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Luncheon of the Boating Party - About Renoir's Most Famous Painting

Born in Limoges in France, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 - 3 December 1919) was to become one of the key members of the Impressionist movement. He is a French artist best known for his delightful paintings of curvy women, beautiful children, botanicals, and pleasant scenes. They could be easily identifiable by their use of bold lines and lively colors.

Renoir get inspiration from a mix of sources and experimented with new techniques during his career. He was the first Impressionist artist went separate way from the ultra modern direction of its movement at that time. His enthusiasm for painting was so clear to all who has a chance to met him and observed his artwork.

"Luncheon of the Boating Party" (also known as "Le dejeuner des canotiersis") is his last major work in Impressionist style, before he returned to techniques that more akin to the Old Masters. He was conscious that he had undertaken an ambitious work, and he pushed himself to his limits during a whole summer living "on site" at Chatou.

It took Renoir six months to complete "Luncheon of the Boating Party" and it has proven to be one of the artist's most favorited paintings nowadays. This canvas shows how creative the artist has use clothing and scenery to portray an ordinary sunny afternoon gathering of friends. The canvas doesn't have symbolism or storyline, that is why in many respects, its theme of youthful pleasure-seeking and love is simply a more modern version of "Watteau's A Journey to Cythera".

"Luncheon of the Boating Party" was intended to portray a slice of modern life, it depicts a group of Renoir's friends share food, wine, and chat on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise restaurant in Chatou, France. He loved to included his close friends in paintings, but in this one, he also includes the seamstress Aline Charigot, his future wife. She is the woman separated from the others, you can see her in the left forefront holding a small dog.

This painting also reflects the changing of French society in the mid - to late 19th century. Many classes customers started to be welcomed to places like restaurant. Seamstresses, art historians, cavalry officers, bankers and proprietor of the restaurant are seen together in the canvas. That mixed group embodied a modern Parisian society at that time.

"Luncheon of the Boating Party" seems to be a busy painting, but it has a very simple underlying structure. One diagonal places the table and the two groups who form trios on one side, and the single figures on the other. The figure groups and still life fall neatly into the four resulting triangles.

Renoir has done a great job with light in this painting. The focus lighting is from the opening space outside the balcony, beside the large white clothing man in the hat. The white clothing of both men at two sides and the table-cloth all together light up the whole composition. The figures and bottles on the table also add shape to the canvas and the layers of bodies gives a sense of perspective.

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The dealer-patron Paul Durand-Ruel has purchased the artwork directly from the artist; it was bought from his son by Duncan Phillips. It is currently in The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.