Renoir Drawings

The new show of Renoir “drawings” (i.e., any work on paper plus a couple of oils) at the Morgan Library and Museum should hammer the final nail in the coffin of Renoir’s reputation as a coequal of Manet, Monet, Degas, Sisley and Pissarro in the pantheon of Impressionism. Moreover, Caillebotte and Morisot have risen lately and should take Renoir’s place, if anyone is really looking. A general consensus (what other kind is there?) has recently emerged that Renoir’s plump, pink nudes are too sweet and repetitive to be of much interest, but going in I remained open-minded that his “drawings” would reveal a superior, more interesting artist, one whose innate draftsmanship might have been obscured by commercial demands to repeat his formulaic subjects. It took about five minutes at the Morgan for my mind to close.

I have trouble recalling another retrospective in which I couldn’t find a single work I wanted to take home, even in a photograph. The show’s centerpiece was “The Grand Bathers” from Philadelphia, and it boasted six large studies that had “never been shown with the painting since they were in Renoir’s studio.” The studies were just as hideous as the painting. The awkward poses appeared to be derived from antiquity or perhaps the Renaissance, but they didn’t sit well with Impressionist technique or sit very comfortably at all. Elsewhere were pastel portraits of lifeless, unattractive faces. Renoir’s favorite model is shown with a kewpie-doll expression. His colors turn me off, he doesn’t bother to represent space or atmosphere, and his figures look to be made of melting butter. If there are bones under the skin Renoir does not seem aware of them.  The actual drawings on display, as opposed to the pastels, were mainly way stations to absent oils, no better or worse. Perhaps another era, with different taste, found something to appreciate in Renoir’s work, but whatever it may be is not there in the drawings.