The greatest picnics in paintings

The greatest picnics
in paintings

Picnics In Art
People have been eating outdoors since the dawn of humanity.
Dining outdoors it became a common subject for artists attracted both to the pastoral imagery and to the
wealthy people who embraced the pastime.
But the picnic really came to the foreground of art history with Édouard Manet's 1862 painting Le Déjeuner sur
l'Herbe (Luncheon On The Grass) .... the greatest painting in the history of Western art, rejected by the Paris
Salon and scorned by Napoleon III. himself !
But Manet’s pastoral scene is not much of a picnic: just some fruit and a brioche, tumbling out of a basket and
onto the grass and the nude woman’s discarded clothes. What’s significant is not the fanciness of the picnic,
but its newness – no more mythology, no more moralising, just the blunt facts of modern life.

MANET, Edouard
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass)
A naked lady wouldn’t normally shock a 19th-century gentleman if she looked like Venus or was called Danae.
But a naked lady who looked like a contemporary French courtesan, who moreover sat in company of clad
men, was simply outrageous.
In addition, she looked directly at the viewer, as if challenging him and saying: ‘Hey, you hypocrite, don’t you
think that you’re like one of these guys next to me who treat women like objects?’ That was too much for the
French Salon – the painting was rejected.

MANET, Edouard
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the
Grass)
1863
Oil on canvas, 208 x 265 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

MANET, Edouard
Grass)(detail
1863
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

RENOIR, Pierre-Auguste
Luncheon of the Boating Party
Technically this is a restaurant meal rather than a picnic, but no collection of the art of al fresco
pleasure would be complete without the untroubled sensuality of Renoir.
Light and flesh fill his world, as men and women enjoy themselves on one of the river trips that
were so central to the lifestyle painted and praised by the impressionists. Like an unfinished short
story, this painting invites you to speculate on their relationships and wonder what happened next.

Luncheon of the Boating Party
1880-1881
Oil on canvas, 1,302 x 1,756 mm
The Phillips Collection, Washington

Luncheon of the Boating Party (detail)
1880-1881
Oil on canvas, 1,302 x 1,756 mm
The Phillips Collection, Washington

MONET, Claude
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Luncheon on the Grass)(central and left panel)
For Manet, a picnic is a sly image of decadence and corruption. For Monet, it is untroubled bliss. This
early masterpiece by the greatest impressionist – which survives only in fragments – reveals that
impressionism is not only a style but an ethos.
Consciously rejecting the stiff, moralising manners of their parents, these young people enjoy the open
air, the sun, the moment. Monet has painted a hymn to happiness in the here and now.

MONET, Claude
Grass)(central and left panel)
1865-1866
Oil on Canvas, left panel 418 x 150 cm, central
panel 248.7 x 218 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Grand Palais, Paris

MONET, Claude
Grass)(central panel)
1865-1866
Oil on Canvas, 248x 217 cm

MONET, Claude
Grass) (left panel)
1865-1866
Oil on Canvas, 418 x 150 cm

MONET, Claude
Grass)(central panel) (detail)
1865-1866
Oil on Canvas, 248x 217 cm

MONET, Claude
Grass) (left panel) (detail)
1865-1866
Oil on Canvas, 418 x 150 cm

TIZIANO Vecellio
Pastoral Concert (Fête champêtre)
Titian's poem to rural escape is famous for being parodied by Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, yet is
itself subversive. Titian portrays two affluent – and clothed – men enjoying the countryside with naked
women who are probably courtesans.
The painting reflects the louche lifestyle of Titian and his fellow artist Giorgione (to whom the painting
was attributed when Manet travestied it).
As for the picnic, it's basically a drink of water, but no painting more exquisitely celebrates summer fun
in the country.

TIZIANO Vecellio
Pastoral Concert (Fête champêtre)
1508-09
Musée du Louvre, Paris

TIZIANO Vecellio
Pastoral Concert (Fête champêtre) (detail)
1508-09
Musée du Louvre, Paris

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Peace and War
A ripe country feast of fresh fruits proffered by a satyr symbolises the good life in this painting that
was created as a political argument.
On an official embassy to London to argue for peace with Spain, the diplomat and artist Rubens
chose to make his point by painting a picture of the pleasures of peace – literally, its fruits – and all
that war would ruin.
Little more than a decade later, Britain would be torn by civil war, the picnic trampled underfoot.

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Peace and War
1629-1930
Oil on canvas, 203.5 x 298 cm
National Gallery , London.

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Peace and War (detail)
1629-1930
Oil on canvas, 203.5 x 298 cm
National Gallery , London

POUSSIN, Nicolas
The Triumph of Pan
This picnic has got out of control. Grapes and wine need a bit of ballast – some sandwiches might
have helped. The worshippers of Pan are going wild in the country as this goat-legged god releases
the bestial in humanity.
Poussin's painting echoes scenes of pastoral mayhem like Titian's Bacchanal of the Andrians and
ultimately Dionysian images on ancient Greek vases, but compared with such hedonist antecedents
Poussin introduces a stern moral tone that is profoundly Christian.

POUSSIN, Nicolas
The Triumph of Pan
1636
National Gallery, London

POUSSIN, Nicolas
The Triumph of Pan (detail)
1636

BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder
The Harvesters
Most images of picnics in art, from Titian to the plein air lunches of the impressionists, show leisured folk ...
but this painting recognises the stolen pleasures of the rural poor.
In a moment's rest from back-breaking toil, the harvesters are having a rustic meal that looks as desirable as
any in art. Is Bruegel saying that work makes food and drink taste even better? Or simply that peasants are
human beings with rights and needs? Whatever its meaning, this is a great document of people's history.

The Harvesters
1565
Oil on wood, 116.5 x 159.5 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York

The Harvesters (detail)
1565
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York

STEEN, Jan
Two Men and a Young Woman making Music on a Terrace
A light lunch of fruit and wine has contribut
ed to the relaxed manners of these young people as they dice with moral danger. Steen is an artist who
mocks and warns in the same brushstroke.
Is he a tolerant observer or a severe Christian judge? Either way, the music these pleasure-seekers are
making on their Dutch picnic is leading to loose ways.

STEEN, Jan
Two Men and a Young Woman
making Music on a Terrace
1626 - 1679

STEEN, Jan
Two Men and a Young Woman
making Music on a Terrace (detail)
1626 - 1679

GOYA Y LUCIENTES, Francisco de
Picnic on the Banks of the Manzanares
Francisco de Goya's 1776 painting The Picnic is an early example of the picnic in art. The scene it sets
might give us picnic-envy today.
Though the painting shows the lower artisan class merrymaking along the river, historically, its own
surroundings have been much posher: It was part of a series that hung in El Pardo palace near Madrid.

Picnic on the Banks of the
Manzanares
1776
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Picnic on the Banks of the
Manzanares (detail)
1776
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The greatest picnics
in paintings
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