Although these characteristics are associated with Impressionism, we should
not expect to ¿ nd them in equal measure in each artist or even in each
painting by the same artist. In short, if we approach Impressionist painting
with these rules in hand, we will be more confused than enlightened. We
must always take paintings one at a time and see what the artist actually
does, rather than look for the application of a theory.
We begin with Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) and his Luncheon of the
Boating Party (1881). Luncheon is a response to the crisis of Impressionism
mentioned in the last lecture. You will recall that this crisis involved
the dissolution of objects as a result of the artist’s concentration on light.
Renoir found his solution to this problem in lessons learned from Titian and
Michelangelo about both color and form during a long visit to Italy. Luncheon
has many ¿ gures, most of which are gathered in the right-hand side of the
painting. The front of the picture, however, seems open to admit the viewer
into the group. The painting has a relaxed quality, and the characters seem
to be connected in various ways. We see, ¿ rst, a seated young woman with
her dog and a standing man. Behind them is a woman leaning on the railing,
conversing with a young man in brown. Behind them, two men, one in a
top hat, are conversing. In between them is a woman drinking wine, lost in
her own thoughts. Finally, we see a group of three in the back and a large,
important group of three in the foreground.
The scene takes place outdoors, but we’re hardly aware of the landscape. The
Seine is only glimpsed through the foliage around the porch of the restaurant.
Colors hold this picture together, such as the yellow hats of the seated lady,
the man beside her, and the woman in the background. The red or red-orange
in the awning connects to the orange in the bow on a woman’s sleeve, an
orange patch on a brown coat, a red-orange À ower on another woman’s hat,
and so on. Renoir never surpassed this painting in its solidity of composition,
beauty of color, and sense of joie de vivre.
Our next artist is Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), born in St. Thomas, in the
West Indies, of a Portuguese Jewish father and a Creole mother. Older than
most of the Impressionists-to-be, Pissarro was among the ¿ rst of them to give
subtitles to his paintings that indicated a time of day or a weather condition,
as in this painting, L’lle Lacroix, Effect of Fog at Rouen (1888), among the