RENOIR: AN APPRECIATION
THE death of Renoir on December the third is so recent that a detached estimate of his place among the great artists of the past is hardly possible. It may be that even expressions of appreciation from those who believe that they know his work, may savour so much of individual bias that they serve chiefly as evidence of the artist's power to generate love and reverence. If, however, there be stated the criteria by which Renoir is judged, the question of mere liking may sink into its deservedly unimportant place. Let us assume the validity of the orthodox statement that all art is automatic, a spontaneous expression of feeling which the artist can neither summon by effort of will nor repress with impunity to his own well-being. If the creative impulse leaves its mark in a material that generates similar feelings in other people, the work of art is a human document of permanent worth. Its degree of worth is determined by the extent to which the artist has enriched, improved, humanized, the common experience of man in the world in which he lives. The manner in which the enrichment occurs is largely by recalling memories and feelings originally associated with perceptions sometimes so nearly forgotten as to have left only the cumulative residue, the "hushed reverberations," which we know as "forms"; and these "forms" necessarily constitute the totals and essence of experience, education and culture. For that reason, art is practical, never exotic, in that it deals with ideas that have served some purpose in human life.
If these axioms of the psychology of aesthetics be accepted, Renoir takes high rank as an artist, because he dealt with the world as it appears to rational beings, he interpreted it in terms of sense and feeling, and his paintings register an enriched record of what humanity sees and feels. He preached nothing but beauty in the world and the joy of living: life is supreme, irresponsible, full of movement, colour, drama, rhythm, music, poetry, and mystic charm. To live for the moment with Renoir's paintings is to be in a haven free from the ravages of one's own troubled spirit and from the vexations
