Renoir Award

About

Energy, joy of life, light-heartedness: the works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, master of Impressionism, are a hymn to optimism. Seems to scream at life that you can be happy even when money is scarce and your career struggles to take off, because the joys that make days unique, after all, cannot be bought with money. He, who spent his mornings full of lightheartedness with friends, at the Rowing Club, and his drunken evenings, in the bohemian Paris of the late nineteenth century, often in the company of voluptuous models, knew this well. He, in love with beauty, according to whom "everything that exists, lives, all that lives, is beautiful and all that is beautiful, deserves to be painted", because painting must express playfulness, exalt the pleasure of life and of all that is beautiful around us. He, the curious, always ready to let himself be seduced, amazed, surprised: no matter what; what mattered was to remain alert, ready to grasp every flash of beauty, even the most unexpected. He, who until the last moments of his life, instead of complaining about the many pains and crying on himself, tirelessly continued to paint, letting himself be seduced by the joy of living, in the awareness, confided to Matisse, that "suffering passes, but the beauty remains". He, from whom to take a cue, today more than ever, since there is a great need for "beauty", everywhere, for anyone.

“For me, a painting must be something lovely, cheerful and beautiful, yes, beautiful. There are enough boring things in life without making others. I am well aware that it is difficult to admit that a painting may belong to the greatest painting while remaining cheerful. People who laugh are never taken seriously.”

(Pierre-Auguste Renoir)