The "Renoir sucks" movement? Sacre bleu!

In October 2015, I was two-thirds of the way through a major reno of my condo. I was living with my sister Kath in Brookline, and buzzing into Boston most days to check on progress. Back then, I was still working - consulting (at nearly a full-time pace) - so I had a lot of flexibility. In October 2015, I was still getting over my husband's death. (The condo reno was therapy.) And I was, of course, blogging. (Pink Slip goes back a ways. A pretty long way.)

So I was plenty distracted.

Distracted enough that it somehow escaped me that one Max Geller was leading a protest at Boston's Museum of Fine Art, demanding that the MFA pull its Renoirs down - the most famous of which is Dance at Bourgival - and put up the works of artists who aren't Eurocentric white males. 

I'm down with putting up the works of artists who aren't Eurocentric white males. 

But at the expense of Renoir? Sacre bleu. 

The argument wasn't (just) that Renoir is a Eurocentric white male. 

It's that he's bad at art. Protestors enlisted by Geller carried signs like God Hates Renoir - admittedly a funny take on the Westboro Baptists anti-gay signage (God Hates Fags), Renoir Sucks at Painting, and ReNOir. (Overall props for the signage.)

Shortly after the Boston protest, the Geller group picketed the Met in NY.

Although I missed the Renoir brouhaha, I do recall the one that took place early in 2015 - just before my reno started - involving Monet's lovely painting La Japonaise, and an MFA program aimed at visitor engagement that invited visitors to try on kimonos and pose next to the painting. I seem to remember the words cultural appropriation and racism being tossed around.

In the wake of the ReNOir protests, powered by "snobbish hipster fury":

Fellow Renoir haters expressed their aesthetic sympathy online by posting photographs of themselves giving the middle finger to Renoir paintings, often accompanied with the hashtag #renoirsucksatpainting.

The furor prompted Renoir’s great-great-granddaughter Genevieve Renoir to chime in. She argued the free market had spoken clearly in favor of her ancestor’s talent. The market said something that sounded like, “$78 million at Sotheby’s for Bal du moulin de la Galette na na na-na na.” Geller responded by saying the free market lacked judgement and taste, citing TV commercials, climate change, and the destruction of sea otter habitats as evidence. (Source: ArtNet.com)

Not sure why, after all these years, ArtNet decided to dredge up this old story. (Although I'm happy they did so, given that I missed it the first time around.) Maybe it's because Max Geller, the performance artist and provocateur behind it, is an anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian activist, who's been in the news of late. 

Since Geller is a performance artist, his motivations in attacking Renoir le Suck may not actually be based on true loathing for Renoir. Maybe he's just using Renoir - an easy enough target given he was on the wrong side in the Dreyfus Affair - to make a point about the lack of diversity in the art world. 

But apparently there are a lot of folks who detest Renoir. His portraits of women, to some, make his models seem bovine and dumb. His technique is primitive, crude. His focus on bourgeois subjects may have made him money, but it's so bougie. 

Most damning, seemingly, is the accusation that Renoir’s paintings are pretty. Good art, of course, cannot simply be pretty.

When it comes to art, I know what I like. And among the works of art I like are those of the Impressionists. Manet. Monet. Cassatt. Degas. Renoir. 

Guess I just like pretty. 

So, apparently - GULP! - does Donald Trump:

He claims to own Two Sisters (On the Terrace). It’s a fake, mind you.

Somewhere in his hideous, over the top, gilded, fool's gold of an apartment in Trump Tower there's a faux Renoir. 

Oh, well. Not enough to convince me that Renoir sucks.

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Happy Birthday to my sister Trish!