“Women who go by in the streets are different from their predecessors- now they are Renoirs,” Proust once remarked. Pierre-Auguste Renoir is one the most famous impressionists, who composed delightful paintings through a direct, unintellectual approach with an instinctive feeling for his medium. Through his artworks, he held a special place in the art-loving public with his fellow artists, Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet. However, there was a slight difference in these impressionist artists, though they started with the same motive- to paint landscapes and modern life in modern ways through an exhibition of 1874. I already told you much about this exhibition in my previous article on Impression, Sunrise. Talking about the differences, unlike Cézanne, whom the Cubists considered their source, or Monet, whose work inspired many abstract artists, Renoir’s work simply celebrated the joys of youth, and its perfection inspired the generations that followed his art. All those who knew Renoir and his artworks through books knew that his taste for paradox and his moods changed rapidly just like the skies of the Île-de-France. Thadée Natanson once remarked, ‘For him, everything had to move’ whereas Régnier observed ‘his highly strung nature, his intelligent face and shrewd expression.’ And these words remarked his artistic style. From abandoning the rigidity of the classical style to giving a natural temperament to his canvases, Renoir made every painting lively with his gestures and animations from landscapes to still lifes and even female figures. While he made the most out of his canvases, we are here today to look at his one significant painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party, to experience what he painted.
Luncheon of the Boating Party | Fast Knowledge
Luncheon of the Boating Party is an oil on canvas painting from 1881 by the French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It portrays the artist’s social life at his favorite hangout place, Restaurant Fournaise on the Seine at Chatou, to mark the celebration of friendship, love, and summertime. The painting now resides in the Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.
General Information About Renoir’s Masterpiece.
1. Artist’s Statement.
“If you paint the leaf on a tree without using a model, your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but Nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself.”
2. Subject Matter.
The Luncheon of the Boating Party is Renoir’s remarkable painting and is one of his largest works. With the use of the ephemeral immediacy of Impressionism and fine colors, this image was the last masterpiece of the artist in this genre and a perfect successful celebration of friendship, summertime, and Joie de vivre in all of the art. Being one of the favorite haunts of the artist, Renoir depicted himself with his friends and companions lingering over the remains of the lunch at Restaurant Fournaise on the Seine at Chatou. To the left-most of the painting is the proprietor of the restaurant, Pere Fournaise, and to his same line, a girl leaning on the railing is his daughter, Alphonsine. At the table in the foreground is Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot, with her dog; Angele (one of Renoir’s frequent models) turning her head towards standing Maggiolo on the right of the painting; Painter Gustave Caillebotte sitting backward in his chair while he stares across the table of Aline. At the center of this painting, sitting on a chair while he turns towards Alphonsine is a former cavalry officer. And across the table, a woman who sits while she drinks water from a glass is Ellen Andree. We will learn the entire characters of this painting in detail in later sections of this article.
Though the painting is a rigorous composition, this group of people here burst with sensuality and relaxed simplicity.
3. Artist.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir created the Luncheon of the Boating Party painting. Passionately in love with painting- both the process and result, the artist wrote to his minor painter,
“I also really enjoyed hearing about your painting… You yourself have to be thrilled with what your own brain does well in order to excite others. I think it is the only way (to excite others)… I am painting lots of (paintings of two-year-old) Jean these days, and I assure you that this is not easy, but it is so pretty. And I assure you that I am working for myself, only for myself.”
At his death, Renoir’s studios contained more than 720 of his paintings, which reveals his attachment to his creations. Though an excellent artist, Renoir led a tragic life in the end due to the progressive paralysis of his fingers from rheumatoid arthritis.
He began his career in 1864 when he was twenty-three and throughout the next twenty-four years of his career, he painted brilliantly, but in 1888, he began to suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, which progressively paralyzed his fingers. By 1890, he finally received fame and fortune for his paintings internationally. However, from 1888 till his death in 1919, his arthritis made his fingers more distorted, making it difficult for him to paint in detail. However, despite all these problems, he still painted in a heroic display of self-confidence and courage, which his video from 1915 shows us today.
