Remembering Painter and Gardener Pierre-Auguste Renoir Who Found Freedom in Painting Nature

"There's a little-known story about Renoir.
For many years, he hung a sign on his garden gate which read,
'No Renoirs sold here. Beware the dog.'"

December 3, 1919

On this day, the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir died.

There's a little-known story about Renoir. For many years, he hung a sign on his garden gate which read,

"No Renoirs sold here. Beware the dog."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir said when he was painting flowers, he could paint,

“freely and boldly without the mental effort he made with a model.”

He said

If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves.

But Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree.

The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.

It was Renoir who said,

The pain passes but the beauty remains.

What seems most significant to me about our movement [Impressionism] is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject.

I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.