Pierre-Auguste Renoir Quotes

The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The modern architect is, generally speaking, art's greatest enemy. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

There is something in painting which cannot be explained, and that something is essential. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

They tell you that a tree is only a combination of chemical elements. I prefer to believe that God created it, and that it is inhabited by a nymph. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Why shouldn't art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

God, the king of artists, was clumsy. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

With all their damned talk of modern painting, I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colours is black! ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Without him I would have given up. (on Claude Monet) ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

He bores me. He ought to have stuck to his flying machine. ( on Leonardo da Vinci) ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The only reward one should offer an artist is to buy his work. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you being a genius. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

You don't talk about paintings, you look at them. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

A fat lot of good it would do if I told you that Titian's courtesans make you want to caress them. Some day you'll see the Titians for yourself, and if they have no effect on you, then you don't understand the first thing about painting. And I wouldn't be able to help you. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

People love to be nice, but you must give them the chance. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I have arrived more definitely than any other painter during his lifetime; honours shower upon me from every side; artists pay me compliments on my work; there are many people to whom my position must seem enviable ... But I don't seem to have a single real friend! ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The most important element in a picture cannot be defined. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

To be an artist you must learn the laws of nature. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I have no rules and no methods... no secrets. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Religion is everywhere. It is in the mind, in the heart, in the love you put into what you do. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Shall I tell you what I think are the two qualities of a work of art? First, it must be indescribable, and, second, it must be inimitable.”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Progress in painting, there's no such thing! ...One day I went and changed the yellow on my palette. Well, the result was, I floundered for ten years! ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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

Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The work of art must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself and 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

I like a painting which makes me want to stroll in it. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

You come to nature with all your theories, and she knocks them all flat. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The only way to understand painting is to go and look at it. And if out of a million visitors there is even one to whom art means something, that is enough to justify museums. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I've known painters who never did any good work because instead of painting their models they seduced them. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I've spent my life making blunders. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

In painting, as in the other arts, there's not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

In a few generations you can breed a racehorse. The recipe for making a man like Delacroix is less well known. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Paint with joy - with the same joy that you would make love to a woman. ”
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

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