Beauty from Infirmity

The artist Degas suffered retina disease for the last fifty years of his life, switching from paint to pastel because the chalk lines were easier to see. Renoir had to have brushes placed between his fingers when arthritis made them clench like claws; and when surgery left Matisse immobile, he turned to collage, directing assistants to attach colored pieces of paper to a larger sheet on the wall. What followed in each case was a creative breakthrough: Degas’s Blue Dancers, Renoir