Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland

I hope you will join me in reading Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland to learn more about Renoir and to take a trip to Paris.

Here is some background information I found at the Penguin Books website in case you are thinking of reading it:

INTRODUCTION

Library Journal says of this novel, “One of the most significant paintings of the Impressionist period is Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, and it’s hard to imagine that a novel could do it justice. Yet this new work from Vreeland does just that.” It reveals the mysteries of the painting with all the life, color, vibrancy, and subtlety of the painting itself. In the painting, Renoir depicted a group of Parisians—including several of his friends and lovers—on a restaurant terrace overlooking the Seine near Paris. In the novel, Renoir and these same revelers take us into their own lives—behind the scenes at the Folies-Bergère, and to artists’ studios, cafés, cabarets, salons, and regattas—while reflecting tumultuous changes as Paris careens toward modernity. With the impending and agonizing breakup of the Impressionist group and a huge change in the marketing of art imminent, Renoir faces a double crisis in art and love.

In Luncheon of the Boating Party, Susan Vreeland, an exquisite and passionate chronicler of historical paintings, takes the reader through the process of painting by way of Renoir, the many models in the painting, and the relationships he had with them—a complex mix of paint, color, and texture as well as the personalities of the myriad men and women in his life. The process of the painting is always the main issue, revealing the artist’s difficulties and ultimately his triumph, but the models’ lives display such French cultural issues as the residual trauma of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, changes in marriage traditions, the rise of feminism, the decline of old institutions, the yearning for personal expression, and the explosion of creativity in the arts, journalism, music, and literature.

Renoir had wanted to paint boaters on the terrace of La Maison Fournaise in Chatou for years. With the nineteenth-century advent of “le weekend,” Parisians flocked to the boathouse and restaurant to rent rowing skiffs, eat good food, and relax with friends and family by the river. Throughout the 1870s, Renoir often visited La Maison Fournaise to enjoy its convivial atmosphere and rural beauty, and to paint scenes nearby. In the late summer of 1880, he realized the light was perfect, but the complexity of his idea for a painting and the time constraint of the season gave him just two months—only seven or eight Sundays—of good light. He had to hurry.

Forgoing any preliminary drawings, sketches, or oil studies, Renoir went straight to the canvas. Now he had the setting, but he needed his subjects. Renoir wanted to construct a painting about modern life—the new, liberated freedom of la vie moderne. The patrons of the Maison were a ready blend of people from different classes and occupations: businessmen, artists, actors, writers, society women, seamstresses, and shop girls. He assembled fourteen men and women—some of them friends, some of them lovers, some he’d never met before—into a vibrant portrait of modern society.

The resultant painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party, and Vreeland’s own dazzling addition to her already outstanding body of work convey the recreational, leisurely mood of the setting on the Seine as well as the gusto, hedonism, and art of the era. Renoir’s diverse group embodies the modern Parisian society that embraced and promoted liberty, equality, and fraternity.

To learn more about Renoir and the painting visit:

http://www.phillipscollection.org/html/lbp.html

Babs

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Babs,

Thanks Babs. I will be reading with you when my book arrives.

Questions to ponder as we read:

rgg_discuss.gif (1294 bytes)


1. How do you think Renoir’s humble beginnings affected his life and his painting?

2. Describe what you think was going through Renoir’s mind as he took on the technical challenge of this painting. Was he ready for this? How was he to achieve the perspective? Position the figures? Anchor the terrace? Convey the river below?

3. Besides Renoir, how do other characters explore the issue of creative expression? In whom is this yearning most deeply felt? What effect does the gathering of these people have on each other? While reading this book, could you imagine being a model in the painting? What would it have been like for you? Elaborate on how you would have fit in or not.

4. Discuss the level of commitment each character had to the painting. How did their involvement affect the painting? Do you relate to any one of the characters in the painting Luncheon of the Boating Party?

5. How do the separate models’ plots act upon the progress of the painting and enlighten a single common theme? Which of the male models is your favorite? And of the female models? Why does each hold a place in your affections?

6. How did the fact that there was time pressure to finish the painting affect its result? Would the painting have turned out differently if Renoir had had more time to work on it?

