply superb!” “Oh, Monsieur Renoir!’ cried Gabrielle suddenly. “T’ve found a book by Alexandre Dumas.” Renoir’s face brightened. “Good. . Let’s have a look at it.” But when Gabrielle announced triumphantly La Dame aux Camélias, Renoir exclaimed: “Never! I detest everything the younger Dumas wrote, and that book more than all the others. I have always had a horror of sentimental harlotry.” On top of the side-board in the dining-room, I saw a little coffee service and two porcelain candlesticks, decorated by hand. Any industrious young girl might have painted them. I presumed that they were a gift of some kind. Renoir saw me looking at them. “Those are the only souvenirs I have left of my china- painting days,’ he said. And he proceeded to tell me something about his youth. It interested me so profoundly that I adopted 20 HOW I MADE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF RENOIR the plan of asking the painter, every time I saw him, to tell me something about his life. This, then, is the story of the career of a great painter, told in his own words and set down faithfully from day to day. 21 CHAPTER TWO THE BEGINNINGS Renoir: I was born at Limoges in 1841. There is a legend about the name Renoir which has been handed down in our family from generation to generation. My grandmother often recounted how my grandfather, a man of noble birth, whose family perished during the Reign of Terror, was picked up as a child and adopted by a shoemaker called Renoir. However that may be, my father, at the time I came into the world, was a poor tailor, and, being hard put to it to make a living in Limoges, went to seek his fortune in Paris. Dont ask me to tell you about Limoges. I was scarcely four years old when I left the place, and I have never been back. At Paris we lived in a house situated in that part of the Rue d’Argenteuil which, in extension across the Place de la Carrousel, was included within the wings of the Louvre. At the public school to which I was sent, my teachers reprimanded me for spending my time drawing pictures in my copy-books; but my parents, contrary to all tradi- tions, were quite happy over it, for immediately they had hopes of my becoming a china-painter. Inasmuch as my father came from a city famous for its porcelain, ps THE BEGINNINGS it was natural that the profession of china-painting should seem the finest in the world in his eyes, finer even than music, which the music professor at school— who was none other than Gounod, then about thirty years old—urged me to follow. When it was fully decided that I was to become an “artist,” I was apprenticed to a manufacturer of glazed ware. At thirteen I was earning my own living. The work consisted in painting little bouquets on a white background. For this I was paid five cents a dozen. When there were large pieces to decorate, the bouquets were larger. From then on, prices went up—a trifling amount to be sure—for a wise employer mustn’t spoil his men with too much gold. ... The entire output was sent to Oriental countries, and, | may add, the “Sévres” trademark was stamped on the back of each piece before it was shipped. When I was a little more sure of myself, I was pro- moted from bouquets to portraits, always at starvation wages. I remember that the profile of Marie Antoinette brought me eight sous. The shop where I worked was situated in the Rue du Temple. I had to be there by eight o'clock in the morning. At ten I ran to the Louvre to sketch from the antique, for recreation, until noon. As for my meals, I managed to eat a bite wher- ever my errands took me. One day I found myself in the Halles quarter and, in hunting for one of those wine-shops where they serve fried food and beef, I stopped spellbound in front of the Fountain of the Innocents by Jean Goujon, which I had never even noticed before. I at once decided to 23 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD forego the wine-shop, and after buying a bit of sausage at a near-by store, I spent my hour of freedom studying the fountain from every angle. Perhaps because of this encounter long ago, I have always had a very special affection for Jean Goujon. He has purity, naiveté, elegance; and at the same time the form it- self is amazingly solid. The sculpture of our day looks as if it had been carved out of soap; the old sculptors hacked out the stone themselves with a heavy mallet and a chisel, but they gave you the texture of flesh. Germain Pilon tried to emulate Goujon, but he made a sorry job of it. For one thing, his draperies are too complicated. And drapery is terribly hard to do well! Goujon knew how to make it cling to the figure. One doesn’t realize how much drapery brings out the form. After the luncheon hour, I used to return to the shop, where I painted my cups and dishes till nightfall. But that was not all. After dinner I would go to the house of an old sculptor, a good old soul who made models of vases for my employer. He was very friendly to me and proved his interest by having me copy his models. My apprenticeship lasted four years. I was seven- teen then and I saw before me the magnificent career of a painter of porcelain at six francs a day. Then a catastrophe occurred which ruined my dreams of the future. The first experiments in printing on faiences and por- celain had just been made; the infatuation of the public for this new process knew no bounds .. . invaria- bly the case when hand-work is replaced by ma- chinery! Our shops had to close, and I tried to compete 24 THE BEGINNINGS with the machine-made product by working for the same prices. But I was soon obliged to give it up. The dealers to whom I showed my cups and saucers all seemed to have conspired against me. “Oh, that’s hand-made,” they would say. “Our clientele prefers machine-work. It’s more even.’ So I began decorating fans with copies of Watteau, Lancret, and Boucher. I even used Watteau’s Embarkation for Cythera! I was brought up, you see, on the eighteenth century French masters. To be more precise, Boucher’s Diana at the Bath was the first picture that took my fancy, and I have clung to it all my life as one does to one’s first love. I have been told many a time that I ought not to like Boucher, because “he is only a decorator.’ As if be- ing a decorator made any difference! Why, Boucher is one of the painters who best understood the female body. What fresh, youthful buttocks he painted, with the most enchanting little dimples! It’s odd that people are never willing to give a man credit for what he can do. They say: “I like Titian better than Boucher.” Good Lord, so do I! But that has nothing to do with the fact that Boucher painted lovely women superbly. A painter who has the feel for breasts and buttocks is saved! Here is an anecdote that will amuse you. One day I was admiring a Fragonard—a shepherdess in a cap- tivating little skirt which itself made the entire picture —when I heard someone remark that shepherd girls were probably just as slovenly then as they are now. What do you think of that! Wouldn’t you admire an 25 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD artist the more who can take a filthy model and give you a jewel? Vollard: And what about Chardin? Renoir: Chardin makes me sick. He has done some pretty still-lifes, perhaps. .. . But I was telling you about my fans. They were fortunately not my only source of income. My elder brother, who was an engraver, sometimes obtained coats of arms for me to copy. I remember doing a Saznt George with a Shield. On the shield I drew another Saint George in the same position, and so on until the last shield and the last St. George could be seen only with the aid of a magnifying-glass. But the fans and the Saint Georges brought in very little, and I hardly knew which way to turn, when one day I saw at the back of a court-yard in the Rue Dauphine a large café, enclosed in glass, with painters at work decorating the walls. As I came nearer, I heard a dispute going on: the employer was cursing and storming at his lazy workmen, because the paintings in his café were not going to be done in time. I immediately offered to do the decorations myself. “Oh, I need at least three men, and I want regular workmen,” said the proprietor contemptuously, for I was small and slightly built. : But without waiting for further objections, | took up a brush and showed him to his delight that I could paint as fast as any three workmen. When I finished the frescoes in the café, I went back to my fans without much enthusiasm, promising myself to get out of that kind of thing at the first op- 26 LISA (1869) Josef Stransky Collection, New York THE BEGINNINGS portunity. The opportunity soon came. As I was passing a shop I saw a little sign pasted on the door: PAINTER WANTED FOR WINDOW SHADES. I went in. “Where have you worked?” asked the proprietor. I was taken by surprise and said “Bordeaux” at a hazard. I had presence of mind enough to name a place far away, for I was afraid he would want to look up my references. But he evidently had some other idea in mind, for all he said was: “Bring mea sample of what you can do. Good-bye, young man.” Before leaving, | had time to talk with one of the employés, who seemed to be a good sort, and I asked him for information about painting shades. “Come and see me at my house next Sunday,” he answered. My first question was to find out if the boss was a good sort. “Oh, he’s a fine man,” came the reply. “He’s my uncle.” , After much hesitation, I confessed that I had never painted window shades. “It’s not very hard,” he said. “Have you ever done the figurer’ [I commenced to breathe again. It was reassuring to find that painting shades was not unlike other kinds of painting—about all you had to do was to add a certain quantity of turpentine to the colour. This particular shade-maker worked for missionaries who carried with them rolls of calico painted with re- ligious subjects in imitation of stained-glass windows. When the missionaries reached their destination, they ad RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD unrolled the calico around four upright poles, which gave the Negroes the illusion of being in a real church. Before long I had dashed off a superb Virgin with Magi and Cherubim. My instructor could not conceal his admiration. “How would you like to try a Sz. Vincent de Paul?’ he asked. 1 must explain that in the Virgin pictures the background consisted of clouds which were done easily enough by rubbing the canvas with a cloth, but if you didn’t know the trick, the colour ran down into your sleeves. Whereas the St. Vincents required more skill. This personage was generally represented giving alms at the church-door, which re- quired painting a certain amount of architecture. I emerged from the second test victoriously, and was engaged on the spot. I took the place of an old em- ployé the glory of the studio, who was sick and showed no signs of recovery. “If you follow in his footsteps,” said my new boss, “you will some day be as fine an art- ist as he.” Only one thing worried my employer. He liked my work and even went so far as to confess that he had never found such a clever hand; but he knew the value of money and it disturbed him that I should be making it so easily, for we were paid by the piece. My prede- cessor, who was always held up to new-comers as the perfect example, never painted anything without long preparation and a careful preliminary sketch. When the boss saw me paint in my figures directly on the bare cloth, he was aghast: ‘What a pity it is that you are so anxious to make money! You'll find that in the long run you will lose your skill.” , 28 THE BEGINNINGS When he was finally forced to admit that the “squar- ing’ process could be discarded, he wanted to cut down the prices. But his nephew advised me to stick to my guns. “He can’t get along without you,” he said. When I had put by a tidy little sum, however, | decided to say good-bye to the shade-maker. You can imagine how upset he was. He even promised me a partnership if I would stay on. The offer was tempt- ing, but I did not allow myself to be persuaded, and, having saved enough to live on for a while (if I were not extravagant), I went to learn “serious painting’ at Gleyre’s studio, where I could work from a living model. 29 CHAPTER THREE THE GLEYRE STUDIO RENoIR: I chose the Gleyre studio because I wanted to be with my friend Laporte, whom I had known as a child. I might have stayed on with the window- shade maker if Laporte had not begged me so often to join him. Our comradeship did not last, however; our interests were too dissimilar. But I am more than grateful to Laporte for having influenced me to turn seriously towards painting, which resulted in my meeting Monet, Sisley and Bazille. Gleyre was Swiss; he was a very estimable painter ! but of no help to his pupils; he had the merit, however, of leaving them pretty much to their own devices. Be- fore long I met the three artists whom I just mentioned. Bazille, after giving high promise, was shot down in the first battle of 1870, while still a young man. The public has barely begun to do him justice. The first buyers of “Impressionism” did not take Bazille’s work very seriously, doubtless because he was rich. Vollard: What painters were your group most drawn tor R.: Monet, being a native of Havre, had known Jongkind there and admired him a great deal; Sisley 1 The painter of Lost Illusions in the Louvre. 