Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881 Oil on canvas Acquired 1923

The Story Behind the Masterpiece...

About the Artist

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges on February 25, 1841. His father was a tailor and his mother a dressmaker. When Renoir was three, the family moved to Paris where he grew up and lived most of his life. From 1854 to 1858, Renoir was apprenticed to a decorator of porcelain. He also studied drawing in the evenings and, from 1864, received permission to paint copies in the Louvre. In 1860-61, Renoir began his formal art training, studying in the studio of Charles Gleyre and entering the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in 1862. At the art school, Renoir formed friendships with Claude Monet (1840-1926), Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870), and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899). The four artists,who had painted together outdoors during their student years, later were founding members of the movement that became known as Impressionism.

By 1874, when Renoir participated in the first Impressionist group exhibition, he had also come to know Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). In the late 1870s Renoir gained critical recognition and achieved financial security for the first time in his career. He received commissions to paint portraits of prominent Parisians and began to exhibit and sell his works through the Paris gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel, who gave him his first one-man exhibition in 1883.

Around 1880, Renoir met Aline Charigot,whom he later married in 1890. In 1885, their first son Pierre was born, followed by Jean (the well-known film maker) in 1894, and Claude in 1901. By the 1890s the artist and his family began to spend most of their time away from Paris, in Essoyes (the childhood home of his wife) and in Cagnes. Renoir's paintings from the 1880s onward reflect his continued interest in classical art and the female nude. Despite suffering from debilitating arthritis, Renoir continued to paint through his later years and even to began to work with sculpture in 1913. He died at his home in Cagnes at the age of seventy eight.

Leisure Pastimes along the Seine

The upper left hand corner of Luncheon of the Boating Party, beyond the awning, Renoir included the blue-gray outline of the Chatou railroad bridge -- a visual reminder of the government's recently completed transportation projects that had made this riverside fête possible. By the 1860s, new French railroad lines changed many rural areas along the Seine surrounding Paris into suburban sites for leisure. The railroad crossed the winding path of the Seine, providing weary Parisians with many accessible weekend retreats. From his Paris studio, Renoir, for example, could walk ten minutes to the Saint-Lazare train station and catch -- on the half hour -- a train for the suburbs. One of Renoir's favorite places was the town of Chatou where, on a nearby island, he painted Luncheon of the Boating Party that depicts a group of his friends on the balcony overlooking the Seine at the Maison Fournaise.

Once the exclusive domain of the upper class, the riverside towns of Bougival, Asnières, Argenteuil, and Chatou were transformed into popular retreats for all members of society. Many amusements including guinguettes (see vocabulary list below), dance halls, bath houses, boat rentals, and sailing clubs were established to cater to the growing numbers of weekend revelers. Bougival was known for La Grenouillère, a popular spot for swimming, boating and dancing where, in 1869, Renoir and Monet first painted scenes of riverside leisure. The natural characteristics of the Seine often determined the sport of choice in certain towns. In Chatou, the popular pastime was rowing, while in Argenteuil, where the river was somewhat wider, sailing prevailed.

The Maison Fournaise

Parisians would flock to Chatou's Maison Fournaise to rent rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the night. In 1857, the entrepreneur Alphonse Fournaise bought land in Chatou to open a boat rental, restaurant, and small hotel for the new tourist trade. From the mid 1870s, Renoir often visited the Maison Fournaise to enjoy its convivial atmosphere and rural beauty. He painted scenes of the restaurant, as well as several portraits of Fournaise family members and landscapes of the surrounding area. In fact, Renoir occasionally traded paintings with the Fournaise family for food and lodging.

Renoir and Friends

Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party not only conveys the light-hearted leisurely mood of the Maison Fournaise, but also reflects the character of mid- to late-nineteenth century French social structure. The restaurant welcomed customers of many classes including bourgeois businessmen, society women, artists (Renoir and Caillebotte), actresses, writers (Guy de Maupassant), critics and, with the new, shorter work week--a result of the industrial revolution--seamstresses and shop girls. This diverse group embodied a new, modern Parisian society that accepted, as it continued to develop and advanced the French Revolution's promise of  liberté, egalité, fraternité.

