His Enduring Preoccupation...
Renoir: The Body, The Senses. Kimball Art Museum. January 2020.
Two photographer’s walk into an art museum…
From the exhibition:
Renoir returned repeatedly, almost obsessively, to the subject of the body—clothed, certainly, but especially nude. “He told me,” notes his friend and fellow painter Berthe Morisot, “that for him the nude was one of the indispensable forms of art.”
Although Renoir captures busting scenes of the urban cityscape, members of fashionable society, and fleeting atmospheric effects in the landscape, his enduring preoccupation was the nude.
The person I attended the show had some things to say about something in the lines quoted above but I’m going to keep them to myself. It’s always fun to watch the people in a gallery. And this one was a little crowded. A lot to think about. But for now it’s gaze.
You will notice that not all of these are Renoir works. The exhibit included works from his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers.