30 THE GLEYRE STUDIO was influenced chiefly by Corot; my hero was Diaz. His pictures have become very black, but in those days they sparkled like precious stones. V.: Did you ever work at the Beaux Arts? R.: ‘The Beaux Arts was far from being what it is to-day. There were only two courses then, one in draw- ing, from eight o'clock until ten in the evening; the other in anatomy. From time to time the School of Medicine near by would obligingly lend a corpse to the anatomy class. Sometimes I attended these two classes, but I really learned the elementary technique of paint- ing at Gleyre’s. V.: What instructors did you have at the Beaux ArtsP : R.:; The only one I remember particularly was Signol. One day I was drawing a cast from the antique. When he came to me he exclaimed: ‘Don’t you realize that the big toe of Germanicus ought to have more majesty than the big toe of the coal dealer round the corner?’ He walked away muttering solemnly: “The big toe of Germanicus .. .” Just at that moment, somebody at the easel next to me, dissatisfied with his drawing, muttered an oath which Signol thought was intended for him. What is more, he imagined that I was responsible for it. He had me expelled instantly. An oil study that I had brought to his class aroused his antagonism the very first day; he was fairly beside himself on account of an ugly red that I had used in my picture. “Look out you don’t become another Delacroix!” he warned me sar- castically. 31 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD V.: But people are beginning to get used to your colour now. In fact, they are even beginning to like it. At the Luxembourg one day, I made the acquaintance of a connoisseur who was fairly bursting with enthusi- asm. “Renoir is the very God of colour!” he declared. But I must tell you frankly that your drawing did not please him as much. Later he stopped in front of the Mater Dolorosa and exclaimed: ‘Wonderful drawing, you'll have to admit! What a pity that Renoir cannot combine that magical colour of his with Bouguereau’s draughtsmanship!” R.: There is nothing more absurd than a “‘connois- seur.” [once overheard two of your so-called connois- seurs discussing a picture. “No doubt it has excellent qualities,” said one, “but is it a genre picture or a historical pictureP” And the necktie magnate—lI can't remember his name—was even worse; you know, the fellow who used to buy Gustave Moreaus. He took me to his villa in the suburbs of Paris and showed me two wretched little pictures signed Corot, and then, when I suggested some doubt as to their authenticity, he said: “Oh, well, they’re good enough for the country!” I could paint with molasses now, and everybody would praise my brilliant colour; but you should have seen the dirty colour on my palette when people were already beginning to call me revolutionary! I must admit that I floundered about in bitumen without any great enthusiasm. I was encouraged in the bad habit by a picture dealer, the first one to give me any com- 32 THE GLEYRE STUDIO missions. Much later I found out why my black period was so popular. In the course of a trip to England, I made the acquaintance of a collector who claimed that he owned a Rousseau. He took me to his house, and, having made me tiptoe, by way of respect for the mas- ters work, into the room where the picture was en- shrined, he threw back a hanging from a huge frame, and in a hushed voice said: ‘Behold!” “It’s a bit black, isn’t it?” I ventured, recognizing one of my own early products. He repressed a smile at my lack of taste, and launched into such a eulogy of his treasure that I could not refrain from telling him that I was responsible for it. I was really annoyed at the result: the worthy Englishman suddenly changed his tune; he proceeded to let loose a torrent of abuse on the dealer who had sold it. The effrontery of the man, to have foisted a Renoir on him for a Rousseau! (And I had fancied that my name was getting to be known —for all this took place at a time when I had long since abandoned the use of bitumen. ) One of the chief reasons why I stopped painting “black” was my encounter with Diaz. I met him under very curious circumstances, on a day when I was working in the Forest of Fontainebleau, where I used to go in the summer to paint landscapes with Sisley. In those days, even when working out of doors, | wore the blouse which porcelain-decorators usually wear in the shops. On this particular day I got into a quarrel with some loafers who were making fun of my costume. I got mad, and that only made things worse. At this mo- 33 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD ment a man came up, who, though hampered by a wooden leg, succeeded in putting the rascals to rout with the aid of a heavy cane, which he handled with great skill. When I thanked him, he said: “I am a painter too. My name is Diaz.” I told him my ad- miration for his work and fearfully showed him the canvas I was then doing. “It’s not badly drawn,” he said. (That was perhaps the only time I have ever heard my draughtsmanship praised!) “But why the devil do you paint so blackP”’ I immediately began another landscape, and tried to render the light on the trees, in the shadows, and on the ground as it really appeared to me. “Youre crazy!” exclaimed Sisley when he saw my picture. “The idea of making trees blue and the ground purple!” V.: When did you exhibit at the Salon for the first timer | | R.: In 1863. A big canvas of mine was accepted in that year. Oddly enough | was championed by Cabanel, who was chairman of the Jury. Not that he cared for my work. On the contrary, he declared that he thoroughly disliked it. “But in spite of that,” he hastened to add, “it is an effort which ought to be recognized.” The canvas represented Esmeralda danc- ing with her goat around a fire, surrounded by a circle of beggars. I remember the reflections of the flame and the great shadows on the cathedral. After the Salon was over, I destroyed it, partly because it was too cumbersome, and partly because I had conceived a distaste for bitumen, which I had not yet discarded 34 THE GLEYRE STUDIO when it was painted. Just my luck! The same day an Englishman, who wanted that very picture, came