page_title: Charles-Caïus Renoux
section_title: Signature works
hierarchical_section_title: Charles-Caïus Renoux / Signature works
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Moines dans une église gothique en ruines de Charles-Caïus Renoux, 1828
context_page_description: Charles-Caius Renoux was a French painter, lithographer, and illustrator. He first achieved success with paintings of medieval churches, particularly the ruins of cloisters and monasteries destroyed during the French Revolution, works for which he is still best known. Renoux also painted landscapes, large-scale battle scenes, and historical subjects, works which uniquely prepared him for the final phase of his career, the creation of spectacular dioramas, the “moving pictures” of the era. He also taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; his notable students included Narcisse Berchère and Hector Hanoteau.
context_section_description: In this initial period of his career, Renoux established a signature style with his depictions of Gothic interiors and ruins. The architecture itself serves as a frame, like a proscenium arch in a theater, for an image of repeating columns and arches that recede into the distance, which my terminate in an opening onto blue sky; greater attention is devoted to architectural features, especially the play of light and shadow on weathered stone, than to the human figures, who are dwarfed by their surroundings; and the artist signs his last name and the year at an angle, as if the letters and numbers were painted upon a stone surface within the picture.
  A French scholar notes that Renoux "uses the effects of light contrasts and shaded lines of architecture to create games of abstract construction and repetition, in the manner of Nordic painters (one thinks of Hendryck van Steenwick the Younger in particular)." ("L’artiste utilise les effets de contrastes lumineux, et les lignes ombrées de l’architecture qui créentdes jeux de construction abstraits, repris de façon répétitive, à la manière des peintres nordiques (on pense à Hendryck van Steenwick le jeune notamment.")  
  The Romanesque and Gothic ruins, underground passages, chapels, convents, vaulted cellars, crypts and galleries depicted by Renoux were inspired by his travels through France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Some paintings are minutely detailed, scrupulously accurate depictions of actual places, but others appear to be fancifully embellished or largely imaginary.  The mood evoked is both nostalgic and timeless. "The picturesque and the fabulous encroach on objective representation, and substitute myth…This is how Hugo saw heritage. Mature, vertiginous, dramatic, mysterious, disputed by time and by the great outdoors, haunted by the combat of light and shadows." ("Le pittoresque et le fabuleux empiètent sur la représentation objective, y substituent le mythe.…C'est ainsi qu'un Hugo voyait le patrimoine. Grandi, vertigineux, dramatique, mystérieux, disputé par le temps, par la grande nature, hanté par le combat des rayons et des ombres.")
caption: Moines dans une Église Gothique en Ruines (1828, Musée de Grenoble)
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 450D", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2018:10:10 20:10:46", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "206", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9190", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4684", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:08:04 12:01:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:08:04 12:01:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6", "EXIF ApertureValue": "45/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-5/3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "02", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "02", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "02", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2193", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1742", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3088", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2056", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9042", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1544000/439", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "257000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "a60237eddaf924f97acc934c71e946af"}