His heroic behavior was well described by one of his young friends, Théo van Rysselberghe, a Belgian painter, in his letter to his wife in 1918,
“I can’t adequately describe how impressed I was by my visit to Renoir; it is pathetic, painful and at the same time very inspiring to see a being, infirm and physically disabled to such a degree, unimaginably really, retain such an ardor, such a need to create, always, always and again. His studio is filled with hundreds, that’s right, hundreds of recent paintings. There are atrocious ones and there are very beautiful ones, and there are bewildering ones, but to see this man, full of life, of fire, of faith and ardor, but mutilated, half devoured by gangrene, no longer able to stand up or use his hands, which he no longer has, one is mystified and admiring. I understand that after having seen such a sight, one has an immense respect for such a human will.”
4. Date.
Luncheon of the Boating Party dates back to the year 1881.
5. Provenance.
The Boating Party painting took sixteen months to complete as Renoir had a broken right hand, and he painted with the left. Besides, he got an unexpected portrait commission, due to which he got late to paint this artwork. After four months of working on it, the artist broke his hand as he fell from his bicycle in January 1880, which is why he worked with his left hand. With an impeccable sense of humor, he wrote to his friend Duret about it,
“I have been enjoying working with my left hand; it is a lot of fun, and it’s even better than what I did with the right. I think that it was a good thing that I broke my arm. It allows me to make progress. I’m not thanking you for the turmoil that my accident has caused you, but am very flattered by it, and I greatly appreciate all of the symphony that I’ve received from everyone. I will be completely better in around a week. I have Dcotor Terrier to thank for this quick cure; he was remarkable.”
Now, there is a lot to know about the historical context of the painting, which I will tell you in detail in the next sections of the article.
6. Location.
Luncheon of the Boating Party painting is on exhibition at the Philips Collection, Washington, DC.
7. Technique and Medium.
The artist used oil on canvas medium for the image. He portrayed the Algerian light through the use of lots of white, giving it a central role in the composition. With the Realistic Impressionism technique, Renoir integrated freer and lighter treatment while maintaining a contrast between the white surfaces and delicate touches of vermilion, producing an overall effect of solidity without any heaviness. He used less visible brushstrokes with strong contrasts to give a more natural appearance to the figures in this image. There is a rhythmic balance among the figures, even in a little crowded setting. Though Renoir used the impressionist technique to paint this artwork, the scene looks more anecdotal due to the individualized personalities of the figures, yet unifying the composition in harmony.
| Artist | Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
| Year Painted | 1881 |
| Genre | Figurative Painting with Still life and Landscape |
| Period | Realistic Impressonism |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 129.5 x 172.7 cm |
| Price | Not on sale |
| Where is it housed? | Philips Collection, Washington, D.C. |
Detailed Description of Luncheon of the Boating Party.
About the Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, simply known as Auguste, was born on 25 February 1841 and baptized at the Church of aint-Michel-des-Lions. His birth certificate states,
‘Today, 25 February 1841, at 3 in the afternoon… Leonard Renoir, 41-year-old tailor, residing on Boulevard Saint-Catherine (today Boulevard Gambetta)… presented us with a child of masculine gender who would have the first name, Pierre-Auguste, born at his home this morning… to Marguerite Merlet, 33-year-old wife.’”
Renoir’s family moved to Paris when Pierre’s paternal grandfather died in May 1845. They found a place near the Louvre museum and the Protestant Church, the Temple de l’Oratoire, on rue de la Bibliotheque. Here, when Renoir was eight, his youngest brother, Victor-Edmond, was born in May 1849. Renoir studied at the Freres des Ecoles Chretiennes (brother of Christian Schools), and at age seven, he was chosen to sing for the Charles-Francois gounod’choir at the church of Saint-Eustache in central Paris. At the same time, between 1852 and 1855, the artist’s family moved a few blocks away to the 23 rue d’ Argenteuil in today’s first arrondissement. They rented rooms on the fifth and sixth floors, where the sixth-floor room was used by Leonard’s tailoring business and for Marguerite’s dressmaking.