to see me. I can honestly say that the Esmeralda was the last thing I ever painted with bitumen. My friends at Gleyre’s had braved the Salon the same year, but they were less fortunate. Other painters, much better known than I, had also been refused that year, from Manet down. The way they were treated gave rise to such protests in the press that the Emperor Napoleon III consented to a Salon des Refusés being held in one of the rooms in the Louvre. But a member of the Academy was given charge of it. It goes without saying that the exhibitors were given the worst rooms in the museum. Yet nowadays there would be small chance either of a Minister of the Beaux Arts authorizing such an exhibition in the Louvre, or a Bonnat agreeing to organize it. They were very liberal under the Em- pire. But there were not so many painters at that time as now, although even then they were beginning to be a nuisance. The reply that Balzac made when asked to write up a Salon during the reign of Louis Philippe is indicative: ‘You don’t expect a man to look at four hundred pictures, do your” It goes without saying that the Salon des Refusés was a huge joke from the public’s point of view. Manet had sent his Al Fresco Luncheon. This canvas had just been refused at the Salon, as much on account of the actual painting, which was considered bad, as the subject, which was thought somewhat indecent. Appar- ently the members of the jury were unaware not only that 35 . RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD Manet had borrowed one of the subjects of the great Venetian school but also that his nude woman was practically a copy from Raphael. It was that year also (1863) that I met Cézanne. At that time I had a little studio in the Rue de la Condamine in the Batignolles quarter, which I shared with Bazille. Bazille came in one day accompanied by two young men. “I’ve brought you two fine re- cruits!” he announced, They were Cézanne and Pissarro. I came to know them both intimately later on, but it was Cézanne who made the sharpest impression on my mind. I do not believe that a case like Cézanne’s is to be found in the whole history of art. Think of his living to the age of sixty-six, and, from the first day he took a brush in his hand, remaining as isolated as if he were on a desert island! And then, along with a passionate love for his art, was that strange indifference to the fate of his pictures, once they were done, even when he was lucky enough to “realize.” 2 Can you picture Cézanne having to wait for a purchaser to be sure of his next meal if he had not had an income? Can you imagine him forcing a complacent smile for an “amateur” who dared disparage Delacroix? And with all that, he was “so unpractical in the ways of the world,” as he himself used to say. One day I met him carrying a picture one end of which was dragging along the ground. “There’s not a 2 “Realizing” a picture was Cézanne’s picturesque way of saying that he had succeeded in translating satisfactorily the impressions he received from Nature. (Trans. Note.) 36 . ET (1876) PORTRAIT OF CHOQU Durand 1S Pari ton -Ruel Collect THE GLEYRE STUDIO cent left in the house!” he informed me. “I’m going to try to sell this canvas. It’s pretty well realized, don’t you think?” (It was the famous Bathers of the Caillebotte Collection—a superb thing!) A few days later | met Cézanne again. ‘My dear Renoir,” he said feelingly, “I am so happy! I’ve had great success with my picture. It has been taken by someone who really likes it!” “What luck!” I said to myself. “He’s found a buyer.” The “buyer” was Cabaner,® a poor devil of a musician, who had all he could do to earn four or five francs a day. Cézanne had met him in the street, and Cabaner went into such ecstasies over the canvas that the painter made him a present of it. I shall never forget the good times I had at Cézanne’s home in the Midi, called the Jas de Bouffan (Home of the Winds). It was a lovely eighteenth-century place. Those were the days when they built really livable houses. There were great high-ceilinged rooms, and it was delightful to sit in front of a huge fire-place with a screen at your back. What fine fennel soups Cézanne’s mother used to make for us! It seems only yesterday that I heard her giving her recipe: “Now take a branch of fennel, a teaspoonful of olive oil . . .” and so on. What a fine person she was! Renoir went on: ~- I have told you about the Salon of 8 For further information about Cabaner, see Paul Cézanne, His Life and His Art, by Ambroise Vollard, translated by Harold L. Van Doren. (Nicholas L. Brown, New York, 1923.) - 37 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD 1863. I was not so fortunate the following year, and therefore I had to exhibit at the Refusés. This time, the Refusés was not much of a success. . In 1865, how- ever, I had the good fortune to be again admitted to the Salon of Cabanel, with a picture of a young man walking in the forest of Fontainebleau, accompanied by his dogs; the painter Lecceur posed for it. It was done with the knife, a method which does not suit me very well, and which I rarely use. I remember, however, having painted in the same year a life-size nude, also with the knife. It was intended to be nothing more than a study of the nude. But the picture was thought improper, so I put a bow in the model’s hand and a doe at her feet. I added an animal skin to make it less blatantly naked, and the picture became a Diana! But even then I did not succeed in selling it. A pros- pective buyer appeared one day, but we couldn’t come to any agreement, for he wanted to buy the doe only, and I did not propose to “retail” my canvas. This conversation took place during a walk in the woods at Louveciennes. Suddenly Renoir stopped and pointed to a near-by hillock. “I know only three artists who could paint those trees and that sky—Claude Lorrain, Corot, and Cézanne.” | By chance one day I met the painter Laporte, the friend of Renoir’s youth to whom Renoir attributed his decision to become a painter. Madame Ellen Andrée, who had posed for some of Renoir’s finest studies, asked me to take luncheon with 38 THE GLEYRE STUDIO her one day at her house at Ville d’Avray. “We shall dine out of doors under the rose arbour, and we shall talk of Renoir,” she said. I accepted with infinite pleasure. In that delightful garden where everything grows haphazard—Mon Paradou, as Madame Andrée used to call it—I was presented to a well-preserved, elderly gentleman who had all the traditional glamour of the artist: a soft hat with a