What I personally really like in the work of Renoir is what I would call the 'living brush-stroke'. Everything is alive and vibrant. His use of colour is a dynamic rollercoaster-ride of reds, yellows, blues, browns, greens, whites and so much more.
When one looks at paintings like the ones by him posted in this thread one can become one with the rythm of his hands putting the paint on the canvas. As a heartbeat or the blood-circulation in the human body there is a pulse in the painting. Like the bass-line in an uplifting piece of music we as human beings can 'feel' the dynamics of that living brush-stroke. We don't see forms, we see impressions of forms, we don't see faces, we see impressions of faces, everything becomes something to experience rather than something to describe in paint. What appeals to me very much is the sympathy one can feel that Renoir put into his paintings. A painting like 'The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette', attached to this post feels to me like a symphony of light, colour, movement and most of all, a lot of fun.
Here are some links to sites which feature the work of this -in my view- great painter:
http://mirror.oir.ucf.edu/wm/paint/auth/renoir/
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/renoir.html#images
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists...e-auguste.html
If you look at some of his early work on the webmuseum, one can see that there was nothing wrong with his drawing skills. In fact, to paint like he did demands a thorough training in drawing and painting, just like Mondrian must have been a great craftsman in painting to make his later compositions actually work. A lot of people can learn to draw and describe the forms in a dull or uninspired way. To let the viewer experience something which happened on a sunny afternoon, which we feel still feel sympathy with some 150 years later, one has to be a great artist, which I think Renoir was.
I need to go to Paris again...
Peter