Abstracts and the army

THE abstract painter Pierre Soulages is aged over 102 and still working, at least until very recently. I have long thought that Renoir would have much more deserved his reputation as a great painter had he had the self-discipline to destroy two-thirds of his output and Soulages supports this point. As he said before the retrospective marking his centenary, if he is not 100% happy with a painting he burns it. ‘If it is mediocre, it goes.’ Such rigour befits.