Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

It took me twenty years to discover painting: twenty years looking at nature, and above all, going to the Louvre.

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.

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.

When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.

Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness.

Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity.

Photography freed painting from a lot of tiresome chores, starting with family portraits.

Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.

I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it.

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.

I need to feel the excitement of life stirring around me, and I will always need to feel that.

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.

I consider that women who are authors, lawyers, and politicians are monsters.

Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman.

The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly.

It's with my brush that I make love.

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.

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.

People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance.

It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks.

A painter who has the feel of breasts and buttocks is saved.

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.

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.

White does not exist in nature.

I would never have taken up painting if women did not have breasts.

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.

We are in a period of searchers rather than of creators.

I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.

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.

The modern architect is, generally speaking, art's greatest enemy.

Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius.

The simplest subjects are the immortal ones.

God, the king of artists, was clumsy.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

I have no rules and no methods... no secrets.

The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest.

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.

You don't talk about paintings, you look at them.

The purpose of painting is to decorate the walls. Therefore it has to be as rich as possible

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.

Do not think that it is possible to repeat another period.

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.

To get someone to pose, you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language.

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.

"The work of art must seize upon you...carry you away."

I arrange my subject as I want it, then I go ahead and paint it, like a child.

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.