The Luncheon of the Boating Party

March 24, 2011 - PRLog -- The Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of the most well-know painting of Pierre-Auguste Renoir remains and also one of most popular oil painting reproductions. The painting captures an idyllic atmosphere as Renoir’s friends share food, wine, and conversation on a balcony overlooking the Seine at the Maison Fournaise restaurant in Chatou. Parisians flocked to the Maison Fournaise to rent rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night.

The painting also reflects the changing character of French society in the mid- to late 19th century. The restaurant welcomed customers of many classes, including businessmen, society women, artists, actresses, writers, critics, seamstresses, and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a new, modern Parisian society.

Renoir seems to have composed this complicated scene without advance studies or underdrawing. He also spent months making numerous changes to the canvas, painting the individual figures when his models were available, and adding the striped awning along the top edge. Nonetheless, Renoir retained the freshness of his vision, even as he revised, rearranged, and created an exquisitely crafted work of art.

The painting was purchased from the artist by the dealer-patron Paul Durand-Ruel; it was bought from his son by Duncan Phillips.  It was featured prominently in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain released in English as Amélie (2001). The most prominent reference is a comparison between the film’s protagonist, Amélie, and the woman in the centre sipping a glass (Actress Ellen Andrée), seemingly gazing out of the canvas, uninterested, while everyone else is enjoying the day together.

A homage to this painting appears in the final panel of On the False Earths, the seventh volume of Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin’s long-running comic book series Valérian and Laureline.

Actor Edward G. Robinson is quoted as saying: “For over thirty years I made periodic visits to Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party in a Washington museum, and stood before that magnificent masterpiece hour after hour, day after day, plotting ways to steal it.

If you love Renoir paintings, I bet you would like The Luncheon of the Boating Party. Although we can not afford the original artworks, but good quality art reproductions really help art-lovers to hanging their favourate art in their home.

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