Renoir’s eldest brother, Pierre-Henri, followed the family tradition and became an artisan, medallist, and gem engraver under Samuel Daniel. He later married Josephine Blanche, who was nine years younger than him and was illegitimate and half-Jewish. In 1863, Pierre published a manual of monograms (later translated into English) as Complete Collection of Figures and Initials. Pierre-Henri later wrote two more books. Renoir might have modeled his brother’s examples when he attempted to write for publication in 1877, 1884, and 1911.
In 1854, when Renoir was just twelve or thirteen, his family’s financial needs deteriorated for which he left school and worked. His parents thought that he must join Pierre-Henri for his artisan trade, but since he had an exceptional artistic ability and his family came from Limoges, a city renowned for porcelain, his parents thought he might be good at painting on porcelain vessels, plates, and cups. Hence, Renoir began an apprenticeship in a porcelain painting workshop of Lévy frères at 76 rue des Fosses-du-temple, where he worked for 4-5 years till 1858. He would copy Rococo images of flowers and figures on porcelain vases. At this same time, Watteau, Fragonard, and Boucher’s paintings became popular. Renoir too saved his few porcelains and some meticulous drawings like Birds and Tambourines.
A few years passed when industrialization came to porcelain decoration, and Renoir lost his job and began painting images on window blinds and screens on gauze. At day, he worked for M. Gilbert for two years, and at night, he studied drawing at the free municipal drawing school run by sculptor Louis-Denis Caillouette, the director of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. This is how Renoir came into painting.
Now, that you know a brief about his early life, let us move toward the historical context of the painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party.
Historical Provenance of the Painting.
When Renoir painted his greatest paintings, including Luncheon of the Boating Party and the three dance panels, Dance at Bougival, Country Dance, and City Dance, he was thirty-seven, and in many ways, these seven years of his life were the happiest time of his life when his creativity flourished. Yet during this same time, he broke his right hand in January 1880, four months after he started to compose the Luncheon of the Boating Party.
In this same period, the artist recorded his appearance in several self-portraits and an etching by his friend, Marcellin Desboutin. By 1878, Renoir modified his style and realized that he could not support himself with figure paintings in his Impressionist style. Hence, he invented a variant, called Realistic Impressionism, which is closer to photography. Since the photographs were immensely popular at his time, and these portraits could be sold as an alternative to photographs, so he used less visible brushstrokes and stronger color contrasts to give a more naturalistic appearance. Renoir worked this style between 1878 and 1883, which is why we see this style in this image. To get more commissions, he and his friend Duret marketed a pamphlet, The Impressionist Painters, which reads,
“Renoir excels in portraiture… I doubt that any painter has ever depicted women in a more seductive way.”
Following the winters of 1880, Renoir joined Edmond in Nice, entrusting Ephrussi with his entry in the Salon. but then he went on to Algeria with Lestrange, Lhote, and Cordey. He told Madame Charpentier,
“Everybody tells me it never rains here but every time I put my nose outside, I have to go in and change immediately.”
There he started a landscape or two but he found the women unreliable and he was terrified to start something, that he couldn’t finish. So in March 1881, Renoir replied to Durand-Ruel who wanted him to go and work in England,
“I shall certainly go to England but not before the end of April as I am in Algeria… I want to see London this year and the heat of Algeria will make me appreciate England’s gentler climate.”
However, he didn’t go to England when he got back from Algeria as he changed his mind and asked Whistler to explain the reason behind it to his critic Durand,
“I am grappling with women and children and trees in blossom, and I wish to see nothing beyond that.”
