The literature about Auguste Renoir is now very abundant; and from books written by those who knew him, we can from some idea of his personality. These books give us images of Renoir, the art student, in conflict with his first teacher who said to him You seem to take painting as a pleasure; to which he answered, That is quite true, sir, if painting were not a pleasure to me, I should certainly not do it; then of Renoir, between thirty and forty, launched as an impressionist painter, delicately good – looking, easy – going, fond of the girls, and gay; then of a more mature Renoir, dissatisfied with his impressionist pictues and subjecting his art to linear discipline; then of a distracted Renoir dissatisfied with the products of his dissatisfaction and harassed by breakdown of his health; and finally of an ageing Renoir resigned to his condition, writing philosophically, I’ m done for, slowly but surely; I shall be a little worse each year; it’s just a matter of getting used to it.