With a masterful use of gesture and expression, Renoir painted youthful, idealized portraits of his friends and colleagues who frequented the Maison Fournaise. In the background and wearing a top hat, the wealthy amateur art historian, collector, and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Charles Ephrussi (no. 8) speaks with a younger man wearing a more casual brown coat and cap who may be Jules Laforgue (no. 5), the poet, critic, and personal secretary to Ephrussi. In the center, the actress Ellen Andrée (no. 6) drinks from a glass, while seated across from her and dressed in a brown bowler hat, Baron Raoul Barbier (no. 4), a bon vivant and former mayor of colonial Saigon, faces the smiling woman leaning on the railing thought to be Alphonsine Fournaise (no. 3), the daughter of the proprietor. Wearing traditional straw boaters' hats, both she, and her brother, Alphonse Fournaise Jr. (no. 2), who was responsible for the boat rentals and stands at the far left of the composition, are placed within, but at the edge, of the party.

Also sporting boaters' hats are the artist Paul Lhote (no. 12) and the bureaucrat Eugène Pierre Lestringez (no. 11). These close friends of Renoir, who often modeled for his paintings, seem to be flirting with the fashionably dressed, famous actress Jeanne Samary (no. 13) in the upper right-hand corner. Lhote is not the only artist represented in Luncheon of the Boating Party; Renoir also included a youthful portrait of his fellow artist, close friend and wealthy patron, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) (no. 9), who sits backwards in his chair in the right foreground and is grouped with the actress Angèle (no. 7) and the Italian journalist Maggiolo (no. 10). Caillebotte, an avid boatman and sailor who painted many images of these activities, is portrayed in a white boater's shirt and flat-topped straw boater's hat. Caillebotte gazes across the table at a young woman, affectionately cooing at her dog, who is Aline Charigot (no. 1), the young seamstress Renoir had recently met and would later marry.

The Process Behind the Painting

For most viewers and admirers of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, the artist's process appears at first glance to be one of spontaneity and freshness. Consistent with the image of Impressionism as an art of direct observation, this work captures the fleeting effects of light and color. Renoir was so successful in bringing together a large group of figures into a singular, believable image of a charmed moment in time that it requires careful visual examination of the painting's composition to fully understand his artistic achievement. Detailed observation of the paint surface reveals the high level of skill in the techniques of oil painting that Renoir had developed by this point in his career. The character of his brushwork varies from brightly colored, thickly applied paint in the still life on the table, to the feathered brushstrokes of the landscape in the background. In the figures, Renoir has used firm outlines and subtle gradations of light and dark to clearly define the three-dimensional character of the human body, and the specific details of the facial features.

In order to create such a complex work, an artist often begins with sketches on paper or small painted studies. Such preparatory works often provide valuable insights into the artist's creative process. Unfortunately, no drawings, oil studies, or any other preparatory exercises specific to Luncheon of the Boating Party are known to exist. All that remains of Renoir's process is embedded in the layers of paint on the canvas itself.

Recent technical studies, including x-radiography and infrared reflectography, have shown that Renoir made numerous changes to the canvas as he worked on the painting over a period of months. A letter written by the artist during the autumn of 1880 also indicates that he worked on individual figures as his models were available to pose for him and that he was struggling to resolve the final grouping of figures, the table setting, and the landscape. In recounting his progress, he complained of being behind schedule, of having to remove a figure ("in a word, today I've wiped her out"), and of his frustration with this ambitious project: ". . . I no longer know where I am with it, except that it is annoying me more and more."¹

Renoir persevered however, making changes that range from fine adjustments to the position of individual figures, to major additions, such as the red and white awning at the upper left. This change can be detected by the naked eye, in the pentimento around the hat of the bearded man under the awning at the left. The importance of this change can be understood when the viewer attempts to envision the painting without the awning. If an open sky and distant landscape had been retained, the three-dimensional illusion would have been difficult to achieve. By enclosing the top edge, the balcony's recession into space is more convincing, and the sitters are better defined as a cohesive group.