wide brim, and a romantic- looking cape. It was Laporte. At table, one of the guests, Henri Dumont, a painter of delicate flower pictures, began praising Renoir’s work. “You mean Renoir the Impressionist?” the old gentle- man demanded. “I knew him well in my youth; in fact we were quite intimate. If you see him, ask him about his friend Laporte; he will surely remember me. In those days I used to paint church windows for my daily bread, and very bitter bread it was, if you realize that I was already a confirmed free-thinker.” “Do you own any of Renoir’s pictures?” I asked. “Yes, I have a Rose that he gave me once, and in exchange I made him a present of a Sheep painted in bitumen, a study from nature that I was rather pleased with. But I soon got out of touch with Renoir. Life . women . . . separated us.” “T thought that Renoir regarded women only as subjects for painting,” I said. “Well, J don’t feel that way about them,’ replied Monsieur Laporte sharply. ‘Indeed, when I started falling in love, I began to neglect my friends a bit.” 39 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD After a pause, he went on: ‘“‘Renoir’s weak point is his drawing, don’t you think? Heaven knows I begged him often enough to guard against it! I have always hada great weakness for David. There’s a painter who doesn’t trifle with line! If Renoir had listened to me and had paid as much attention to drawing as to colour, who knows if he might not have become another David, like my eminent friend Lecomte du Nouy! I once said to Renoir: ‘You must make yourself draw!’ and do you know what he replied? ‘I am like a cork thrown into a stream and tossed about on the current. When I paint I just let myself go completely.’ ” “In any case, Renoir seems to have succeeded rather well,” I observed. Laporte thought I was speaking of the prices Renoirs were bringing. “Yes, if you count the sales at the Hotel des Ventes as cash! But you can’t fool an old hand like me! I know only too well how little that means. And do you know what I’ve just heard? The dealers are encouraging their artists to run into debt in order to keep them well in hand!” Later I found another acquaintance of Renoir’s youth. My housekeeper had said to me: “I see by the paper that the pictures by this Monsieur Renoir who comes here, sell for big prices. There’s a gentleman in the house where I work sometimes, used to know Monsieur Renoir . . . he’s a janitor on the Grand Boulevards.” I went to the address she gave me. “Renoir?” said the janitor. “I saw his picture in a paper the other day and I recognized him right away. Fifty years ago we used 40 THE GLEYRE STUDIO to eat in the same creamery. There were several of us painters at the same table. . . . Renoir was always talking about painting. He took me with him to the Louvre once or twice. At that time I was clerking for a painting and decorating firm which has since. . .” “But do you remember anything Renoir said?” I interrupted. “Like it was yesterday, sir. At our table, for instance, we'd agreed that each day a different person was to get the marrowbone, but every day Renoir said it was his turn!” He became silent; his recollections of the painter ended there. 4] CHAPTER FOUR “MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” Renoir: A picture of mine called Mother Anthony's Cabaret brings back some of the most agreeable mem- ories of my life. Not that I find the canvas particularly exciting in itself, but it reminds me of good old Mother Anthony and her inn at Marlotte, a real village inn. The subject of the picture is the common room, which did double duty as dining-room and lounge. The old lady with the kerchief round her head is Mother An- thony herself. The handsome young girl handing round the drinks is the servant Nana. The frizzly white dog is ““Toto”—who had a wooden paw! I got some of my friends to pose around the table, among them Sisley and Leceur. The motifs in the background of the picture were borrowed from sketches actually painted on the wall. These ‘frescoes,’ unpretentious but often quite successful, were the work of the artist habitués of the place. I myself painted the profile of Miirger,* which appears in Mother Anthony's Cabaret, high up at the left. Some of these decorations pleased me in- finitely, and I made Mother Anthony promise never to have them scraped away. I thought that I had saved them from destruction by telling her that if the house 1The author of La Bohbéme was a familiar figure in Marlotte. 42 “MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” were one day demolished, she could get a good price for her “frescoes.” The following summer I settled in Chailly, a village near Marlotte, where I painted Lise (1866). One day as I was working sur le motif, as Cézanne would have said, I overheard one of a group of young men near by talking about me. “The nerve of this fellow Renoir!” he said. ‘“He’s had those funny pictures scraped off, so he could put one of his own big blobs in their place!’ I hurried to the inn. It seems that Henri Regnault, who was already celebrated, had stopped for a few days at Mother Anthony’s, and was appalled by the vulgarity of the decorations: some art student had taken it upon himself to turn the nude backsides of an old woman into the face of an old soldier, with whiskers and a peaked cap! “Scrape out those horrible things at once!’ Regnault had exclaimed. “I will paint you something really artistic.” Mother Anthony, taking him at his word, had a man come in to clean them off; but Regnault departed with- out giving his promise a second thought. To cover the bareness of the wall, she then decided to use the canvas I had left when I went away the previous summer, and which had been put away in the garret. Vollard: Was the Lise, which you just mentioned, accepted by the Salonr R.: Yes, in 1867, the year of the World’s Fair. That year I also did a picture of a garden at the World’s Fair grounds, which was not finished until 1868. This 43 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD inoffensive picture was considered too daring for the Salon. For many years it remained in a corner at Louveciennes, where my family was living. The World’s Fair was not the only sensation of 1867 ——the private exhibitions of Courbet and Manet were also held that year! V.: Did you know Courbet? R.: Yes, quite well. He was the most astounding man you can possibly imagine. I shall never forget an incident at his exhibition of 1867.2. He had built a kind of balcony or soupente, on which he slept and from which he could