Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s paintings evoke beauty, life, and joy. Renoir was and continues to be one of the most influential artists in history. He painted with bright, vivid colors and a keen understanding of light. His paintings often capture fleeting moments in time — everyday good times, to be lovingly placed in the archives of one’s life story. He once said, “To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty – yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.”

Yet, Renoir himself suffered with rheumatoid arthritis and facial paralysis starting in his forties. Imagine being an artist and being struck with a disease that affects your hand muscles — the very tools of your trade.

But Renoir continued to paint — and with such devotion.

When Henri Matisse visited him in 1917, when Matisse was 48 and Renoir was 76 — just two years before Renoir’s passing — he would often see Renoir painting with brushes strapped to his wrists, because his fingers had curled in on themselves. Matisse asked him why he bothered. After all, he had already achieved great success. At this age and stage of his life, it would be natural for him to simply rest.

“Very simple,” Renoir answered. “Beauty remains; pain ends up passing.”

What a beautiful message for you and I to take into our DNA, so we can invoke it whenever we’re in any kind of pain, physical or emotional. So let’s pause, read it again, and let it seep into our soul.

Renoir’s comment was thoughtfully received by Matisse, who promised himself that when my time comes, I will not lack courage.

His time did come.

Twenty four years later, when Henri Matisse was 72, he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer, and the resulting surgery left him wheelchair- and, often, bed-bound. Painting and sculpture — his main avenues of artistic expression — became a challenge, so he turned to another medium, one that used scissors instead of brushes. From paper pre-painted by his assistants, Matisse would cut out shapes of various colors and sizes and assemble them into lively compositions.

According to his Wikipedia entry, “Two years after his diagnosis, he produced his first major cut-out project for his artist’s book titled Jazz. However, these cut-outs were conceived as designs for stencil prints to be looked at in the book, rather than as independent pictorial works. At this point, Matisse still thought of the cut-outs as separate from his principal art form. […]

“His new understanding of this medium unfolded with the 1946 introduction for Jazz. Afterward, Matisse, in reflecting on the possibilities the cut-out technique offered him, wrote, ‘An artist must never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation, prisoner of success…’

“The number of independently conceived cut-outs steadily increased following Jazz.”

He started small, but over time, created murals and wall-sized works of art, and called the last fourteen years of his life “une seconde vie” (his second life).

His Wikipedia entry also states that, “Under Matisse’s direction, Lydia Delectorskaya, his studio assistant, loosely pinned the silhouettes of birds, fish, and marine vegetation directly onto the walls of the room. The two Oceania pieces, his first cut-outs of this scale, evoked a trip to Tahiti he made years before. When talking about his work, Matisse mentioned that, while his mobility was limited, he could wander through gardens in the form of his artwork.”

The Museum of Modern Art has called this period “a brilliant final chapter in Matisse’s long career.”

And perhaps it was all because, 24 years earlier, he took Renoir’s idea to heart. The beauty remains; pain ends up passing. 

Warmly,
Hitendra

Sources:

• Renoir by Barbara Ehrlich White — ‘Beauty remains’ | Financial Times
• Timeline of Renoir’s Life | ImpressionistArts
• Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs | MoMA
• ‘Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs,’ a Victory Lap at MoMA – The New York Times
• Henri Matisse (1869–1954) | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
• Henri Matisse – Wikipedia

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