“The Beauty Remains”: What Renoir’s Battle With Rheumatoid Arthritis Teaches Us About the Healing Power of Creativity

During my teens, I viewed the paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the renowned French Impressionist, for the first time, and I was immediately enthralled by the vibrancy of his work, his subjects bathed in natural sunlight in the great outdoors. They all seemed to glow with an indescribable warmth I had never before encountered. He captured their very essence in a way I would never have thought possible until I saw it for myself.