身をかがめる女

By 1917 Renoir was in his mid-seventies and painting from a wheelchair at his house above Cagnes on the Mediterranean coast. Rheumatoid arthritis had twisted his hands so badly that a helper wedged the brush between his swollen fingers, and he worked from the forearm rather than the wrist. The war was on and two of his sons had been wounded at the front. Still, the late canvases like this one keep to warm, unhurried subjects, a woman leaning on her arm, done in the soft reds and pinks he favored at the end. He went on working this way almost until his death two years later.