Maine
Boat
Naval
DG
"entienda"
Renoir
Prov.4:7
"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."
Chess: "Maine" "Boat" "Naval" "DG" "entienda" "Renoir"
The following is from the blog:
(I'll remove it if the author deems it necessary, if not thanks a lot, because it's really good)
One of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's most beloved works is the charming moment captured in
Luncheon of the Boating Party,
which many of you may have had occasion to enjoy at the Phillips
Collection in Washington, DC. He managed to meld landscape, still life,
portraiture and genre painting into an intimate unified composition,
while somehow gracefully balancing two figures on the left with a dozen
on the right. Despite the crowded table, there is still a welcoming spot
waiting for us at the forefront.
|
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880–81. Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. |
The scene depicts one of the many boating and lunch
outings celebrated by Renoir and the group of friends and acquaintances
pictured here at the Maison Fournaise restaurant on the Seine river in
Chatou, a 20 minute train ride west of Paris. The painting, according to
the artist's son Jean in his book
Renoir, My Father (see earlier post on the filmmaker and playwright's
recollection of his painter father), "was the crowning achievement of a long series of pictures, studies and sketches" done at the restaurant during the 1870s.
Here is an actual postcard from that time showing what the restaurant
and surrounding area looked like when it was frequented by Renoir and
friends just a few years before he painted the famed luncheon group. I
have clipped it from an excellent artistic and historical analysis of
the painting that you can find here at the
Phillips Collection website.
|
Postcard of the Maison Fournaise and Seine river, 1870s. © Musée Fournaise, Chatou-France |
At the time, the restaurant was popularly known as the
"Grenouillére", literally, the "frog pond". And this was "not from the
numerous batrachians which swarmed in the surrounding fields". The term
grenouilles, frogs, was used to describe
... a class of unattached
young women, characteristic of the scene before and after the Empire,
changing lovers easily, satisfying any whim, going nonchalantly from a
mansion in the Champs Elysées to a garret in the Batignolles. To them we
owe the memory of a Paris which was brilliant, witty and amusing.
Among
that group, moreover, Renoir got a great many of his volunteer
models... Because French people love a medley of classes, actresses,
society women and respectable middle-class people also patronized the
Fournaise restaurant. The tone of it was set by young sportsmen in
striped jerseys, who vied with one another to become accomplished
boatmen.
Much has been written on the mix of
boatmen, artists, patrons, actresses, restaurant owner and others who
are gathered around this table. For more information on this festive
cast of characters, you can do no better than to visit the informative
and enjoyable website devoted to Susan Vreeland's novel
Luncheon of the Boating Party.
I
will only pick at some choice morsels from this luscious meal. Here,
apart from briefly mentioning that the young woman happily playing with
the dog is Renoir's beloved Aline Charigot, later to become his wife, I
wanted to discuss one of the guests, the gentleman in the yellow straw
hat and sleeveless maillot at the bottom right, the engineer, heir to a
bank fortune, painter, art patron, yachtsman and close friend of
Renoir's: Gustave Caillebotte.
Gustave
Caillebotte is a somewhat unsung hero of the Impressionist movement.
Born into a family of bankers, he resisted the pressure to follow his
father's profession and instead threw himself into what he most loved:
painting. According to Jean Renoir, Caillebotte "painted with as much
passion as any member of the Impressionist group". Although not always
considered an Impressionist painter, in part due to the realism of his
paintings, he did exhibit with them. And he became a great friend,
patron and financial and moral backer and determined advocate for that
group of struggling young "intransigents", as they called themselves.
Below is The Floor Scrapers,
one of his paintings. He displayed it at the second Impressionist
exhibition of 1876, for which he received, again according to Jean
Renoir, "his share of criticism and insults". One of the objections that
barred the doors of the official Salon to him in this work was his
choice of subject. The urban proletariat were just not considered the
proper object of a "serious" artist's attention. While the idealized
depictions of peasants and farmers by Millet and others had begun to
find favor with the Academy's arbiters of high art, the same did not go
for people who toiled in cities.
|
Gustave Caillebotte, 1875. Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers). Musee d'Orsay, Paris |
In Jean Renoir's account of his father's reaction to the painting
Renoir praised it, and
Caillebotte, being an exceedingly modest man, had blushed. He was only
too well aware of his limitations. "I try to paint honestly, hoping that
some day my work will be good enough to hang in the antechamber of the
living-room where the Renoirs and Cézannes are hung".
