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Renoir, My Father (New York Review Books Classics)
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Price:
$18.95
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| Part No: | 0940322773 |
| Manufacturer: | NYRB Classics |
| MFG Part: | |
| Customer Rating: | 5.0 / 5.0 |
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Film director Jean Renoir was the son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In this delightful memoir, he tells the story of his famous father, capturing the artist's unpretentious and engaging personality. The author describes his father's early years as a painter of fans and porcelain, evolving thoughts about the effect of light on paintings, and relationships with such luminaries as Monet and Cezanne. Affectionately rendered through the eyes of a loving son, this work is a charming double portrait of both artists.
| A little disjointed | 2008-09-13 | 4 / 5 |
| | A decent if disjointed book. You can tell from reading it that Jean had great respect for his father and loved him very much. Unfortunately, there was a large gap between his father's death and the writing of this book, with Jean working from memory and not notes, and it shows. There are times where it's hard to see where Renior stops and Jean starts, and this can make things a bit confusing. If you are a fan of Renior's however,don't pass this book up. |
| Two for the Price of One: More Than an Artist's Bio--A Detailed Historial Portrait of 19th C. France | 2007-09-16 | 4 / 5 |
| A biography written by a child of someone famous often carries more than one burden, similar to the responsibility or encumbrance of the overshadowing parental fame. However, in filmmaker Jean Renoir's lovingly detailed remembrances of his Impressionist painter father, the reader gleans more than a timeline of an artist's rise to prominence. The author shares a richly detailed account of life in a culture that--in most areas of France save for Paris--was still foremostly agrarian. In this burgeoning Industrial world, Renoir tells of the rise of his father's art and the changing cultural behaviors, shifting societal patterns and troubling questions within that framework.
Beginning at Louis-Philippe's "July Monarchy" (1830-1848)-- generally seen as a period during which the haute bourgeoisie was dominant and the 1840's which saw financial crisises and bad harvests with an ensuing economic depression--we are reminded of the general and specific trends vis-à-vis how they affected the Renoir family's world. Curiously descriptive, this was a world of street oil lamps and chamber pots; anesthesia was not yet invented (nor any antiseptics); butchers slaughtered the animals on site in the back of the shop; great debates about the inferior railroad system and the overall safety of locomotives were waged (could a pregnant woman harm her unborn child by moving a such great speeds? Did the smoke and soot emitted hinder crops in nearby fields from growing). Adding to the vivid and graphic storytelling of French life are vignettes of the senior Renoir's dealings with fellow Impressionists and art dealers as well as his painting process behind some of his masterpieces. Family life, the defining touchstone of the artist as a man, is shared in humorous and matter-of-fact style ("My mother brought a great deal to my father: peace of mind, children whom he could paint; and a good excuse not to have to go out in the evening.") This book, which was first published in the mid-1950's, affords the reader a complete picture of the life of a great artist during a time of vicissitude and excitement in all facets of French society. |
| An intelligent, perceptive, humane memoir | 2007-05-09 | 5 / 5 |
| The great film director Jean Renoir tells the story of the life of one of the great masters of modern painting, his father Auguste Pierre Renoir. He does this in an intelligent, perceptive and humane way. He was close to his father , had many long intimate conversations with him, and truly cared for, honored and admired him.
The story begins in 1915 when the young Renoir who has been wounded in the leg is released from the Army and returns home. He has too received terrible news which has crushed his father. The mother of the family has died. Returning home he and his father develop a closer relationship than they have had before.
Young Renoir traces the history of the family back to the time of his great- grandparents. He tells of the early years of his father , when he worked as craftsman doing portraits on porcelain. He tells of his father's understanding of his art and of the special joy in which he worked and lived.
He describes his father's economical and non- romantic approach to Painting. And he also tells the story of how his father continued to paint also to the very last minutes of his life. And how the honors and wealth which came to Renoir in his last years did not effect his fundamental vision or way of working in life.
What is apparent through this work is that a loving son truly seeks to understand and represent his father truly- and that one great artist has a capacity for understanding another great one.
A wonderful book. |
| An affectionate rememberance! | 2006-04-22 | 5 / 5 |
| An affectionate remembrance of Renoir by his son, concentrating the years up to the turn of the century.
Renoir considered himself an artisan rather than an artist, disliked anything artificial, from margarine to ready-to-wear clothes, had among his friends artists, and musicians who are household names today. "It is when you have lost your teeth that you can buy the best beefsteak" he would say, and considering that he became more infirm with age, this truism affected him no less than the rest of us.
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| | We adopted "Renoir, My Father" as bedside reading while my wife was recovering from hip surgery, and (aside, perhaps, from "Goodnight, Moon,") I can't imagine better therapy. This is odd, in a way: Claude was an old man (and in pain) when Jean got to know him, and Jean was an old man when he finally brought his recollectios together. You might expect cranky, but nothing of the sort: it's a book full of sunny afterglow. Every parent would hope to be rememnbered so well. The book might take a bit of getting used to: Jean has his own pace and his own way of telling his story. We did it in small doses and I'm not certain yet that I quite catch the rhythm. None of the rough edges have been smoothed off which, come to think of it, is just as Claude would have wanted: Jean speaks with his own voice. You have to listen well, but you know that the voice is nobody else's. I suppose it helps to know a bit about the Impressionists to enjoy it all, but I can't say I know all that much, and I didn't feel impaired. Anyway, God bless Google: more than once, when Jean talked about a painting or a subject, I key-clicked my way to an image and completed (as it were) the picture. Kudos also to NYRB (this time) for producing what it does not always produce: a finished physical specimen The paper feels like quality; the binding is sturdy, and there is a small but satisfying selection of pictures, both colored and black-and-white. There is even an index of sorts (I assume from the original translator) but it is patchy and incomplete. That last is a shortcoming, but forgivable in light of the book's other virtues. In the NYRB firmament, this is surely a star. |
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