More and more people loathe Renoir – Is it time for a revival?

By placing Renoir’s work among great nudes by predecessors he admired (Rubens, Boucher, Delacroix, Courbet and Corot) as well as contemporaries and successors who admired him (Cézanne, Degas, Bonnard, Léger, Picasso, Matisse and Valadon), Shackelford and Bell reveal his pivotal place within a grand French tradition. (Dallas Museum of Art/Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund Inc.)
Both Boucher and Renoir expressed an 18th-century view of the erotic as a humane and civilizing concept, rather than as a violent and disruptive one, which may be why women tend to love both artists in ways that men do not. Renoir’s “Blonde Braiding Her Hair,” from the Dallas Museum of Art — my vote for best in show — demonstrates why he deserves his special place in the tradition.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com