Yeats and Renoir, and Impressionism

Abstract

The paper compares Yeats and Renoir. In his Autobiography, Yeats mentions Manet and Monet in passing, but by the time he received his Nobel Prize for literature, he has formed a clear idea of French impressionism and knows painters, such as Monet. Though Yeats has never touched on Renoir, he is very much like him, sharing the same poetics of art: the heavenly vision of the world, and puts it into practice in his works, such as “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” which is the main focus of my study in this paper. Then I try to establish a link with Renoir. Like Yeats, he regards art as an expression of heavenly vision, turning his landscapes into Heaven on earth; his nudes into a unionizing of nature and man. It is the poetics of Unity of Being in Yeats's term. Renoir in his later life suffers from severe physical pain, being wheelchair-bound because of his rheumatism. Despite his personal hardship, Renoir never wavers and aims to transform the worldly into the heavenly. His painting is, thus, a manifestation of his beautiful vision of the landscapes of the other world he will live in.