Although there is no documentation, Renoir presumably executed some of the work on the balcony of the Maison Fournaise. It is not, in any case, a work of art painted entirely out of doors, known as a plein air painting. The lengthy process of changing the composition and reworking the painting mostly occurred in the studio. Nevertheless, Renoir retained the freshness of his vision, even as he revised, rearranged and created an exquisitely crafted work of art.

Renoir to Berard: "I hope to see you in Paris on the first of October, for I am at Chatou. . . . I'm doing a painting of oarsmen which I've been itching to do for a long time. I'm not getting any younger, and I didn't want to defer this little festivity which later on I won't any longer be able to afford already it's very difficult. . . . Even if the enormous expenses I'm incurring prevent me from finishing my picture, it's still a step forward; one must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one's capacity."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir ²

Making a Masterpiece

From the outset, Renoir consciously constructed an epic painting about modern life to surpass the earlier artistic achievement of Ball at the Moulin de la Galette (1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Many art historians believe that Luncheon of the Boating Party, begun in the summer of 1880, may have been Renoir's response to a challenge from the famous writer and critic Emile Zola (1840-1902) in a June review of the official Salon exhibition of that year. ³ Zola criticized the Impressionists for selling "sketches that are hardly dry" and challenged the artists to create complex paintings of modern life that were the result of "long and thoughtful preparation" and would establish "a new formula."⁴ With Luncheon of the Boating Party's ambitious scale, lengthy process of execution, and complex composition and subject matter, Renoir may have been striving to produce Zola's "masterpiece that is to lay down the formula...."⁵

Renoir's reverence for the history of art, particularly the paintings in the Louvre, provided a source of inspiration throughout his career. In the case of Luncheon of the Boating Party, he may well have looked at such works as Paolo Veronese's lavish, banqueting scene, the Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-63, Musée du Louvre, Paris) and the flirtatious Rococo fête galante, Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717, Musée du Louvre, Paris) by Antoine Watteau.

Renoir masterfully created Luncheon of the Boating Party's mood of enchantment by capturing both the immediacy and specificity of a contemporary moment nineteenth-century leisure on the Seine and the universal appeal of human celebration. Moreover, he, in this canvas, combined several of the traditional categories of painting: still life, landscape, portraiture and genre. The result is a timeless painting that captures the atmosphere of an idyllic place, where friends share the pleasures of food, wine, and conversation.

From Renoir's Studio to The Phillips Collection

In 1881, shortly after Renoir completed Luncheon of the Boating Party, the painting was purchased by Paul Durand-Ruel, the Paris art dealer who played a key role in promoting Renoir's career and those of his fellow Impressionists. Although the painting passed briefly into the hands of a collector named Ernest Balensi, Durand-Ruel reacquired it by early 1882, and included it in the seventh Impressionist exhibition in March. From that time, until 1923, when the painting was purchased by Duncan Phillips, it remained in the private collection of the Durand-Ruel family.

Renoir's ambitious painting was well received by critics who reviewed the 1882 exhibition. One writer said, "It is one of the most beautiful pieces that this insurrectionist art by Independent artists has produced. For my part, I found it absolutely superb." ⁶ Over the next forty years, Durand-Ruel continued to organize exhibitions that featured Renoir's increasingly famous masterpiece, both in France and in the United States.

Duncan Phillips, who opened the Phillips Memorial Gallery to the public late in 1921, saw Luncheon of the Boating Party in a New York exhibition in early 1923 and knew that the Durand-Ruel family was considering selling the painting. Duncan Phillips and his wife, the artist Marjorie Acker Phillips, traveled to Europe in the summer of 1923 and purchased the painting in Paris.

The sale of this famous French painting to an American museum attracted the attention of the press, who reported that the price, $125,000, was the largest yet paid for any work by Renoir. Duncan Phillips proudly wrote back to Washington from Paris that he had acquired for the collection "one of the greatest paintings in the world." ⁷ It was to become the cornerstone of what Phillips called "a museum of modern art and its sources." Today, The Phillips Collection contains over 2,000 works of art and is internationally known among art lovers for its inviting domestic atmosphere, its fine permanent collection and special exhibitions, and, most of all, Renoir's timeless celebration of life and art.