watch his exhibition. When the first visitors arrived, he was just getting dressed. . In order not to miss any of the public’s enthusiasm, he came down in his flannel undershirt, not even taking time to put on the rest of his clothes, which he still carried in his hand. There he stood, in grave contemplation of his own pictures, and exclaimed: “How beautiful! How magnificent! It’s incredible! It’s enough to take your breath away!” And he kept repeating: “Incredible! Incredible!” At some exhibition where his pictures had been hung near the entrance, he is said to have remarked: “How stupid of them! There’s such a crowd, you can’t even get in!” This kind of admiration, mind you, he reserved for 2The Jury of the World’s Fair had refused to admit Courbet’s pictures. With characteristic energy he rented a vacant lot just out- side the Exposition grounds, had a small wooden building erected, put a large sign over the door reading: “G. Courbet, Painter,” and managed his own exhibition. (Trans. Note.) 44 “MOTHER ANTHONY’S CABARET” bis work only. One day he tried his best to compliment Monet, with whom he was very intimate. “Your Salon picture is pretty bad, you know,” said Courbet. “But Lord! how it’s going to annoy the Jury!” V.: Do you like Courbet’s work yourself? R.; His early things, yes. But as soon as he be- came ‘Monsieur’ Courbet .. .” V.: By the way, what about the picture that is so much talked about, Good Morning, Monsieur Courbet? R.: I always get the impression from it that the painter must have spent months in front of a mirror “finishing off’ that beard of his. And poor little Bruyas stands there bent over as if he were out in the rain, doing his best to keep from getting wet. But take the Demoiselles de la Seine, on the other hand. There’s a magnificent picture for you! It is hard to believe that the man who painted the portrait of Prud’hon, and the curates on their donkeys, painted that! V.: I heard some Courbet admirers say that the donkey picture is inferior to the others only because Courbet did not have real priests pose for it, but dressed up some models in clerical clothes—in short, that the natural quality indispensable to Courbet was lacking. R.; Another of Courbet’s manias—Nature! I wish you could have seen the studio he fixed up to “do Na- ture,” with a calf tied to the model stand! V.: Have you ever heard the story about the young artist who came to Courbet for an opinion on a Head of Christ that he had painted? Courbet took one look at the picture and then turned a severe eye on the un- 45 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD fortunate young man. “Have you ever seen Christ?” he demanded. “Why don’t you paint a portrait of your father instead?” R.: Not bad, if somebody else had said it; but, com- ing from Courbet, it doesn’t impress me very much. When Manet painted his Christ with the Angels—what painting, by the way! what a wonderful impasto!— Courbet said to him: “Have you ever seen an angel? How do you know whether an angel has a behind or not?” V.: Whenever Courbet is mentioned, people always speak of his “power.” R.: Just what Degas was for ever praising in Legros. As far as | am concerned, I had rather have a penny plate done in three pretty colours than miles of your “powerful’”—and tedious—painting! V.: How did things stand between Manet and Courbet?P R.: Manet was attracted to Courbet, but Courbet didn’t have much use for Manet’s work. It was only natural, when you come to think of it. Courbet was still in the tradition, whereas Manet belonged to a new era in painting. Of course I am not naive enough to pretend that there are any absolutely new currents in the arts. In art, as in Nature, what we are likely to think new is, at bottom, only a more or less modified continuation of what has gone before. But that does not alter the fact that the Revolution of 1789 began the destruction of all traditions. The disappearance of traditions in painting, as in the other arts, was brought about only by imperceptible degrees, and the masters 46 StL ‘Unasnpy sinoquiaxnT “ysanbag ajjoqaipiwy ( RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD police station. When she had explained her grievance, the commissaire, after making all sorts of excuses for his officer's stupidity, gave our little ingénue a scolding of the first order. As we went off we caught such snatches as: | “Little goose! .. . The idea! . . . Just as the baron 3 Was... V.: I saw your picture of Needle Women at a recent exhibition. You never found such queens as those at the Moulin de la Galette. When was it painted? R.: That picture is not so very old. [About 1900- 1905.] As for your “queens,” they’re nothing but our housemaids. . . . I remember another canvas of the Moulin de la Galette period representing a Girl in a Blue Apron. It was also painted in the garden at Montmartre. V.: And the dance panels in the Durand-Ruel col- lection? R.: Those were done later than the Moulin. My wife posed for one of the figures. The other woman was a model, Suzanne Valadon,? who later went in for painting herself. My friend Lauth posed for the two male figures. He appears also in the Boatman at Bougival with Lestringuez and Ephrussi. V.: The sale that you organized at the Hotel Drouot 2 One of the best-known of the present-day French woman painters. See the monograph on her work in the Peintres Francais Nouveaux series, published by La Nouvelle Revue Francaise. Her son, Maurice Utrillo, is one of the leaders among the younger artists. (Trans. Note.) 76 (6881) MOODAT.LLAHS GNV AYOdHILLVA a “SERIOUS” PURCHASERS along with Claude Monet, Sisley and Berthe Morisot, took place about this time, did it not? R.: When I received the twelve-hundred-franc com- mission which enabled me to rent the garden on Rue Cortot, I said to myself: ‘Perhaps there are some other good people who might be disposed to pay us twelve hundred francs for our pictures, if we only knew where to find them! Let’s make a bold move and have a sale at the Hotel Drouot!” The others shared my enthusiasm for the plan. We got together twenty choice canvases—at least we thought them choice. The auction brought 2,150 francs! After it was over, the expenses had not even been covered; we actually owed money to the auction- eers! A certain Monsieur Hazard had had the courage _ to bid one of my pictures, a Pont-Neuf, up to three hun- dred francs.