Renoir painted The Test Garden (Jardin d'Essai) on a visit to Algeria in 1881. (MGM MIRAGE Corporate Collection)
RENIOR'S fiery painting of palm trees under the African sun had cost a Las Vegas casino king £2.5 million, but he compared it to a training bra and a tricycle.
Seven years ago The Test Garden (Le Jardin d'essai), a little-known landscape now on show at the National Gallery's latest blockbuster exhibition, was bought by the gambling tycoon Steve Wynn.
It was among dozens of Impressionist masterpieces he acquired for the exclusive Mirage and Bellagio hotels in Las Vegas. Once, Wynn spent $25 million in 24 hours at art auctions in New York. Last year he sold the hotels, along with the art collection, to the Hollywood studios MGM for $6.4 billion.
Yet when asked whether his gamblers ever looked at the art on the walls, Wynn said: "What's not to like about Renoir? It's easy. It's like a training bra. It's like your first three-wheeled bicycle."
London's National Gallery would hope for a somewhat less prosaic response to its new exhibition, Renior's Landscapes. Along with 70 other works, The Test Garden shows a lesser known side of the famous Impressionist.
A different view
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Thanks to countless reproductions on mugs and mouse mats, we all know the sugary sweetness of Renoir: voluptuous ladies in French cafés. As Pierre-Auguste Renoir himself had put it: "When I've painted a woman's bottom so that I want to touch it, then I know that it's finished."
Up until the Second World War, the critics loved him. The leading American collector Dr Albert Barnes bought more of his paintings than of any other artist. But in recent decades, Renior gradually lost his footing as a father of modern art. More and more, critics and curators have considered him too boring and too bourgeoisie.
Underneath Claude Monet painting in his garden in Argenteuil, x-rays revealed a completely different painting. (c1873, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut)
The National Gallery counters this view. It reveals an artist who was not afraid to experiment. When painting people, Renoir was often bound by the demands of patrons and critics. Yet in his landscapes he could break the rules. In the first two decades of his long career, he used landscapes to hone his painting skills. It was this, in the end, that made him such a good portraitist.
Rare works
Of the 70 works on show, more than a fifth are from private collections rarely seen in public. The cafe scene La Place St. Georges has not been exhibited in more than 50 years, while The Test Garden usually hangs in a private office at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas.
Renoir painted The Test Garden on a visit to Algeria in 1881 - his first trip abroad. At the age of 40, he had finally managed to get an agent that sold his paintings, providing him with the necessary income. Once in the vibrant French colony in North Africa, the bright sunlight made a huge impression on Renoir. The Test Garden's palm trees explode on the canvas like fireworks in green, blue and red.
Renoir's affectionate portrait of his friend and fellow-Impressionist Claude Monet painting in his garden in Argenteuil may seem simple - just an artist among the flowers. But underneath, x-rays revealed a completely different painting of Monet's wife Camille. It may be an unknown work by Renoir, or a canvas by Monet that he gave to Renoir to paint over.
Other highlights include Renoir's glittering image of San Marco square in Venice; his tumultuous wave in blue and white; and an almost translucent woman and child on a sunlit hillside.
As for its record-breaking Velasquez exhibition that closed three weeks ago, the National Gallery used four of the halls normally used for its permanent exhibition to host the show. Velasquez had 302,000 visitors - including actress Scarlett Johansson and designer Stella McCartney.
Renoir may well do the same, and deservedly so.
Renoir Landscapes, National Gallery, London, until 20 May 2007. Admission charge.
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