1.
It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
2.
To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
3.
The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
4.
Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
5.
One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
6.
When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
7.
Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
8.
Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
9.
One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
10.
Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
11.
Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
12.
I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
13.
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. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
14.
I need to feel the excitement of life stirring around me, and I will always need to feel that.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
15.
The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, carry you away. It is the means by which the artist conveys his passion; it is the current which he puts forth which sweeps you along in his passion.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
16.
I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
17.
Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
18.
The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
19.
It's with my brush that I make love.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
20.
About 1883 something like a break occurred in my work. I had reached the end of 'impressionism,' and I had come to realize that I did not know how to paint or draw.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
21.
On the whole, the modern palette is the same as the one used by the artists of Pompeii... I mean it has not been enriched. The ancients used earths, ochres, and ivory-black - you can do anything with that palette.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
22.
People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
23.
It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
24.
A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
25.
What seems most significant to me about our movement 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.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
26.
Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
27.
White does not exist in nature.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
28.
I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
29.
What is to be done about these literary people, who will never understand that painting is a craft and that the material side comes first? The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
30.
We are in a period of searchers rather than of creators.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
31.
I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
32.
What I like so much about Corot is that he can say everything with a bit of tree; and it was Corot himself that I found [back] in the museum of Naples - in the simplicity of the work of Pompeii and the Egyptians. These priestesses in their silver-grey tunics are just like Corot's nymphs.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
33.
The modern architect is, generally speaking, art's greatest enemy.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
34.
Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
35.
The simplest subjects are the immortal ones.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
36.
God, the king of artists, was clumsy.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
37.
The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
38.
I have no rules and no methods... no secrets.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
39.
The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
40.
To express himself well, the artist should be hidden. The trouble is that if an artist knows he has genius, he's done for. The only salvation is to work like a labourer, and not have delusions of grandeur.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
41.
You don't talk about paintings, you look at them.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
42.
The purpose of painting is to decorate the walls. Therefore it has to be as rich as possible
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
43.
I look at a nude. There are myriads of tiny tints. I must find the ones that will make the flesh on my canvas live and quiver.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
44.
Do not think that it is possible to repeat another period.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
45.
I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell. If it doesn't turn out that way, I add more reds and other colors until I get it.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
46.
To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
47.
One can thus state, without fear of being wrong, that every truly artistic production has been conceived and executed according to the principle of irregularity.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
48.
"The work of art must seize upon you...carry you away."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
49.
I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
50.
If the professional schools should succeed in producing skilled workers trained in the technique of their craft, nothing could be done with them if they had no ideal.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