During this same time after he returned, he might have started the work on the Luncheon of the Boating Party in the spirit of redeveloping his style and commemorating the friendship and good time he had in Algeria.
For this painting, in his own words, he explained to Berard,
“I am painting a picture of boatmen, something which has been preoccupying me for a long time. I am getting on a bit, and I did not want to delay this little treat any longer, as I will not be able to afford it later, it is already very expensive… One must from time to time attempt things which are beyond one.”
One of the significant things to note is that the painting further coincides with a crisis in Renoir’s own development and the general crisis of the Impressionist movement. Like Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Cézanne, Renoir didn’t participate in the fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880 as they wished to create more out of their artworks. However, at Durand’s insistence, Renoir allowed him to send his works to the seventh group of Impressionist exhibitions in 1883.
Renoir wanted “expression of life” in his paintings hence he began to feel a genuine revulsion for the Impressionist tendency to reduce reality to the optics. In his own words, he said,
“At about 1883, a break came in my work. I had reached the end of Impressionism and came to the conclusion that I did not know how to paint or draw. In a word, I had reached an impasse.”
It should be noted that many art historians suggest Luncheon of the Boating Party painting was intended as a response to a challenge posed by Zola in his review of the official Salon exhibition of 1880,
“They show their works incompletely, illogically, exaggerated,”
Zola condemned the Impressionists. Because Zola challenged the Impressionists to create more finished and complex modern-day paintings, Renoir’s ambitious Luncheon of the Boating Party, with its long execution and meticulous arrangement, could be viewed as a response to Zola’s challenge. However, it might or might not be the case.
The painting was sold to Durand-Ruel on 14 February 1881 for 6000 francs. In 1923, he sold the artwork to Duncan Philips for $185,000. The same painting was insured for 10 Million dollars while in a traveling exhibition.
Disputable Date of Luncheon of the Boating Party Painting.
The date of the Luncheon of the Boating Party is long disputed as there are three letters, that tell that Pierre might have begun working on the Luncheon in September 1879 and completed it in August and September 1880. Five months later, his dealer purchased it in February 1881 after sixteen months of work. One of the letters from Renoir to Berard in September 1879 says,
“I hope to see you in Paris on 1 October for I am in Chatou… I am working on a painting of some boaters, something I have been dying to do for a long time. I am starting to get old and I didn’t want to delay this little festivity any further. It’s expensive enough already. I don’t know if I will complete it, but I told Deudon about my hardships, and he nevertheless agreed with me that even if the great expense did not enable me to finish my painting, it’s still a step forward: every once in a while you must attempt things that seem too difficult.”
The second letter from Renoir to Aline in August 1880 tells that he continued to work on the painting and that he hoped to complete it in the later part of 1880. He writes,
“My dear friend, Tell Madame Alphonsine that I’m thinking of going to Chatou around the 8th of September unless the weather is bad. I would like to finish my luncheon of the boaters which is at the Baron.”
Finally, the third letter written by the artist to Berard in mid-September 1880 says that he had great impatience to complete the painting and that he got an unexpected portrait commission.
Hence the painting took sixteen months to paint and after spending four months working on it, he broke his right hand, which I have already told you about in the earlier provenance section at the beginning of the article.
Subject Matter and Dominant Elements.
Now, that we know much about the painting, let us finally delve into its subject matter.
Starting from the left of the Luncheon of the Boating Party, the man with white clothing and a yellow hat is the proprietor of the restaurant Pere Fournaise. At this same line, a girl leaning on the railing in the middle distance is his daughter Alphonsine. At the table in the foreground sits Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot with her little dog, painter Gustave Caillebotte in front of her, and actress Ellen Andree who is chatting with a journalist Maggiolo. While Gustave looks at Aline, sitting comfortably, Ellen and Maggiolo talk in a joyful manner.
