Luncheon of the Boating Party

What a fabulous book! It's Vreeland's best. I like reading about the technical side of producing art. I liked it in The Girl with the Pearl Earring and I liked it here. The machinations of paying for models, art supplies, food, transportation were fascinating as was the hunt for the right models and solving the difficulties of what to include, what to exclude, and how to handle light and subject matter. The continual quest for the painter to understand how the viewer would view the painting and what he would understand without the artist clubbing him over the head with the obvious is something I wish more authors of books would seek as well. Indeed, it was this concept that was at the heart of Impressionism: that the viewer's eye could conceive of an object in a painting if the artist could capture the proper alignment of light, color and form. For example, take a very close look at a painting of one of the French Impressionists, without setting off the alarm in a museum. You can see the brush strokes. You can see blue and green lines close together. What you don't see is the house among the trees or whatever the subject matter is. Now walk backwards keeping your eye on the painting. The brush strokes disappear, the lines blend and become yellow, and the subject matter appears. Your eye and brain have done this. This was the revolution that was Impressionism. Vreeland's contribution to our understanding of Impressionism is limited but her contribution to our understanding of the movement is immense. I never knew, for example, that an artist could not put 13 people in his or her painting. I never understood the difficulties of the models in posing, not just their keeping still throughout the day, but what they were giving up in their daily lives to be a part of artistic history. I never knew the hard choices Impressionists were having to make to continue to be a part of the movement in terms of gaining prominence (and fees) as a painter. There are many Impressionist painters who make appearances in this book along with their various commitments to the movement. We know who these people who posed are, yet Vreeland is able to give them substance and character. It's the same with Renoir. It's her imagination that puts words in his mouth, but they are thoughts and words he must have had and uttered because of his known stances in the Impressionist movement. And whether they were kind people or not, I'm glad that Vreeland chose to make them so. It increased my enjoyment of the book. I have spent little time discussing the painting. You really have to see it for yourself. It's right over there in Washington, D. C.

Art is one of those oddly subjective things. Everyone looks at it quite literally and where one person can find extreme beauty and emotion, another will just shrug and go eh. That's both the curse and the joy of art, that everyone certainly has an opinion on it, and it's more likely than not that everyone is going to disagree about something about it. One of the greatest disagreements about art, and how it was created occured in Paris, in the last half of the nineteenth century. and it would change painting forever. One of those rebellious artists is the protagonist of this novel, Auguste Renoir. He's struggling to make ends meet, always in debt it seems, to the supplier of his canvas and paints, to Camille who runs the eatery where he takes many of his meals, to his friends. Obligations are all around him, and he fights to keep himself going, always looking for inspiration. He is part of the artistic revolution known as the Impressionists, that broke away from the rigid Academic style and the critics of the Salon and took the heretical notion that art could be of the instant and didn't need to be executed in a staged, realistic fashion. Now it looks as though the Impressionist movement is starting to break up -- two major factions have formed, with Edgar Degas and his followers saying that art needs to show the seedier side of reality, and others trying to stay with the original ideas. Some have died in the terrible days of the Franco-Prussian War and the Communard that followed afterwards, and even after a decade, the scars are still there in a slowly recovering Paris. A popular way of escaping is to go out to one of the suburbs on the Seine, and go boating. Here, nearly all classes are equal, with the stuffy bourgoisie clinging to their frock coats and top hats, workers and artisans alike down to their undershirts and taking to the water to enjoy a summer's day. A restaurant has sprung up on a small island, and it is here that Renoir comes up with his idea of a grand canvas to get him the recognition -- and fortune -- that he craves from the Salon. The problem is -- how is he going to get his funds, his models and his supplies all together? Some people he has already decided on, from his friend, Gustave the collector, Alphonse and Alphonsine who work in the restaurant, Angele the bawdy and Antonio the journalist, all of them vibrant and alive, but Auguste is after more. He assembles his models, luring them with the promise of excellent lunches and fees on Sundays on the Seine. But, not everything is going too well. One model refuses to sit still, and creates continual chaos in her wake, another is locked in a tenuous relationship with her lover over the question of marriage, others get tangled up in outside problems, and soon enough, it looks as though the painting is never going to get finished in time before the summer light runs out. Vreeland creates a vibrant world here that is alive with colour and humour. But to balance that she

