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In his final years, even when he was crippled by muscular rheumatism, the French master found ways of being one with his art. On the last day of his life too he painted holding the brush between his twisted fingers.

Born in 1841 to a tailor father and seamstress mother, Renoir was gifted with a beautiful voice. However, he chose to enter the world of art at the age of 13, by becoming an apprentice decorative painter in a porcelain factory. He would visit the art galleries of Louvre to be inspired by the likes of Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and Eugene Delacroix. In 1862, he joined the studio of Charles Gleyre as student and met Claude Monet, with whom he enjoyed a long friendship.

Renoir’s best paintings are remembered for featuring extraordinarily effervescent portraits, splendid nudes, vibrant landscapes, lively sea-scapes, and colourful still lifes. His outdoor paintings caught the spirit of flashing and flickering light, and portrayed dash, joyfulness and laughter of holidaying men and women. Renoir became one of the most representative figures of the Impressionist movement. In its series titled ‘Private Life Of A Masterpiece’, the documentary looks at not only the celebratory aspects of Renoir’s painting but also traces the bloody and turbulent times which Paris was still recovering from, in the mid-1870s.

Telecast on BBC World at 5.40 p.m. on January 19; repeat at 3.40 p.m. and 10.40 p.m. on January 20.

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