A GIRL WITH A WATERING CAN

Pierre Auguste Renoir began his artistic career as a dish painter. While an art student he met a couple of fellow artists who would become famous in their own right: Frédéric Bazille, Claude Monet, and Alfred Sisley. Through his friendship with Monet he would meet Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne.

A few years after returning from war service, due to rejections by the snooty Salon juries, Renoir and his artist friends banded together to exhibit their works. This was the first Impressionist exhibition. The first one didn't go as well as hoped...the term "Impressionist" resulted from critics calling the paintings "impressions" rather than completed paintings...but Renoir and his pals did eventually sell a few paintings along the way.

Renoir did tire of the Impressionist technique of painting and in the 1880s, changed his method to a more disciplined technique, his later works being influenced by the paintings of Velazquez, Titian and Raphael after traveling to Spain and Italy. However his Impressionist paintings will always be appreciated by us art lovers.

The painting below, with its colors and light of the impressionist palette, is part of the extensive French painting collection donated to the National Gallery of Art by Chester Dale.

A Girl with a Watering Can (1876)

Thank you for visiting.

A Great Europe Trip Planner

The photo in this blog post was taken by me during my visit in September, 2013.

RAPHAEL IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART (THANKS TO JOSEPH STALIN)

Now I know that Joseph Stalin was not the most likable person in world history. However lovers of the National Gallery of Art should give thanks to him for ordering the sale of over 250 masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum in 1930 and 1931. The Russians needed American currency to finance their industrialization, so Stalin ordered the Hermitage to sell some of the museum's most important paintings, some of which had belonged to both Czar Nicholas I and Catherine II, empress of Russia.  Andrew Mellon took advantage of this amazing opportunity to purchase 21 of the world's greatest masterpieces for nearly $7,000,000. These paintings became part of the collection that Mellon donated to the museum as his founding gift. How ironic that Andrew Mellon, the archcapitalist, would purchase paintings from the archcommunist, Joseph Stalin.

In the early 19th century Raphael was the most highly-esteemed artist that rich Americans were buying. By purchasing these two Raphael paintings, the Alba Madonna for $1,700,000 and the St. George and the Dragon for $745,000, Mellon became the only American to have purchased three Raphael paintings, having purchased his first Raphael painting three years earlier.

The Alba Madonna (1510) by Raphael

St. George and the Dragon (1510) by Raphael

Thank you for visiting.

A Great Europe Trip Planner

Photos in this blog post were taken by me during my visit in September, 2013.