This is the story of Renoir's famous painting 'Luncheon of the Boating Party,' a work completed on the balcony of the restaurant Maison Fournaise, just outside of Paris. Combining historical fact with Ms. Vreeland's vivid imagination we learn how the painting came into existence and how the models were chosen and gathered, as well as a sense of the time and place. The models' identities are largely based on historical fact, but as with all works of historical fiction the author uses her colorful imagination in guessing their conversations, relationships and emotions. At the beginning of the story, Auguste Renoir is struggling even to cover the costs of purchasing several tubes of paint, but by the time the painting is finished the reader gets a sense that Luncheon represents a fortunate turning point in his career. There is something compelling about an author bringing to life the story of a work of art. The characters become familiar and spark curiosity about who they were, the location becomes a real place one could visit, and the art itself becomes an intimate friend. Susan Vreeland first piqued my interest with her biographical historical fiction, 'The Passion of Artemisia.' Her background in and her passion for fine art is clearly a prerequisite in producing a story like this. The descriptions of the colors, clothing and food I can only describe as "delicious" and nearly caused me to feel that I was actually there among them. One suggestion: Print a color copy of the painting to reference as you read. Otherwise you'll be flipping to look at the cover approximately 3,496 times.

In previous novels, Susan Vreeland has brought artists as diverse as Jan Vermeer, Emily Carr and Artemisia Gentileschi to life in the pages of her novels, often focusing on the fictional circumstances surrounding their masterworks. Now Vreeland turns her attention to Impressionist master Pierre Auguste Renoir and the genesis of his most famous work, which depicts a group of 14 merrymakers enjoying lunch on the banks of the Seine outside Paris. At the novel's opening, Renoir is frustrated; the Impressionist group seems to be dividing against itself, conflicted over the question of whether to exhibit paintings in the more establishment-sanctioned Salon. What's more, Renoir is outraged by an essay written by critic Emile Zola, who writes, "Despite their [the Impressionists'] struggle, they have not reached their goal; they remain inferior to what they undertake; they stammer without being able to find words." Renoir, convinced that he is the one to prove Zola wrong and finally get a major Impressionist work shown at the Salon, sets about to paint a picture that will define la vie moderne (modern life): young people, enjoying leisure time at a riverside cafe. He envisions a monumental painting that will combine portraiture, group dynamics and still life in a composition that is both an homage to classical masters and a vision for the future of painting. But for Renoir, realizing his vision will hardly be simple. There's the matter of assembling an appropriate group of models, which include country folk, fellow artists, writers and a former mistress or two. There's the fact that Renoir's right arm is in a cast following a bicycling accident. And there's the eternal problems of time and money, both of which might run out before Renoir has been able to capture the elusive quality of summer light on the Seine. Vreeland's writing here is as engaging as ever, particularly when she broadens her scope to focus on the various figures in the painting, revealing their own stories and connections even as she focuses primarily on Renoir's own vision and motivation. The scenes that take place during each Sunday's modeling sessions are particularly delightful, as these young Parisians engage in witty, bawdy banter while Renoir attempts to capture their frivolity and spirit with his brush. Vreeland's portrayal of Renoir himself is a fascinating character study. She plays with his reputation as a philanderer, giving his well-known affection for his models substance and depth even as the easily influenced painter falls hard for his newest models: "A painter of women was what he wanted to be known as, but that meant having a steady stream of models to inspire him, to make his pulse pound with the urgency to paint what he saw, what he felt in his body, what he wanted to touch." Readers familiar with Renoir's work and that of his fellow Impressionists will glean the most from Vreeland's latest novel, and will likely pick up on many of her allusions to other ar

I've just spent most of my weekend devouring Luncheon of the Boating Party, and I've emerged feeling well satisfied and more than a little nostalgic. This is definitely my new favorite among Susan Vreeland's books, as sparkling as Renoir's colors and tasty as any of the meals described at the Maison Fournaise. Very well researched, but the research never gets in the way--it goes down easy. Vreeland's creativity in illuminating the personalities of Renoir and his models means I won't look at the painting the same way again. Merci!