The Vineyards at Cagnes

By 1908 Renoir was 67 and his rheumatoid arthritis had turned his hands into something he could barely open. A year earlier he had bought a hillside of old olive and orange trees at Cagnes, on the coast near Nice, and moved south for good, hoping the warm light would ease the pain. This is the vineyard just below that new house. Most of the canvas is warm, loose green, with a couple of white cottages set back among the leaves, and near the front a woman leans against a tree and reads, barely separable from the growth around her. Renoir went on painting this stretch of ground until he died here, in 1919.