The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (400 page)

Renier of Huy
.

Mosan
metal-worker active in the early 12th cent. Only one work is documented as being by him, but this is one of the great masterpieces of the period—a bronze font (1107–18) originally made for Notre Dame des Fonts, Liège, and now in St Bartholomew, Liège. It is a large bowl supported on ten (originally twelve) oxen (a reference to the ‘sea of cast metal…mounted on twelve oxen’ made for King Solomon (I Kings 7:23–5)) and adorned with scenes appropriate to the sacrament of baptism. The figures are much more naturalistic and classical than in most
Romanesque
art. Very little other work can be attributed to Renier or his workshop, but he had great influence on Mosan art.

 
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(1841–1919)
. French
Impressionist
painter, born at Limoges. In 1854 he began work as a painter in a porcelain factory in Paris, gaining experience with the light, fresh colours that were to distinguish his Impressionist work and also learning the importance of good craftsmanship. His predilection towards light-hearted themes was also influenced by the great
Rococo
masters, whose work he studied in the Louvre. In 1862 he entered the studio of
Gleyre
and there formed a lasting friendship with
Monet
,
Sisley
, and
Bazille
. He painted with them in the
Barbizon
district and became a leading member of the group of Impressionists who met at the Café Guerbois. His relationship with Monet was particularly close at this time, and their paintings of the beauty spot called La Grenouillère done in 1869 (an example by Renoir is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) are regarded as the classic early statements of the Impressionist style. Like Monet, Renoir endured much hardship early in his career, but he began to achieve success as a portraitist in the late 1870s and was freed from financial worries after the dealer Paul
Durand-Ruel
began buying his work regularly in 1881. By this time Renoir had ‘travelled as far as Impressionism could take me’, and a visit to Italy in 1881–2 inspired him to seek a greater sense of solidity in his work. The change in attitude is seen in
The Umbrellas
(NG, London), which was evidently begun before the visit to Italy and finished afterwards; the two little girls on the right are painted with the feathery brush-strokes characteristic of his Impressionist manner, but the figures on the left are done in a crisper and drier style, with duller colouring. After a period of experimentation with what he called his ‘manière aigre’ (harsh or sour manner) in the mid 1880s, he developed a softer and more supple kind of handling. At the same time he turned from contemporary themes to more timeless subjects, particularly nudes, but also pictures of young girls in unspecific settings. As his style became grander and simpler he also took up mythological subjects (
The Judgement of Paris
, Hiroshima Museum of Art,
c.
1913–14), and the female type he preferred became more mature and ample. In the 1890s Renoir began to suffer from rheumatism, and from 1903 (by which time he was world-famous) he lived in the warmth of the south of France. The rheumatism eventually crippled him (by 1912 he was confined to a wheelchair), but he continued to paint until the end of his life, and in his last years he also took up sculpture, directing assistants (usually Richard Guino, a pupil of
Maillol
) to act as his hands (
Venus Victorious
, Tate, London, 1914).
Renoir is perhaps the best-loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects—pretty children, flowers, beautiful scenes, above all lovely women—have instant appeal, and he communicated the joy he took in them with great directness. ‘Why shouldn't art be pretty?’, he said, ‘There are enough unpleasant things in the world.’ He was one of the great worshippers of the female form, and he said ‘I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.’ One of his sons was the celebrated film director
Jean Renoir
(1894–1979), who wrote a lively and touching biography published in both French and English (
Renoir, My Father
) in 1962.

 
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(1844–1930)
. The most celebrated Russian painter of his day. He received his first training from a provincial
icon
painter, but later studied at the St Petersburg Academy, and became involved with the
Wanderers
. His
Volga Boatmen
(Russian Mus., St Petersburg), exhibited in Vienna in 1873, made him internationally famous. Repin excelled at scenes from Russian history, such as
Ivan the Terrible with the Body of his Son
(Tretyakov Gal., Moscow, 1885), painted in a colourful, full-blooded (sometimes melodramatic) style. He could also handle modern social themes, however, as in
They Did Not Expect Him
(Tretyakov Gal., 1884), showing the unexpected return of a political exile from Siberia. But it is as a portraitist that he is now most highly regarded. He painted Tolstoy several times and numerous other distinguished contemporaries. Repin became professor of history painting at the St Petersburg Academy in 1894 and was an influential teacher. After the 1917 Revolution he retired to his country home at Kuokkala (now in Finland), but he continued to be regarded as a figure of massive authority. With the introduction of
Soviet Realism
he was established as the model and inspiration for Soviet painters.

 
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(French: to push back, set off). A figure or object in the foreground of a picture (and usually at the side) used to ‘push back’, give depth to, and enhance the principal scene or episode.

 
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reredos
.

An altarpiece that rises from ground level behind an altar. See also
RETABLE
.