But you don't know the circumstances? Just a statement, and one that may not be true. I've seen good people have a complete breakdown over a sick child. Maybe his wife asked him to go? Who knows.

>He admits himself that the journalism is only the surface of his awful character.

And we are to take it literally? That sounds like English self-deprecation to me.

>I read novels on the subject

If I write a novel that shows Patrick O'brien as a tortured genius whose family didn't understand him, and drove him away, presumably you would change your mind on him too?

Did the novel talk about Renoir's antisemitism? His misogyny towards female painters? His stubborness? His nostalgia for Bourbon France? His treatment of models?

See it's pretty easy to do a character assassination.