Nature's workshop : Renoir's writings on the decorative arts
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Nature's workshop : Renoir's writings on the decorative arts
Yale University Press, c2000
Available at 10 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [261]-264
Includes indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book shows Auguste Renoir in an entirely new light, revealing an artist far more complex and thoughtful than previously believed. Seven unknown and unpublished texts written by Renoir, along with four other writings once published but now largely forgotten, are presented here in both French and English. They identify Renoir as an impassioned critic of architecture, architectural decoration, and the education of artists.
These surprising texts were written in 1883-84, when Renoir hoped to found an exhibition society grouping all the crafts, and around 1910, when he prepared several drafts of a preface to a French translation of Cennino Cennini's medieval treatise on the arts. Robert L. Herbert has uncovered Renoir's "Grammar of Art," long believed lost, and has disproved the idea that his reading of Cennini was related to his trip to Italy in 1881. Renoir provides a walking tour of Paris with abundant references to specific buildings exhibiting the Second Empire architecture he found so despicable. He examines academic art, modern industry, and how together they undermine the values of craft and individuality. And he insists that good art like nature never achieves perfect geometry or symmetry but is unregimented, "natural." Herbert discusses Renoir's aesthetic in the context of the flow of ideas on the decorative arts at the time and reassesses the artist in the light of these lively rediscovered writings.
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