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.”

Fill out the Airwave Media Network survey to give me feedback and get a chance to win a $500 gift card: www.surveymonkey.com/r/airwave 

Check out my other podcast Art Smart

Arts Madness Tournament links:

• Check out the Brackets

Who ARTed is an Airwave Media Podcast. If you are interested in advertising on this or any other Airwave Media show, email: [email protected]

Connect with me:

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Tiktok

Support the show:

Merch from TeePublic | Make a Donation

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices