Looking at the Masters: Renoir at Chatou

Renoir at Chatou        

August Renoir (1841-1919) and other artists began to develop a new style of painting in the late 1870’s that was later called Impressionism. They experimented and painting along the Seine in the villages of Argenteuil and Chatou, accessible by train 9 miles west of Paris. Both Renoir and Monet painted in plein air along the river. Monet was interested in the landscape. Renoir found his subject matter in the new young Bourgeoise who came in the summer to sail, row, and enjoy new cafes and entertainments that were springing up in the two towns.

Renoir’s “Oarsmen at Chatou” (1875-79) (32” x39.5”) (National Gallery of Art) is an excellent example of his favorite subject matter: the joys of rowing on the Seine. On a beautiful sunny day, two prospective customers stand casually by the river as a boatman pulls up to the shore and offers them a ride. The well-dressed young lady, in a navy skirt and orange jacket with white ruffles, shows off her flowered hat. She holds her blue skirt up, out of the wet grass, allowing her white ruffled petticoat to show. Her gentleman friend stands in a casual pose. He is dressed in the summer fashion of blue trousers, white jacket, and straw hat. A rowboat, sailboat, and barge are on the river. The white ruffles of the young lady’s dress, the white shirts of the near and far boaters, the white cabin of the barge, and the white side of a house on the distant shore move the viewer’s eye through the composition. Several houses of Chatou are visible.

The painting is composed mainly of the complementary colors, orange and blue. The woman’s orange jacket, the orange boats, and the orange roofs of the distant houses   are wrapped around by the blues of the water and sky. Renoir made the water shimmer in the sunlight with his swift touches of orange and pink. The grass on the shore is dark green with touches of red, yellow, and purple. The water and clothing of the figures are dappled with sunlight.  Renoir captures the fleeting movement of water and wind.

Renoir’s “The Rowers Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1879) (25.5”x 26”) (Art Institute of Chicago) depicts one of his favorite places in Chatou: the Maison Fournaise, a restaurant overlooking the Seine. Three figures are seated at a small table shaded from the sun by iron trellises covered with green plants. Flowers on the bank of the river are painted with dots of red that echo the red of the wine cork. Remnants of bread, cheese, and fruit, and empty wine bottles show that lunch is over. Seated with her back to the viewer, the young woman wears a navy-blue flannel dress popular with female boaters. Her gentlemen friends are dressed in white jackets, T-shirts, and trousers. Smoking a cigarette, the figure at the left casually leans back in his chair. The young woman apparently has said something interesting as the man to her left smiles at her. A single rower glides by, and a team of boatmen pull together on their oars.  

Renoir continued the use of the colors of sunlight to create the light and shadow in this composition. Of particular note is his handling of the T-shirt and trousers of the man with the cigarette. His white clothing, in the shade of the trellis, contains a large amount of blue to create the shadows with small dashes of orange and yellow for the highlights. The white outfit contains very little white paint. If placed next to the traditional style of painting shadow on white, this white will appear brighter and whiter.

“Luncheon of the Boating Party” (1881) (4.3” x 5.8”) (Phillips Collection) is one of Renoir’s larger canvases, and it signals the end of his adherence to some of the tenants of Impressionism. His close friends are gathered together on a balcony of the Restaurant Fournaise. The viewer looks on, but does not intrude in their enjoyment of each other’s company. Renoir’s friends are depicted in this painting.  However, they were painted in his studio, in small groups or individually. The still life also was assembled and painted in the studio. Only the background landscape was painted in situ (in place). Renoir moved away from Impressionism between 1878 and 1881. He commented, “Theories don’t make good pictures. For the most part they only serve to mask the shortcomings of the artist. Theories are worked out afterwards in any case.” 

The composition is tightly organized with the table, the railing, and the iron bars of the awning placed on the diagonal. These diagonals are complemented by the opposite diagonal placement of the people. Use of diagonals lends the movement and energy experienced by the viewer. Renoir added the awning later to provide the needed shadow. The fluttering of the awning suggests the breeze that flows over the scene. A railroad bridge is barely noticeable under the stripes of the awning. Two vertical iron poles, the vertical poles of the railing, and the verticals of the wine bottles and glasses add stability to the composition. Impressionist colors depict the light and shadow underneath the awning.  Renoir’s repeated blues, oranges, yellows, purples, reds, and greens draw the viewer’s eye from one group of figures to the other.

One of the delights for viewers of “The Luncheon of the Boating Party” is imagining the various conversations that take place in the scene. All the figures are Renoir’s close friends. At the left, Aline Victorine Chariot is engaged in a conversation with her small dog. She was a seamstress, like Renoir’s mother, and would become Renoir’s wife in 1890. She was 20 years younger than Renoir and bore him his three sons. 

Leaning on the railing behind Aline is Alphonse Fournaise, Jr., son of the owner. He wears a singlet, a new fashion statement invented by an Australian athlete who tore the sleeves off his T-shirt because they were too binding. Across from Aline and at the right is the artist Gustave Caillebotte, also wearing a singlet. Both men wear the newest fashion in hats: the straw boater, fashioned after the canotier straw hats worn by gondoliers in Venice.  The charming young woman leaning on the railing beyond Fournaise is Alphonsine Fournaise, the owner’s daughter. She too wears a boater hat. She is talking with Baron Raoul Barbier, the former mayor of colonial Saigon who then lived in Paris. He was well-known as a ‘bon vivant’ (“one who lives well”). Just beyond Barbier, the young woman having a drink is actress Ellen Andree.

Leaning over the table with Caillebotte is the Visconti Adrien Maggiolo, a journalist for Le Triboulet newspaper. The handsome Maggiolo leans over to talk with Angele Legault, an opera singer at the Opera-Comique. At the top right are Eugene Pierre Lestreingez, an actor and screenwriter who would write several scripts for Renoir’s son Jean Renoir, well-known for his silent films. The other is artist Paul Lhote. The men appear to have said something risqué; the actress Jeanne Samar puts her hands up to cover her ears. Samar performed at Paris’s premier theatre Comedie-Francaise. 

The gentleman in the top hat is Charles Ephrussi, art collector, historian, and founder and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the major arts magazine in France. Talking with him and wearing the brown jacket and hat is Jules Laforgue, personal secretary to Ephrussi and a symbolist poet. What a fascinating group of people and what interesting topics may be under discussion among Renoir’s close friend.

The Maison Fournaise was opened in 1867 and closed in 1906. It was left abandoned until1990, when citizens of Chatou, assisted by American private funds from Friends of French art, restored and reopened it. 

“The Luncheon of the Boating Party” is the last of what Renoir considered his Impressionist painting. It continues to be considered by critics and the public alike as one of his best. It was exhibited in the 7th Impressionist Exhibition, and at least three critics considered it the best work in the show. Renoir sold the painting to Paul Durant-Ruel, a very influential art dealer and gallery owner. His son, sold the painting in 1923 to Duncan Phillips for $125,000. It remains one of the prize possessions and most popular works in the Philips Collection (Washington, D.C.).

“To my mind, a picture should be something pleasant, cheerful, and pretty, yes pretty! There are too many unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.”  (Renoir)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.