Art: THE GOOD THINGS OF LIFE

THE most popular painter in the world today, judging by gallerygoers’ reactions and reproduction sales, is the sensual impressionist, Pierre Auguste Renoir. Leonardo commands greater awe, but awe is a long way from affection: at the Louvre it is not the tourists but the Mona Lisa who smiles. Van Gogh had more passion, and for a time his popularity surpassed even Renoir’s, but Van Gogh’s best pictures are explosive compounds of joy and sorrow, more calculated to disturb than to please. Never a shadow of sorrow crosses Renoir’s canvases; he painted simple, earthly pleasures in simple, earthy terms. “A painter who has the feel for breasts and buttocks,” he once declared, “is saved.”

Next week in Los Angeles, a modern mecca of breast and buttock fanciers, the County Museum is staging one of the biggest Renoir retrospectives ever held. On show will be top-flight canvases from Renoir’s best working years, from 1865 until his death in 1919. Curator Richard Brown has also rounded up a nearly complete set of Renoir’s prints, many of his finest drawings, and 18 sculptures.

Red as a Bell. The sculptures and graphic works prove that Renoir’s feeling for the human form was as careful as it was appreciative. He never stopped making strictly accurate figure studies, for study purposes, and never looked for shortcuts. At art school he was, in his own words, “very attentive, very docile.” At 40, he called himself “still in the blotting stage.” In old age, he described his working method in typically unassuming terms: “I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child. I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell; if it doesn’t turn out that way. I add more reds and other colors until I get it. I am no cleverer than that.”

The reds in Renoir’s portrait of Mme. Henriot (opposite) are sonorous indeed, make a rich foil for her pale flesh and paler costume. He used to say that all he asked of a model was “a skin that takes the light,” but the portrait shows that Renoir could rise to and convey beauties of personality as well as those of flesh alone. His bronze study of Mme. Renoir nursing their son (right) goes beyond flesh and personality alike to celebrate an ever-recurring and ever-moving relationship.

Refreshment for the Eye. A tailor’s son, Renoir went to work at 14, painting teacups. Chances are he even enjoyed that, as he certainly enjoyed the rest of his increasingly successful career. Long before he died, some of his canvases were selling at five-figure prices. He painted about 4,000, of which half are now in U.S. collections. Every one has to do with the good things of life, particularly the loveliness of women, children and flowers. They are the work of a simple man with extraordinary command of his craft, who aimed to please and hit the bull’s eye. All this does not make him a “master,” for the true masters of art have been those who inspired mankind. Renoir’s mission was more that of a chef who served up delicious refreshments for the eyes. Only the harshest of puritans could carp at such a benefactor, or regret his popularity.