PANY Scientific Meeting: Summary

Monday, November 18, 8:15 p.m.
Einhorn Auditorium, Lenox Hill Hospital, 131 E. 76th Street, 8:15 p.m.

Dr. Jules Glenn:
"Pierre August Renoir: Self-Representation, Real and Wished For."
Discussant, Brad Collins, Ph.D.

Summary

In the last twenty or so years of his life Renoir sufferred progressively from severe arthritis, paralysis and ematiation. In contrast to his extreme thinness, so great that his bones protruded and he developed pressure sores, Renoir painted extremely heavy stauesque and powerful women in his last years. Mary Cassatt hated these paintings which she called "awful pictures of enormously fat red women with small heads."

Glenn suggests that Renoir's realistic self image as a thin wasted sad personwas compensated for by a wished for self representation as a heavy protected female. Using denial in fantasy and identification with powerful women, he attempted to disavow his painful illness. He also asserts that the figures represent caring protective mothers as well.

Glenn also demonstrates propensities for denial, passivity and female identification prior to his arthritis and ematiation which facilitated the defensive structure of his last years.