On the other table, the artist painted a formal officer, Baron Barbier seen from behind and talking to Alphonsine and the model Angele, who is drinking from a glass. Behind Maggiolo, we see Pierre Lestringuez (in a felt hat) and Paul Lhote (in the straw hat). Both of them look at Jeanne Samary (a famous actress) while Paul has his hand around her waist. Lastly, the gentleman in Tophat is banker, editor, and art historian Charles Ephrussi and the young man with his cap is Alphonse Fournaise.
Renoir added an individualism in the figures of the painting, yet unified the entire composition. In this work, Aline is the key figure, wearing a fashionable blue dress with red and white trim at her collar and a yellow straw hat. The dog she holds can be the same dog from Renoir’s painting of 1880, Aline in the Grass, or Aline’s pet. Beyond the terrace, in the upper left corners are the boat on the Seine and a railway bridge glimpse. There is a romance in the painting as Caillebotte looks at Aline and Barbier engages with Alphonsine. Renoir’s friends, dressed in modern finery, enact his usual themes of socializing, drinking, and sharing food.
Learning the Luncheon of the Boating Party Analysis.
1. Brushstrokes.
The Luncheon of the Boating Party has little and finer brushstrokes to give a realistic photography image. He used extensive impressions of the muted and cool light with contrasting warm colors to give an overall look to the painting. He added texture to the clothes of the figures with finer brushstrokes.
2. Color, Light, and Value.
The painting shows a deep range of light and color. Renoir explained this to Vollard,
“There is a greater variety of light outdoors than in the studio…because of this, light plays far too important a part, you have no time to work in the composition.”
Hence, he used dappled light plus attempts to unify and define the composition. Furthermore, he rendered the figures in a firmer outline and limited the range of colors by placing them in an even light provided by the canvas awning.
The artist used a wide range of colors here. From deep blue to green with vivid reds and greens, Renoir painted this masterpiece with rich colors and contrasts. He used texture to showcase the figure’s clothing. One point to note here is that he used many golden tones to show the skin tones of women alongside the blush to portray the reddened skin by the sun.
Final Words.
As a painter of the ideal sensuous figure, Renoir is truly the last of the greatest. It goes without saying that his predecessors were the Pompeian Fresco artists Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Ingres. As a result of the influence of the artworks of Bonnard, Denis, Maillol, and Picasso, he fostered freedom in his art, further combining it with a balanced composition and form that is substantial and monumental in nature. As much as Renoir was a remarkable artist, he was an exceptional individual whose life story is heroic and inspiring. Just as the Luncheon of the Boating Party fills the viewer with enthusiasm, joy, and celebration, his life brings optimism to the hearts of the readers. Last but not least, the story of his life and artworks makes us grateful to have known, appreciated, and been inspired by such a generous person. To read his complete life, you can refer to the book, Renoir: An Intimate Biography, which is beautifully composed!
Resources.
- Renoir by Sophie Monneret.
- Renoir and His Art by Keith Wheldon.
- Renoir: An Intimate Biography by Ehrlich Barbara White.
- The Genius of Renoir: Painting from the Clark by Sterling and Francine Clar Art Institute.
- The Great Book of French Impressionism by Diane Kelder.
- Featured Image: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Frequently Asked Questions.
The Luncheon of the Boating Party celebrates the spirit of friendship, love, food, and great company, which represents the happiest years of Renoir’s life. What makes it more lovely is the use of finer strokes with contrasting colors to give it a photographic realism.
The Luncheon of the Boating Party is famous because it is one of the last paintings by Renoir in this genre, where he fused still life, landscape, and figurative art. Additionally, it is one of the largest canvases from the artist’s gallery, which demonstrates a lively atmosphere with impeccable impressionist skills.
Aline Charigot is the main character of the painting who is seated in a dark blue and fashionable dress with her dog. Renoir painted it one year after he met her. She is the future wife of the artist who would bear his children and live with him for the rest of his life.
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