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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

It's with my brush that I make love.

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.

White does not exist in nature.

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.

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.

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

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

The simplest subjects are the immortal ones.

God, the king of artists, was clumsy.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My concern has always been to paint nudes as if they were some splendid fruit.

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 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.

An artist must eat sparingly and give up a normal way of life.

Religion is everywhere. It is in the mind, in the heart, in the love you put into what you do.

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.

Why should beauty be suspect?

You come to nature with all her theories, and she knocks them all flat.

If it [dabbling in art] didn't amuse me, I beg you to believe that I wouldn't do it.

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.

How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true?

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!

There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.

To be an artist you must learn the laws of nature.