INSIDE RENOIRS REVOLUTION

Montblanc's latest Masters of Art Homage collection of writing instruments celebrates Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a trailblazer who sparked the Impressionism movement.

- Words: Alvin Wong

Poring over the Montblanc Masters of Art Homage to Pierre-Auguste Renoir collection, one is struck by its masterful interplay of artistic eras. In previous Masters of Art Homage editions, where Montblanc commemorated the lives and times of Vincent van Gogh and Gustav Klimt, the handcrafted writing instruments evoked the artists’ singular vision with motifs, colours, and design features that echo their unique styles. With the homages to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, however, the aesthetic twists are far more pronounced—but justifiably so.

Although Renoir is one of the most highly regarded artists of the 19th century—the Frenchman founded the Impressionism movement in the 1870s and inspired many artists, among them, Henri Matisse and van Gogh—his journey was one of constant transformation. From establishing and then subsequently renouncing the Impressionism movement to pivoting from being a porcelain maker to becoming a painter, Renoir didn't just accept artistic evolution as a way of life, but pursued it with fervour.

The Masters of Art Homage to Pierre-Auguste Renoir Limited Edition 8, the most exclusive selection from the collection, tells the story of Renoir at his most artistically evolved. Capped at just eight pieces (the figures at the end of each model reflect its edition’s count) and fashioned in gold, the writing instrument depicts one of Renoir’s greatest masterpieces, The Great Bathers, painted during his Ingresque period between 1883 and 1887, after he broke away from his Impressionism roots.

“I had gone as far as I could with Impressionism and had arrived at the conclusion that I did not know how to either paint or draw,” he once said of his departure from the art movement he helped pioneer.