* But nobody followed his example. But that sale turned out well for me in the end. Through it I made the acquaintance of Monsieur Choquet. He was a ministry employé, with only very modest resources, who had succeeded in getting together a most remarkable collection. It is quite true that at that time—and even much later—it was not necessary for a collector to be very rich. A little taste was suf- ficient. Monsieur Choquet had dropped in at the Hotel Drouot by chance during the exhibition of our pic- tures preceding the sale. He felt that he found some resemblance to the work of Delacroix, his god, in my 3 At the Hazard Sale (1919), this same Pont-Neuf brought nearly 100,000 francs. (Author’s Note.) 77 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD canvases. He wrote to me the very evening of the sale, paying my work all sorts of compliments and asking if I would consent to do the portrait of Madame Choquet; I accepted immediately. Not that I often re- fuse portrait commissions. When there is too much sham about the sitter, I take it by way of penance; it is good for a painter to do some dull job from time to time. Take the portrait of Madame L., for example. I told her I didn’t know how to paint wild animals! But that was not the case with Madame Choquet. If you have seen that portrait, Vollard, perhaps you have noticed a copy of a Delacroix at the top of the picture? It was part of Choquet’s collection. Choquet himself asked me to put it in. “T want to have you both together, you and Dela- croix!” he said. I need not tell you that as soon as I knew Monsieur Choquet well enough, I got him to buy a Cézanne. | took him to Pére Tanguy’s, where he bought a little study of Nudes. He was delighted with his acquisition, and while we were going back to his home, he remarked: “Won't that look well between a Delacroix and a Courbet!” But just as he was about to ring the bell, he stopped short. “T wonder what Marie will say?” he said dubiously. Then: ‘Listen, Renoir, do me a favour. Suppose you tell my wife that the Cézanne belongs to you, and when you leave, forget to take it with you; that will give Marie time to get used to it before I confess that it belongs to me.” 78 “SERIOUS” PURCHASERS This little ruse met with complete success, and Madame Choquet, to please her husband, took to Cézanne’s work very quickly. As for Monsieur Choquet, his admiration for Gézantie, whom I soon brought to him in person, became so great that before long one could not mention the name of any artist in his presence without his crying: “And Cézanne?” If you only could have heard Choquet tell how, during a stay in his native city of Lille, he “educated” his fellow citizens, who were at that time very proud of the Parisian laurels of another native of their town, Carolus Duran!” “Carolisse Duran?’ he would say, blankly, if anyone mentioned the author of the Woman with a Glove. “Carolusse Diiran? Good Lord, no! I never heard of that name in Paris. Are you quite sure you're not mistaken? Cézanne, Renoir and Monet are the artists all Paris is talking about. But your Caroltsse Surely you must have made a mistake.” As for my other patrons, Vollard, have you ever seen the collection of Monsieur de Bellio, of whom I was speaking a while ago? He has a little portrait that I did of myself. For some reason or other, everybody praises it nowadays. It’s an unimportant little sketch. I had thrown it in the trash-basket at the time, but Monsieur Choquet asked me to let him take it. I was ashamed that it wasn’t better. But a few days later he brought me a thousand francs. Monsieur de Bellio had gone crazy over that bit of canvas, and it was he who had given the thousand for it. 79 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD There you have the patrons of the day. Of course I must admit that they were the exception, even then. For every Choquet, for every de Bellio, Caillebotte or Bérard, there were I don’t know how many of the other kind. . . . And the downright ferocity of the general public! V.: I nearly forgot to ask you about the portrait of Madame Daudet. Does that belong to the period of the Moulin de la Galette? R.: 1876, to be exact. I went to spend a month with Daudet at Champrosay. At the same time I did the portrait of Young Daudet in the Garden and a Banks of the Seine, where the river skirts the town. Franc-Lamy one day showed me a letter I had written to him saying: “I send you a rose plucked from the tomb of Delacroix at Champrosay.”’ How long ago all that seems! ... CHAPTER NINE THE CAFE GUERBOIS, THE NOUVELLE ATHENES, THE CAFE TORTONI Renoir: Up to 1870 the Impressionists, and the men of letters who had appointed themselves champions of “plein-air” painting, used to forgather at the Cafe Guerbois, situated at the foot of the Avenue de Clichy. Fantin-Latour has painted a picture called A Studio in the Batignolles,1 which shows some of the habitués of the Café Guerbois gathered about Edouard Manet, seated at his easel. The group consists of Zola, Maitre, Astruc, Bazille, Claude Monet, Scholderer, a foreign painter and friend of Fantin, and myself. After 1870 we abandoned the Café Guerbois, and along about 1878 we started going to the Nouvelle Athenes. The rival of the Nouvelle Athenes was the Café Tortoni, quite a celebrated place on the Boule- vard. Every afternoon from five to seven Aurélien Scholl, Albert Wolff and other Parisian celebrities were to be seen there, among them Pertuiset, the lion-hunter. Have you ever seen Manet’s portrait of Pertuiset? The lion looks as if he’d just fallen out of bed, and the great hunter has a pop-gun that wouldn’t kill a sparrow! Everybody thinks Manet couldn’t paint a lion, but 1In the Luxembourg Museum. 81 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD the joke is on the public. Manet was just poking fun at a public hero. Vollard: Did you know Albert Wolff? R.; Very slightly. I remember one day a great dis- cussion which took place at Tortoni’s between Wolff and another man. . . . It was Robert-Fleury, I believe. . . . They were arguing about whether it was better to varnish a painting immediately, as Blaise Desgoffe did, or to leave it to time, as Vollon did! V.: [can just see Cézanne getting up in the middle of such a discussion and growling: “Pack of milk- sops!”’ R.: Cézanne scarcely ever went down as far as the Boulevards, and I did not see him even at the Café Guerbois or the Nouvelle Athénes more than three or four times. And even then he had to be dragged there by Cabaner. V.: You haven’t told me how Manet and Degas got along together. R.: They were on very good terms. They admired each other as artists, and enjoyed each other’s com- panionship. Beneath Manet’s somewhat “Boulevard” manners, Degas found a man of good education and of good middle-class principles like his own. But, as with all great friendships, theirs was not without frequent quarrels and reconciliations. After one dispute Degas wrote to Manet: “Sir, | am sending back your Plums.” And Manet returned the compliment by sending back the portrait of himself and his wife which Degas had just made. It was this portrait that caused their most serious quarrel. The picture represented Manet half 82 BOHEMIAN CAFES stretched out on a sofa, and Madame Manet at the piano inacorner. Manet decided that he would appear to better advantage alone, and calmly removed all of Madame Manet except the edge of her skirt. You know how Degas disliked having his work tampered with; and what a fuss he used to make if his “garden frames,’ as Whistler called them, were ever changed for gold pues... Degas’ picture, however, gave Manet the theme for his masterpiece, Madame Manet at the Piano. Every- body knows how easily Manet could be influenced. He has been called “an imitator with genius.” But when he really let himself go . . . I saw in a window in Rue Laffitte one of those little sketches of a woman’s legs that Manet used to dash off in the street. . . . It was unique! As I said before, both Degas and Manet belonged to the respectable Parisian bourgeoisie. But there was another curious element in Manet, a strain of playful- ness which made him constantly try to mystify his public. 3 They tell how a pompous member of the Institute was introduced to Manet one day and cried, “Ah, Monsieur Manet, indeed! How interesting! I am preparing an elaborate study of the modern masters, and perhaps you can help me. You knew the great Couture, I believe!” | “Why, yes,’ Manet replied. “There was a certain rite very highly thought of in the Master’s studio, which particularly impressed me. The pupils had a flute which they were accustomed to play by inserting 83 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD it in the rear. Whenever a notable visitor would come to the studio, they never failed to inform him that tra- dition required all those who were admitted to Couture’s to blow the flute by this unique method!” Degas liked to mystify people, too. I have seen him amuse himself like a schoolboy by puffing up a great reputation for some artist or other whose fame, in the ordinary course of events, was certain to perish the following week. He fooled me badly once. One day I was on the driver's box of an omnibus, and Degas, who was cross- ing the street, shouted to me through his hands: “Be sure to go and see Count Lepic’s exhibition!” I went. Very conscientiously I looked for something of interest. When I met Degas again, I said: “What about your Lepic exhibition r”’ “It’s fine, isn’t it? A great deal of talent,’ Degas replied. “It’s too bad he’s such a light weight!” V.: ve heard Lautrec compared with Degas... . R.:, Ridiculous! Lautrec did some very fine posters, but that’s about all. . . . Just compare their paintings of cocottes ... why, they’re worlds apart! Lautrec just painted a prostitute, while Degas painted all prostitutes rolled into one. Lautrec’s prostitutes are vicious . . . Degas’ never. Have you ever seen The Patronne’s Birthday? It’s superb! When others paint a bawdy house, the result is usually pornographic—always sad to the point of despair. Degas is the only painter who can combine a certain joyousness and the rhythm of an Egyptian bas-relief in 84 BOHEMIAN CAFES a, subject of that kind. That chaste, half-religious side, which makes his work so great, is at its best when he paints those poor girls. V.: One day I saw a Woman in a Tub by Degas in a window on the Avenue de |’Opéra. There was a man in front of it, tracing an imaginary drawing in the air with his thumb. He must have been a painter, for as I paused I heard him say to himself: “A woman’s torso like that is as important as the Sermon on the Mount.” R.; He must have been a critic. A painter would never talk that way. V.: Just then a carpenter came along. He also stopped in front of the nude and exclaimed: “My God! I wouldn’t like to sleep with that wench!” R.: The carpenter was right. Art is no joking matter. V.: Did you ever have a chance to watch Degas make his etchings? R.: I used to go to Cadard’s, usually after dinner, and watch him pull his impressions—I don’t dare say etchings—people laugh when you call them that. The specialists are always ready to tell you that they’re full of tricks ... that the man didn’t know the first principles of aqua-forte. But they’re beautiful, just the same. V.: But I have always heard you say that an artist ought to know his craft from the ground up .. . R.; Yes, but I don’t mean that fly-speck technique they call modern engraving. Some of Rembrandt’s finest etchings look as if they had been done with a stick of wood or the point of a nail. You can hardly 85 RENOIR: AN INTIMATE RECORD say that Rembrandt didn’t know his business! It was just because he knew it from start to finish that he was not obliged to use all those fancy tools which get be- tween the artist’s thought and his execution, and make a modern engraver's studio look like a dental parlour. V.: What about Degas as a painter? R.: I recently saw a drawing by Degas in a dealer’s window—a simple charcoal outline, in a gold frame which would have killed anything else. But it held its © own superbly. I’ve never seen a finer drawing. V.: Degas as a colorist, I mean. R.: Well, look at his pastels. Just to think that with a medium so very disagreeable to handle, he was able to obtain the freshness of a fresco! When he had that extraordinary exhibition of his in 1885 at Durand-Ruel’s, I was right in the midst of my experi- ments with frescoes in oil. I was completely bowled over by that show. V.: But what I’m trying to get at is what you think of Degas as a painter in oils... . R. (interrupting): Look, Vollard. (We had arrived at the Place de Opéra. He pointed to Carpeaux’s group of the Dance.) Why, it’s in perfect condition! Who was it told me that that group was falling to piecesr I really haven't anything against Carpeaux, but I like everything to be in its place. It’s all right to carry on about that kind of sculpture, since everybody likes it; I don’t see any harm in that, but if they would only take those drunken women away and put them somewhere else . . . Danc- ing as taught at the opera is a tradition, it is something 86 MOTHER AND CHILD (1888) Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pa.

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