Renoir Retrospective: A Rare Opportunity for AUP Students
Studying abroad in Paris, it’s normal to get caught in the routine of daily classes, homework, exploring neighborhoods, meeting friends and living the city. Museums sometimes end up feeling like something you’ll “get around to eventually.” But every once in a while, an exhibition appears that makes visiting a museum genuinely worth going.
Right now, one of those opportunities is happening at the Musée d’Orsay. The exhibition Renoir and Love: A Joyful Modernity, beginning on March 17, brings together dozens of paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the most famous artists associated with Paris and Impressionism. It is one of the first major exhibitions devoted to Renoir held in Paris in decades.
For students attending AUP, this exhibition represents a rare opportunity to experience something that most people only ever see in textbooks or online images.
Many of Renoir’s most famous paintings are scattered across museums around the world. Some are in Washington, others in Boston or London. Normally, seeing even two or three of them would require traveling internationally.
For this exhibition, museums from the United States, France and around the world have loaned works from their collections so they can be displayed together here at the d’Orsay. That means you can see a collection of the best paintings from Renoir’s career in one place, anytime between March 17 and July 19.
Even for people who don’t know much about art history, there’s a strong chance that you’ve visited the d’Orsay or l’Orangerie at some point. And even if you haven’t, it’s likely that you are familiar with the famous paintings of artists like Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh, which they feature. The experience of seeing these works in person is very different from seeing them online. The paintings are larger than most people expect, and there is a life to the art in person which you simply can’t replicate in a photographic image. The texture of the brushstrokes that disappears in photographs becomes visible, and the image comes to life.
Standing in front of the paintings, you can actually see how Renoir built his scenes with quick strokes of color, capturing light and movement in ways that define Impressionism. One reason Renoir’s work is still popular today is that it doesn’t feel distant or abstract. His paintings often show ordinary moments of social life: people talking at outdoor cafés, couples in crowded gardens or friends relaxing along the Seine. Places and activities that still exist in Paris today.
When Renoir painted scenes of people sitting in cafés or gathering outdoors with friends, he was capturing a social atmosphere that many AUP students will find familiar while living in the city now. The terraces, parks and riverside walks that appear in his paintings are still part of everyday Parisian life. For students studying at AUP, seeing these paintings can create a surprising connection between the Paris of the nineteenth century and the city they are experiencing today. It’s possible seeing this Renoir retrospective will give you a new perspective and new eyes for the city of Paris.
For students who may not consider themselves particularly interested in art history, this kind of direct experience can still be worthwhile and accessible. You don’t need to know the academic background of Impressionism to appreciate the atmosphere and energy that Renoir captured in his scenes, which one might argue is part of the idea behind Impressionism itself. If you are interested in seeing art but dislike paintings which are too abstract, Renoir’s paintings offer an accessible and sensory style which you may enjoy.
One of the most unique aspects of studying abroad in Paris is the access students have to world-class museums. Millions of visitors travel to the city every year, many to specifically see museums like the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay. Students living in the city for a semester or a year have a very different advantage: they can visit these places without the time pressure of tourism. Exhibitions that visitors might rush through in an hour, students can explore more casually and deliberately.
The Renoir exhibition is a good example of how living in Paris allows students to experience major cultural events that people elsewhere might only read about. This exhibition, in particular, offers a rare opportunity, something which only occurs every two decades or so. Once it closes, the paintings will return to their respective museums around the world. This exhibition is also a rare chance to see these works together in the city where Renoir himself lived and worked.
Studying abroad can sometimes become surprisingly routine. Between classes and assignments, students can fall into familiar patterns and forget that they are living in one of the most culturally rich cities in the world.
Visiting a major exhibition like the Renoir retrospective offers a chance to step outside of that routine. It can turn a typical afternoon into something memorable and remind students why they chose to study in Paris in the first place. Even for those who are not particularly interested in art history, the experience of walking through the galleries, seeing the paintings up close and spending time in the Musée d’Orsay is a worthwhile experience in itself.
For many students, studying abroad in Paris will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Exhibitions like the Renoir retrospective are part of what makes the city such a unique, exceptional experience. Seeing these paintings in person offers more than just a museum visit. It provides a chance to connect with the artistic history of Paris while living in the city that inspired it.
And because exhibitions like this are temporary, the opportunity to see them is also fleeting. For students who may not normally do museum visits, the Renoir exhibition is a rare opportunity which I’d recommend to any student, especially since it’s just a short walk or metro ride away.