7. Renoir seems to fall in love over and over again with the two things he most adored: the female form and the riverscape. He saw one woman as color, another as line. Was there something about the season in which he was painting and his relationships with Aline and Alphonsine that contributed to the overall effect of the image?

8. Why did Renoir hate the term “Impressionist” so much?

9. What does Luncheon of the Boating Party suggest about finding oneself in life and in love? Is there something unique about the way an artist finds his or her way?

10. In what ways, if any, did the novel surprise you? How do you react to a novel that incorporates real and well-known people as characters? Did anything in the novel affect the way you had previously thought about Renoir? Impressionism? French culture?

11. What in the story of this painting gives you a fresh perspective on understanding and developing the relationships and creative inclinations in your own life?

Hi Babs, Have you seen this from
svreeland.com?

http://www.svreeland.com/dis-q-lbp.html


If your book group has at least ten members, you can arrange a speaker phone chat with me. I love to do this, and we always have a lively time. It's good to have some time for discussion among yourselves before you call me. You can ask me whatever you'd like, and I'll be sure to tell you some good stories about things that happened during the writing of this book. Please email to arrange a date and time.
Susan Vreeland Chatou France


Courtesy Betty van Wijhe, 2006



Here are some questions that I hope will stir some discussion:


1. How do the separate models' plots act upon the progress of the painting and enlighten a single common theme? Which of the male models is your favorite? And of the female models? Why does each hold a place in your affections?

2. In what ways do the models' stories and lives depict what was then thought of as la vie moderne? Considering the characters who are not models, which ones contribute to the concept of la vie moderne? How do these characters give life and fullness to the novel?

3. Throughout the novel there are social contrasts--rich and poor, suffering and insouciance, past and present, city and country, war and peace, friends and enemies. Speculate on how these serve to make the novel transcend the period depicted.

4. Besides Renoir, how do other characters explore the issue of creative expression? In whom is this yearning most deeply felt? What effect does the gathering of these people have on each other?

5. Consider the character of Gustave in terms of personality, strengths, weaknesses, motives. Auguste remarks that he and Gustave both have ambiguities and double roles in their natures and lives. What might he have been referring to and why is it ironic? How do these alternate roles play out in the course of the novel? How are these two characters opposites and how are they similar?

6. When the models are finished posing for the last time, Jules quotes from the poem "Fra Lippo Lippi" by Robert Browning. How does the poem reflect the narrative? The poem's next two lines are: "God uses us to help each other so,/Lending our minds out." Does this change what you've said in answer to the first part of this question?

7. Why was loving her neighbor as herself an immediate natural response one time in Alphonsine's life, and a complicated thing another time? That is, what resided in her thought which made it complicated? What are the stakes for her in both circumstances? What gift does Alphonsine have in the end? How has she changed, and by what means?

8. Do you see or sense any change in Renoir from beginning to end? What did the painting give him in terms of his art as well as in other ways?

9. After the last luncheon, Renoir is looking at the five women who modeled for the painting. He says that all of them are brave. How does his assessment apply to each one individually? How does this remark relate to his other remark that he paints women as he would paint carrots?

10. In what way does Luncheon of the Boating Party signal any healing of France for Alphonsine? For anyone? Or do you disagree, and it is not a signal of healing? Renoir wrote in his notebook, "When art becomes a useless thing, it is the beginning of the end." How does this relate to healing? To our time?

11. In The Marriage Feast at Cana, Veronese painted an opulent midday feast for thirty-five guests plus servants, musicians, and onlookers. In Luncheon on the Grass (Déjeuner sur l'herbe), Manet depicted a nude woman and three clothed men having a picnic. Caillebotte painted a luncheon at home with his mother and brother absorbed in their food at a vast table, and another painting with just empty glasses and empty chairs. In The Potato Eaters, van Gogh gathered five peasants around a platter of potatoes in a dark cottage. Pieter Bruegel the Elder also painted peasants in The Wedding Feast. And Renoir painted nine men and five women after a summer meal on a sunny terrace. If you were a painter, how would you treat the motif of a midday meal? What occasion or situation, if any, would you be celebrating? In what setting? What would the menu be? How would the lines of interaction cross?

