Reading & Letters Collection: Pierre-Auguste Renoir Oil Painting Reproductions

Light from a page

The reading pictures are lit from below, by daylight reflecting off the paper into the underside of the face. It is a soft, upward light that fills the shadows under the brow and chin, and Renoir uses it to keep the whole head in a narrow, warm range of tone. Compare one of these with a hat picture, where the light comes from above and the shadow is deep, and the difference is immediate.

An old subject, painted freshly

Women reading was a well worn theme in French painting long before Renoir, usually carrying a moral or a hint of romance: the letter as a plot device. Renoir empties it. There is no narrative, no expression to interpret, no indication of what is being read. What is left is a person absorbed in something, which is why the pictures wear so well.

Which room this collection suits

Bedrooms, studies, reading corners and any room where the point is to be quiet. They are the natural pictures to hang beside a chair with a lamp. Because the composition is a single downturned head, they read correctly at small size: forty to sixty centimetres is enough, and the intimacy is part of the effect. Hang them slightly lower than usual, so the reader is at your level when you are seated.

Frequently asked questions

What does Liseuse mean?

It is French for a woman reading, and Renoir used it as a title several times. The best known is a small canvas of a young woman with a book, her face lit by the reflected light from the page.

Are these portraits of particular people?

Rarely. The models are the household and studio regulars, and the pictures are about the act of reading rather than the identity of the reader. A few named sitters do appear.

Why so quiet compared to his other work?

Because nobody is looking out of the canvas. The boating parties and dance pictures are noisy by design; a reader is self-contained, and the picture stays where it is instead of coming toward you.

What size for a bedside wall?

Forty to sixty centimetres, hung lower than you would hang a picture in a hallway, so that it is at eye level when you are sitting or lying down rather than standing.