Every day I eat lunch in the dining hall and every day I open a new crisp issue of the New York Times. Sure, I’m a news junkie, and I could pontificate about the wonders of the printed word, the romanticism of typewriters and fedoras and the old world of journalism. But there’s just something wonderful about turning pages, leaving Diet Coke rings on headlines. And then there’s the feeling of newsprint itself, the way the pads of your fingers turn grey with ink. I had a journalism professor who once told me: “Newsprint is a public service, Devan. It discourages people from picking their noses.”

Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m writing. The point is today, I sat down as I always do to read the New York Times, and there on the cover of the Arts section was a huge story on my beloved Renoir.

Sure, I’m a sucker for Monet’s brushwork. I want to live inside a Toulouse-Lautrec painting. I will always have a soft spot for Cezanne. As a Midwesterner and an American history buff, I love George Caleb Bingham. Hopper gives me chills. I’m obsessed with Glackens. I have O’Keeffe prints covering my bathroom at home. And of course, Van Gogh’s work is unparalleled in its imagination and influence. 

But Pierre-Auguste Renoir is my favorite painter of all time. (Cue Kanye West yelling, “OF ALL TIME.”)

He really is one-of-a-kind. His earlier pieces show obvious technique and skill, but his later work - with its dramatic colors and sweeping brushwork - really illustrates the Impressionist movement. Instead of looking at shadows as darkness, he sees the multitude of colors within those shadows. 

I don’t know much about art, but I do know that Renoir’s influence on Impressionism is unparalleled.  I wish I had something more tangible or inspiring to say about Renoir, but all I can do is talk about what I feel when I look at his work. Like any great artist, he saw the world in a way so few others do, and that he was able to capture that? Amazing. Standing in front of a Renoir painting calms me and inspires me in a way visual art rarely does. It’s a little bit of magic on canvas.