Of all the proposed museum, the artists' houses are by far those I prefer. Maybe they are dusty and neglected, perhaps would require a restoration, are often left few works because the works are finished in prestigious museums in the world or at lucky collectors, but without wishing to parapsychology from peanuts, have a soul, there is the "spirit loci that hovers and therein lies the beauty. I enjoyed the privilege of seeing different from those of Hemingway in Key West and Cuba to that of Goethe in Frankfurt and Weimar (where there is also the home of Schiller), the Bauhaus building in Dessau, where they lived Klee and Kandinsky the study of Freud in Vienna and London to Chekhov's dacha in Yalta last summer not to mention the Cabanon Le Corbusier and the extraordinary home of Henry Moore Foundation to twenty miles from London and each time was magic, I've never been disappointed, the place to speak and tell the people who inhabited them, and this special atmosphere and friendly, the museum can be no return.
For a grave form of arthritis of the lower limbs paralyzed Renoir, Master sees with terror progressively deformed his hands and even fear when it can no longer hold a brush between his fingers, need to warm and ; his wife Aline and their three children, began to frequent the south, near the Mediterranean. Stay in Magagnosc, Cannet, Nice, and then in 1907 acquired the "Domaine de Collettes" in Cagnes-sur-mer , but a small farm with three acres of dense thick orange and olive trees.
Renoir will love these olive oil, calls him "a gift des Dieux" a rich gift of the gods. Paid on a slice of toast hot with a pinch of salt will always be the first to taste the new pressing of the year as told by his son Jean, a famous film director in his gripping memoir "Pierre-Auguste Renoir , mon père "(and Folio Gallimard) . In the large park was built a house with all the conveniences of the time, a large studio for the painter inside and one outside all windows. Each reflected a different angle of light, a new starting point of interpretation.
According to the memories of his son Jean, Cagnes-sur-mer at the time of Renoir was a village of prosperous peasants were not interested in painting with their illustrious artist who felt at ease information on how the crop was gone, everyone had a garden with the vegetable garden, chickens and rabbits, flowers of orange trees were harvested for the perfume factories in Grasse, the anchovy fishermen were selling silver right out of the networks that Renoir was "the best in the world."
A simple house, a simple life, simple as was the artist, yet lived on a wheelchair, painting until the last breath of life glimpses of nature, children playing and growing and the female universe, his models are often the waiter went around the house, "as long as their flesh is not rejected the light" "Ces sont des études d'après mes bonnes. J'en ai eu quelques-Unes of admirablement Faites, here posaient et comme des anges. Mais il faut ajouter que je ne suis pas difficult. m'accomode Je fort bien venu du premier cul crotti. .. pourvu que je graves sur une peau here it repousse pas la lumière "(Ambroise Vollard: En écoutant Cézanne, Degas, and Renoir. Les Cahiers Rouges Grasset). The hands of the painter from the diseased skin getting thinner and more fragile are wrapped in cloth to somehow grab the brush without being hurt by the hardness of the wood of the handle.
Renoir liked to receive (which he will eat the best fish soup, bouillabaisse, says the painter Caillebotte), Renoir loved people, the house was always full and Collettes parade lovers (Jean tells of a Japanese came on foot from the Italian border to watch the master at work), numerous artists, from Cezanne to Matisse, the most important art dealers of the time, Durand -Ruel, the Vollard, the Bernheim, those who believed in the Impressionist and supported them and made known in Europe when it did not want them any more, merchants have become friends over time artist. A paint Collettes Renoir "Les Grandes Baigneuses", a work that the artist considers to be one of maturity, a time of arrival and completeness of his artistic figure. When his father died the children decide to give it to the Louvre at the beginning, "writes Jean-ever declines the offer, the leaders of the museum are the colors of the picture too" noisy. " Only the bid by the tycoon of Philadelphia Barnes, nose up and less myopic professoroni Europe, changes his mind and the gift is finally accepted by the temple of art, where it is today.
"Renoir Cagnes seemed to be waiting and adopted it himself, as one gives to a girl whom we had dreamed all his life and that one discovers his door after traveling the world.'s story and Renoir Cagnes is a love story .... (Jean Renoir: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my father)
At Cagnes in lontananza scorgevano if the mountain che amavis Renoir, my da lontano, Sullo sfondo, come nei quadri di Giorgione Solev say. From the terrace Collettes could instead enjoy this landscape, on fine summer evenings he would with his family to watch the fishermen returning to port and was always the first boat to see Renoir.
