Book Review: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland - Page 3

Yet, she resists crafting a more complex portrait of Renoir’s misogyny, choosing instead to distill it to the forbidden, yet sacred, essence fueling his art: “When a painter finds someone like that, and pretty too, he’s so grateful for her, so thrilled by what they do together, that it’s natural to want more, to ride his excitement farther by loving entry into the depths of her, and to bring her into ecstasy ... That’s not philandery. It’s sacrament. It’s communion.”

For Vreeland, this is certainly true: art is sacred. It can emit “a blessedness,” creating a kind of healing force of light in the world. Certainly, that’s one way to read “the incandescence” of Renoir’s work. As Vreeland has described in interviews, the beauty she saw in “the placidness of Monet's garden, the sparkling color of the Impressionists” gave her strength when she faced serious health challenges. On one level, then, Vreeland’s Luncheon of the Boating Party is a lyrical ode to “that state of grace” she perceives in Renoir’s canvas.

In the final chapter, Vreeland turns the narrative over to Alphonsine Fournais, whose first person declaration — “I saw his life and his life’s work as one great, open-armed cry of love” — is meant to leave the lasting impression. Yet Vreeland’s loaded “[her] darks as well as [her] lights.” Her portrait of art as “love made visible” and of Renoir as “the painter of happiness” seems tantalizingly unfinished, a little like Renoir’s Luncheon without the awning.

Article Author: Kathy Jones

Kathleen B. Jones is a writer and former professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University, where she taught for nearly a quarter century. In addition to four scholarly books on feminist politics, she published one memoir, Living Between Danger …

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