Landschaft von Cagnes

Renoir painted this in 1915 from his property at Cagnes, on the warm hills above the Mediterranean, where he had moved for his health. By then rheumatoid arthritis had twisted his hands so badly that assistants had to wedge the brush between his fingers. The war made that year worse. Both his sons had been wounded at the front, and his wife Aline died that June, worn out after rushing to nurse them. The canvas gives none of this away. It is olive trees, red earth and southern light, the garden of Les Collettes that he could still see from his chair. He kept painting there until he died in 1919.