La vie en rose. The world's happiest paintings

Auguste Renoir's timelessly charming paintings are the embodiment of happiness, love, and beauty. Taschen's Renoir, the most complete retrospective book of this painter's work, examines in detail the history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began his career painting landscapes in the impressionist style, Renoir (1841-1919) found his true affinity only after he began painting portraits, for which he abandoned the impressionists altogether. Though he was often misunderstood and criticized, Renoir remains one of history's most well-loved painters-undoubtedly because of the warmth and happy cheer his paintings exude.

In his insightful text which details the artist's entire career and traces his stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret insists that Renoir reinvented the woman in painting through his everyday goddesses with overly plump, round hips and breasts; this last phase in Renoir's work, in which he returned to the simple pleasure of painting the female nude in his baigneuses series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential (it can even be said that it later inspired Matisse and Picasso).

With a complete chronology, bibliography, index of works, and 600 gorgeous, large-format color reproductions, as well as photos and sketches illustrating Renoir's life and work, TASCHEN's Renoir is the essential reference book for this master painter.