Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Luncheon of the Boating Party

Today, Renoir is remembered as one of the greatest painters of the Impressionist movement. His paintings are soft and delicate, but his life and his work was a painful struggle. Most painters pride themselves on their ability to work with their hands. They spend years practicing, developing fine motor skills and muscle memory to easily render a beautiful image, but Renoir’s hands weren’t on board with the plan. As his son Jean recounted “Visitors who were unprepared for this could not take their eyes off his deformity. Though they did not dare to mention it, their reaction would be expressed by some such phrase as ‘it isn’t possible! With hands like that, how could he paint those pictures?” In 1899, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was sticken with Rhumetiod Arthritis which not only caused painful inflammation of the joints. It left his hands deformed. While even the most minor movements of his hand or wrist would bring pain, Renoir persisted. He continued making beautiful paintings until his death 20 years later because as he said, “pain passes, but beauty remains.”

This is an encore presentation. Every January/February, I release daily episodes to refresh everyone's memory on the 64 artists and artworks that will be included in my Arts Madness Tournament held in March. While most of these daily episodes will be reruns, I will continue publishing new episodes on Mondays.

Check out my other podcasts  Fun Facts Daily | Art Smart | Rainbow Puppy Science Lab

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