The most advanced these are his odalisques

Until the end of the 1980s at the top of the classification of the Impressionist artists Renoir there. He was considered the largest. But the history of art is constantly revisited. and, in the beginning of the 21st century, it has been overtaken by Monet. A Renoir, it has been the leadership of the reproductions on boxes of chocolates. A little hard finding, but that probably reflects the opinion of specialists. There is been no retrospective Renoir in France since 1985. That is, if our idea of the artist, famous for her voluptuous naked women in bucolic atmospheres is evanescent.

There is still the wrong rectifiers. Among them, the Grand Palace, which has decided to open spaces to this important artist. What disappointment! It shows mainly the last nineteen years of its creation, those that are less popular. The French curator, Sylvie Patry, the Museum of Orsay, justifies this bias, by explaining that there has already been abroad exhibitions devoted to Renoir landscapes and portraits, in the spirit of retrospective.

For visitors, the surprise may be large to discover as soon as the first room of the exhibition a work by Picasso in 1922: "village dance". It is placed near the "dancing in the city" and "Dance to the campaign" Renoir. Two paintings by 1883. It therefore works prior to the theme of the exhibition. They are particularly successful. The vertical paintings give a monumental aspect to its depictions of couples. They are hugging, physically fusion. Message subtended by comparing Renoir-Picasso: Renoir is a modern artist.

Avant-garde and reaction

Indeed, an entire chapter of the catalogue is devoted to the fascination of Picasso for Renoir. One can understand that he appreciated the quest of his eldest, anxious both to return to a certain classicism, while adopting simplified, massive shapes. Picasso is not, in a different genus, fascinated by Customs Rousseau painting The exhibit ignores the strong attractiveness of an another modern to Renoir: René Magritte. In the 1940s the Belgian surrealist painted pigs and as the master Impressionist landscapes.

The theory put forward by the organizers is Renoir rupture with Impressionism from 1880. It is not so obvious. Renoir matures, evolves and finds other subjects of predilection. And then, if he painted differently, it is also for reasons of health. From 1897 - 56 years - ago, he suffers from a terrible progressive disease, rheumatoid arthritis, which distorts its hand at transforming them into species of stumps where he hold his brush, as shown in a film in the exhibition.

With age, Renoir the former avant-garde artist becoming reactionary. It is anti-dreyfusard and does not seem to appreciate the Jews, as he writes to his dealer Durand-Ruel about another Impressionist Pissarro: "the public does not like what feels the policy and I do not want, me, at my age be revolutionary." "Stay with the Israelite Pissarro, this is the revolution". Then he painted quiet topics, illustrating the family happiness, young girls fresh and potelées, a boy (his son, disguised as a Hunter) and nudes, still the nudes as classics revisited by his Impressionist past.

His landscapes of the Riviera, where it is established to cure his rheumatism, are less successful. Flimsy lunch in pastel colours. They are pale next to an admirable Bonnard which is also shown in the exhibition. The most advanced, these are his odalisques. Like Picasso, Renoir aging knows express the sensuality. The curves more sinuous and abundance of its young women out of a dream are a homage of quality to the painting by Rubens.

Find the Judith Benhamou-Huet blog on: find the slideshow of the exhibition on http: //blogs.lesechos.fr