Unveiling the Secret Lives Behind Renoir’s Legacy: Art, Betrayal, and War Exposed
Yet the Cahen d’Anvers continue to cruise aimlessly on their yachts as antisemitism slashes and burns its way through France. There’s a brief period of respite from the divisions when WWI begins, when the French unite to push back the threat of Germany. Unfortunately, that alliance can’t withstand the rise of Hitler, and of the appeasing government under Petain, which delivered Jews to the Nazis — including Elisabeth, the girl in blue, and her nieces and nephews who would also die in the camps.
“This book…is necessarily impressionistic,” writes Ostler. The details are thick and numerous as brushstrokes, and even when I stepped back, I still wasn’t quite sure where Ostler wanted me to look. Was it at the mystery of Alice’s father, a question she continually noodles over and eventually resolves? What happened to Renoir, the painter, who pops in only occasionally to either make a racist remarks about Jews or to accept yet another commission from them? Why did the Cahen d’Anvers proudly display the portrait of Irène in their salon but keep the pink and blue picture in the servants’ quarters?
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