Renoir:Portrait of an Artist as an Aging Man

Just returned from viewing: "Renoir in the 20th Century" exhibit at the LACMA. In 1913, at the age of 72 Renoir declared, "I am just learning how to paint". Some reviews of the exhibit had pooh pooed the fact that these were later works of the genius, beyond his peak Impressionist period. I found them all to be superb. His use of color and radiance are stunning. Luminescent and glorious are the way I describe them. It certainly doesn't hurt that his models have womanly curves and can even be described as fleshy with colors that radiate life. Part of the exhibit explained that Renoir was crippled by rheumatoid arthritis and in order to continue painting had to have the paint brushes strapped to his hand. Photographs showed him in a wheelchair with gnarly balled up fists, deformed and decrepit. But there he is at his easel with his palette painting each stroke. One picture had someone holding the clay as he molded his sculpture painstakingly. One of his last paintings completed before he died at the age of 78 is The Concert, glorious in hues of pink, orange, yellow and green. "A narrow range of harmonious colors to fuse the pictorial elements into a single effect." Glorious!