At the recent Impressionist exhibition in Madrid (see earlier post on the
Impressionist show at Fundación Mapfre),
I was able to see this painting and found it quite striking. I even
found myself looking at the floor below the painting to see if I could
spot any wood shavings that may have wafted down. In recent years,
Caillebotte's works have been drawing renewed attention from art
historians and receiving greater due (see the highly interesting essay, "
Odd Man In: A Brief Historiography of Caillebotte's Changing Roles in The History of Art" by Kirk Varnedoe, chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC).
What is beyond all dispute is the valuable contribution he made to the
early Impressionists as they struggled to eke out an existence. His
financial support, especially for Monet, was crucial. Caillebotte funded
exhibitions, paid studio rents, bought several dozen of their paintings
and helped keep them together when disputes arose and threatened to
irreparably disrupt the movement.
And in 1876, when he wrote his will, he came up with a "little plan" to
definitively elevate the Impressionist upstarts to what he felt was
their rightful place in the art world, a plan that would not be
activated until his death in 1894 at the age of 45. Again, Jean Renoir
recalls what his father told him of this generous friend and patron:
Caillebotte had gathered the
most important collection of his friends' works. His enthusiastic
purchases were often made just in the nick of time for those who
benefited by them. How many artists in financial straits at the end of
the month were saved by his generosity and farsightedness. "He had his
own little plan ... He was a sort of Joan of Arc of painting".
|
Gustave Caillebotte — Paris Street- Rainy Weather 1877. Art Institute of Chicago. |
Caillebotte willed his collection of nearly 70 paintings (almost all by
Impressionists) to the French government, on the condition that they be
shown at the Luxembourg Palace (where living artists were exhibited) and
then at the Louvre. He hoped the French government would not dare to
refuse it. The ostracism still faced by the Impressionists would thus be
vanquished and they would finally have their place of honor in the
great museum of French and world art. That was Caillebotte's "little
plan".
Sadly, the government did not accept the terms. Renoir, as executor of
Caillebotte's will, had to carry on the very complicated and unpleasant
negotiations. His son Jean describes the outcome:
Everyone knows the sequel. At
least two thirds of this unique collection, one of the greatest in the
world, was turned down. The remaining third did not get past the doors
of the Louvre, but was stored away in the Luxembourg Museum. On the
death of Charlotte Caillebotte, those works which had been rejected went
to various heirs, who got rid of them as quickly as possible. Scorned
by France, they were well received in foreign countries. A good many
were bought in the United States. I tell this story to any French friend
who accuses Americans of having emptied France of its masterpieces by
means of the almighty dollar.
The exact number of
paintings almost reluctantly accepted by the French government and
stored at the Luxembourg museum was 38. They eventually went on to form
the core of the Musée d'Orsay's Impressionist collection. The French
government did finally change its mind in 1928 and tried to claim the
inheritance of the rest of the paintings from Caillebotte's marvelous
collection, but the bequest was repudiated by the heirs (Caillebotte's
widowed daughter-in-law), and most of those paintings were purchased by
Albert C. Barnes and are now held by the Barnes Foundation near
Philadelphia. For more on Caillebotte and a slideshow of some of his
major works, see the website
Gustave Caillebotte — The Complete Works.
One
more person in the Renoir luncheon that I wanted to point out is the
young woman holding the glass of wine to her mouth near the center of
the composition: Ellen Andrée, an actress who modeled for Renoir (as
well as for Degas). You may recall that in the delightful film Amelie,
Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party was the painting copied once a
year for the last 20 years by Amelie's reclusive artist neighbor,
Richard Dufayel. In the movie the figure of Ellen Andrée comes to be
associated, at least for Dufayel, with Amelie. If you have not seen Amelie,
you probably really should be doing that instead of reading my blog.
Perhaps I should have said that at the beginning of this very long post.
|
Dufayel, Amelie and 'Renoir' |
Well, this luncheon is about over now. I apologize for the length of this post, but here in Spain, as in France, the
sobremesa,
the leisurely hours spent at the luncheon table after the main eating
is done, whiling away the minutes and hours in conversation and
friendship, tend to be the best part of the meal. Whet your appetite
with the brief video (make sure to put it on 720 HD and full screen) to
luxuriate at the table with this now venerable group of boaters cum
luncheoners