爱艺

At the age of 40， Renoir finally had the motivation and means to travel abroad. On his first trip， he went to Algeria， a longtime colony of France1. During the month he spent there in the spring of 1881， he made some of the most remarkable landscapes of his career， developing innovative pictorial techniques to depict the North African locales. Renoir notably avoided the oft-represented sites that had by then been established as the areas central picturesque motifs. In Italy in the following year， however， he sought out famous sites， such as the Piazza San Marco in Venice， representing them in a vivid and coloristic style.

Gondola， Venice， is the closest to a genre scene of any picture Renoir painted in Venice. A gondolier in striped shirt has transported two ladies across the lagoon， foreign tourists as we can tell from the French style of hat one of them wears. They are about to touch down at what is probably the island of San Giorgio Maggiore， ready to explore the monumental sixteenth-century church by Palladio2 that dominates it. An Italian girl sits on the waters edge， her head turned away from the approaching visitors in the direction of the artist who has positioned himself a few steps higher up to better survey the scene. Her short hair suggests that she is the same model Renoir also drew in pencil and sketched in oils at about this time. This conjunction of a gondolier and female Italian model recalls one of the few anecdotes Renoir told about his time in the city. He reported to his friend Charles Deudon that while he wanted to paint figures in Venice， he had trouble finding models. He saw one girl “beautiful as a Madonna. My gondolier tells me he knows her， I hug him for joy.” Once she posed， however， Renoir was unhappy with the self-conscious result， concluding that “to get someone to pose， you have to be very good friends and above all speak the language.”

Venice was a favorite subject for Impressionist. Monet painted his masterpiece San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk in 1908. Gondola， Venice recalls the vivid scenes of The Grand Canal of Venice by Manet. What is specific to Renoir， however， is the conjunction of large-scale figures in the foreground， including the uniquely Venetian shape of the gondola itself， and a panoramic view of the city as seen across the waters.

40歲时，雷诺阿终于有了出国旅行的想法，也有能力实现这一愿望。他第一次出国去的是阿尔及利亚，该国很长一段时间都是法国的殖民地。1881年春，他在阿尔及利亚待了一个月，其间创新了绘画技巧来描绘北非风貌，创作出绘画生涯中最出色的一些风景画。雷诺阿显然有意避开了常常入画的景点，那些景点当时已是公认的地标性美景。然而，第二年在意大利，他却选了威尼斯圣马可广场这样的名胜，画风灵动且色彩鲜明。

《威尼斯贡多拉》是雷诺阿在威尼斯创作的所有作品中最接近风俗画的一幅。一个身穿条纹衫的贡多拉船夫载着两位女士穿过威尼斯潟湖，其中一位戴着一顶法式帽子，从中可以看出她们是外国游客。一行人即将在圣乔治·马焦雷岛上岸，参观岛上的主体建筑——16世纪帕拉迪欧设计的那座宏伟教堂。一个意大利女孩坐在水边，她的视线从逐渐靠近的游客转向了画家所处的方向，画家就在离她几步远的略高处，那里可以更好地观察整个场景。女孩的短发透露出，她就是那个时期雷诺阿铅笔画和油笔速写所用的那个模特。贡多拉船夫和意大利女模特的这个组合让人想起雷诺阿自述的一桩趣事，其实他在威尼斯生活遇到的趣事并不多。雷诺阿曾对朋友查尔斯·杜顿说，他想在威尼斯画人物，却苦于找不到模特。有一次他看到一个女孩“美得就像圣母马利亚。我的船夫跟我说他认识她，我高兴地拥抱了他”;可是，女孩做模特摆姿势时显得很不自在，雷诺阿对此不太满意，他总结说，“要让一个人摆好姿势让你画，你们必须是非常好的朋友，而且最最重要的是，你们得在语言上能沟通”。

威尼斯是印象派最喜欢的创作对象。1908年，莫奈创作了《圣乔治·马焦雷教堂的黄昏》。《威尼斯贡多拉》让人想起马奈的《威尼斯大运河》中的生动场景。然而，雷诺阿自有他的特色，那就是前景中众多人物的组合呈现，包括形状独特的威尼斯贡多拉，以及隔水眺望的城市全景。