"The big Renoir deal has gone through with Durand-Ruel and the Phillips Memorial Gallery is to be the possessor of one of the greatest paintings in the world. . . . The Dejeuner des Canotiers. . . . Its fame is tremendous and people will travel thousands of miles to our house to see it. . . . Such a picture creates a sensation wherever it goes."

Duncan Phillips, 1923 ⁸

Vocabulary

Canotier--1. rower, oarsman, boatman; 2. sailor hat, straw hat.

Composition--the artist's organization of the visual elements& -- the lines, colors, and shapes -- in a work of art.

Fête galante--light-hearted, elegant outdoor amusements such as picnics and flirtatious games; a subject often depicted in 18th century paintings of French aristocratic life.

Genre--1. subject category in art of scenes of everyday life; 2. any of the traditional subject categories of painting including: historical, mythological or religious subjects, portraiture, still life, landscape, and scenes of every day life.

Guinguettes--café; usually an open-air, suburban restaurant; sometimes with music and dancing.

Impressionism--1. a painting style developed by French artists in the 1870s, characterized by quickly applied brushstrokes and patches of bright color that blend when viewed from a distance to convey atmosphere and the fleeting effects of light; 2. the innovative artistic movement of the 1870s and 80s led by a group of artists who painted scenes of modern life and organized exhibitions of their own work in Paris. The artists most often associated with the movement are: Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité--trans. "liberty, equality, and brotherhood"; late eighteenth-century motto that reflected the goals of the French Revolution.

Pentimento--evidence of a change made by an artist in a painting that appear over time as some opaque pigments used to cover a change become transparent revealing the artist's earlier version.

Plein air--trans. "fresh air or open air"; to paint en plein air means to paint out of doors

X-radiography and infrared reflectography--scientific imaging techniques that penetrate upper paint layers to reveal underdrawing and/or changes made to the composition.

To Learn More: Resources

The primary source of information for this brochure is Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" by Eliza E. Rathbone, Katherine Rothkopf, Richard R. Brettell, and Charles S. Moffett, with additional contributions by Elizabeth Steele, exhibition catalogue. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint. 1996.*

Bomford, David, et al. Art in the Making: Impressionism, exhibition catalogue. New Haven and London: The National Gallery, London, in association with Yale University Press. 1990.

Herbert, Robert L. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1988.

Moffett, Charles S., et al. The New Painting, exhibition catalogue. San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. 1985.*

Phillips, Marjorie, with a foreword by Laughlin Phillips. Duncan Phillips and His Collection. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, and Company. 1970.*

Renoir, Jean, translated by Randolph Weaver and Dorothy Weaver. Renoir, My Father. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, and Company. 1962.

Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. 1973.

Wadley, Nicholas. Renoir: A Retrospective. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. 1987.

White, Barbara Ehrlich. Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers. 1984.

*These books are available in The Phillips Collection Museum Shop.

Endnotes

1. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, letter from Chatou to Paul Berard, 1880, as translated in John House et al., Renoir, exh. cat. (London, 1985), quoted in entry by John House on Luncheon of the Boating Party, 222, from Maurice Berard, "Lettres de Renoir a Paul Berard," LaRevue de Paris, December 1968.
2. Renoir, letter from Chatou to Berard, 1880, as translated in Renoir, exh. cat. (London, 1985), 222.
3. See Charles S. Moffett, Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party", 141.
4. As quoted in John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, 4th rev. ed. (New York, 1973), 445; for the original French text see Emile Zola, "Le Naturalisme au Salon" (four articles), in Le Voltaire, 18-22 June 1880, reprinted in Emile Zola, Salons (Geneva, 1959), 233-54.
5. Ibid.
6. Paul de Charry, Le Pays, 10 March 1882, quoted in Charles S. Moffett et al., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874-1886, exh. cat. (San Francisco, 1986), 413.
7. Duncan Phillips to Dwight Clark, letter of 10 July 1923, The Phillips Collection Archives.
8. Ibid.