Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898)

Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898)

Winter picnics are few, and among the best is Elizabeth von Arnim’s on a freezing afternoon on a bluff above the Baltic. On a brilliant January day, Elizabeth’s birthday, she travels about three hours in a horse-drawn carriage over deep snow to a bluff...
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Le Pique-Nique (1898

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Le Pique-Nique (1898

Le Pique-Nique was probably not Toulouse-Lautrec’s title because the French did not use pique-nique for such a meal. The subject is the Pierrot, the sad-sack clown, with whom Lautrec identified as a man who does not get the genuine affection of the woman he loves....

E.M. Forster’s “The Story of a Picnic” (1904)

“The Story of a Panic” is one of several stories that Leonard Wolff complained were “Pan-ridden.” It was well-known that Pan was code for identifying gay men and women. Woolf’s complaint implies that a Pan story, such as “The Story...
Henri Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (1905/06)

Henri Matisse’s Bonheur de Vivre (1905/06)

Matisse completed The Joy of Life [Le Bonheur de Vivre] (1905-1906), a lovers’ picnic in a garden. There is a cloth, though there is neither food nor drink. Who was it that said, “Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink”? [Also see Matisse’s Calm, Luxury, and...
John Sloan’s The Picnic Grounds (1906-1907)

John Sloan’s The Picnic Grounds (1906-1907)

Sloan’s picnics are happy, and he uses the picnic theme intermittently, beginning with The Picnic Grounds, especially with South Beach Bathers (1909), The Picnic on the Ridge (1920), and Picnic, Arroyo Hondo (1938). The Picnic Grounds is a summer scene where young...
Norman Lindsay’s The Picnic Gods  (1907)

Norman Lindsay’s The Picnic Gods  (1907)

A joke is also at Norman Lindsay’s The Picnic Gods  (1907) is a joke. Usually, Lindsay revels in titillation,  naked buxom women, and muscular men. He took as his mission to rid Australia of its prudish sensibilities, and the content of his paintings and etchings...
Foster, E. M. “The Curate’s Friend” (1904)

Foster, E. M. “The Curate’s Friend” (1904)

“The Curate’s Friend” is one of two of Forster’s coming-out stories published in The Celestial Omnibus. In “The Story of a Panic,” Pan appears in a whirlwind and rapes a young boy. In “The Curate’s Friend,” a Faun...
Laura Knight’s Picnics (1907-1912)

Laura Knight’s Picnics (1907-1912)

Knight developed her style while at the Lamorna Art Colony in west Cornwall.  She was nineteen years old and married to Harold Knight. Among more experienced artists and congenial surroundings, she realized the freedom of expression and technique that lasted...