isian woman dressed in
Oriental costume, and--horrors!--the shadows were coloured. He was
become an impressionist. He had listened, or rather looked at the
baleful pyrotechnics of Monet, and so he joined the secessionists,
though not disdaining to contribute annually to the Salon. In 1874 his
L'allee Cavaliere au Bois de Boulogne was rejected, an act that was
evidently inspired by a desire to sacrifice Renoir because of the
artistic "crimes" of Edouard Manet. Otherwise how explain why this
easily comprehended composition, with its attractive figures, daring
hues, and brilliant technique, came to have the door of the Salon
closed upon it?

The historic exposition at Nadar's photographic studio, on the
Boulevard des Capucines, of the impressionists, saw Renoir in company
with Monet, Sisley, and the others. His La Danseuse and La Loge were
received with laughter by the discerning critics. Wasn't this the
exhibition of which Albert Wolff wrote that some lunatics were showing
their wares, which they called pictures, etc.? (No, it was in 1875.)
From 1868 to 1877 Renoir closely studied nature and his landscapes
took on those violet tones which gave him the nickname of Monsieur
Violette. Previously he had employed the usual clear green with the
yellow touches in the shadows of conventional _paysagistes_. But
Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, and Renoir had discovered each for himself
that the light and shade in the open air vary according to the hours,
the seasons, the atmospheric conditions. Monet and Pissarro in
painting snow and frost effects under the sun did not hesitate to put
blue tones in the shadows. Sisley was fond of rose tones, Renoir saw
violet in the shadows. He enraged his spectators quite as much as did
Monet with his purple turkeys. His striking Avant le bain was sold for
one hundred and forty francs in 1875. Any one who has been lucky
enough to see it at Durand-Ruel's will cry out at the stupidity which
did not recognise a masterly bit of painting with its glowing,
nacreous flesh tints, its admirable modelling, its pervading air of
vitality. Renoir was never a difficult painter; that is, in the sense
of Monet or Manet or Gauguin. He offended the eyes of 1875, no doubt,
but there was in him during his first period much of Boucher; his
female nudes are, as Camille Mauclair writes, of the eighteenth
century; his technique is Boucher-like: "fat and sleek paint of soft
brilliancy laid on with the palette-knife with precise