12. In what ways, if any, did the novel surprise you? How do you react to a novel that incorporates real and well known people as characters? Did anything in the novel affect the way you had previously thought about Renoir? Impressionism? Impressionists? Paris? The French people? French culture?

13. What new insights about painting and the purpose and joy of art does the novel give you? Looking at all of the paintings by Renoir on the website, which one is your favorite? Why? Which one is most moving? Renoir said, "Everyone sings his own song if he has a voice. One has to paint the painting of his time." What ought to be in the paintings or songs of our time?

You might explore the Renoir Quotes page and the Teacher's Guide for more ideas for discussion.

Zorro:

Wow! Great background stuff to review before and during the reading of Luncheon.

The discussion questions will come in handy too.

I saw them at this website along with an Introduction to the book and A Conversation/Interview with Susan Vreeland.

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/Luncheon_boating_party.html

Let's see how many people are interested in reading the book and chatting with her and maybe we could set up the chat for later in November.We will have to see what computer requirements are needed.

It would be good to have read most/all of the book first and have a set of group questions to ask her in the interview. I will be jotting down notes as I read along with this one---

Babs

Flexible Discussion Schedule

Chapters 1 - 10 November 10
Chapters 11 - 20 November 17
Chapter 21 - 30 November 24
Chapters 31 - 40 December 1
(with wrap up)

Come one, come all---any one with art background is especially welcome to join us even if you are not reading the book. We would love your input.

Babs

Hi Guys!

Thanks for the invitation but I'm really too busy at the moment. But I will be lurking somewhere in the shadows!
It's great to see how one book can lead to the other huh?!
I do have another book by Susan Vreeland on the shelf. It's called "Life Studies" and is about the Renoir / van Gogh period too. Maybe someday...
Good luck with this book!

Karin

p.s. if you are going to Paris I will be joining you! LOL! I can't wait!

Karin, I have a copy of Susan Vreeland's Life Studies too. Byproduct of searching the B&N bargain shelves for good finds. Let me know what you think of it when you read it (and vice versa if I get to mine before you do).

--- Anne ---

quote:

Originally posted by Book Girl:
Karin, I have a copy of Susan Vreeland's Life Studies too. Byproduct of searching the B&N bargain shelves for good finds. Let me know what you think of it when you read it (and vice versa if I get to mine before you do).

--- Anne ---

Karin and Anne,

You guys are starting to sound like Susan Vreeland groupees.

Babs

I've actually never read anything by Susan Vreeland, Babs. lol I just saw a few books by her on the Essencia Island book list so when I saw her book in the bargain section I figured I'd pick it up.

--- Anne ---

My book just arrived and I am getting into it. I am reminded once again why I like Susan Vreeland so much. Her writing takes you right into the moment in time of the story--so vivid, so real. You feel like part of the scene.

It was nice to read the interview with Ms. Vreeland and the information about the painting before starting the book.

Babs

Listen to Susan Vreeland Podcast

Look what I found. This is fantastic. You must listen to this. It was so neat to hear her voice.

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/podcast/archive.html#podcast71

Susan Vreeland talks passionately about her reasons for writing fiction about art. She not only writes about the man painting the picture but also the social fabric of the times.

She explains about Impressionism and the importance of Renoir depicting "a moment in time." She explains the characters in the painting.


Babs

Babs, I think I am one of those groupees you are talking about. I really regret that I am too committed this month in my reading to be able to join you as well. I have three personal discussions before the 14th of this month to go to and one on line that I am participating in. Just can't read fast enough this month. Then along comes Thanksgiving.lol

I will be peeking in when I can though.

Lynne

quote:

Originally posted by Lynne(bookread):
Babs, I think I am one of those groupees you are talking about. I really regret that I am too committed this month in my reading to be able to join you as well. I have three personal discussions before the 14th of this month to go to and one on line that I am participating in. Just can't read fast enough this month. Then along comes Thanksgiving.lol

I will be peeking in when I can though.

Lynne

I know what it feel like to have to pass on a read. I have to do my best to keep it to two books at a time in order to get the most out of them.

Feel free to pop in or just lurk. It's a great way to scout out future reads and capture a book just with the discussion.

Babs