The Pic Nic Society attracted obsessive gamblers, eager amateur actors called Dilettanti, and gourmand diners. Taking advantage of a truce in a decade-long war with France (lead by Napoleon, then First Consul), the Pic Nics wagered (and lost) that London might have a...
Hiroshige aims to depict activity relevant to the moment in a specific landscape. In this respect, his scenes in Japan correlate with J.M.W. Turner’s picturesque landscapes of the United Kingdom. While picnicking under the blooming cherry trees at Gotenyama, too...
Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware, or Illumination, is a satire of American Methodism. The narrative explores the mid-life crisis of Theron Ware, a married Methodist Episcopal pastor who falls for Celia Madden, an Irish Catholic, in a small town in New...
Seurat’s La Grande Jatte is picnicky. Having a combination of leisure, ease, and easy conviviality, it’s absent food. People of all classes coexist amiably. Some sit on the grass in the shade of trades, some promenade, but there are no signs of a luncheon on the...
Corny picnic satire was in vogue among English music before Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1871 Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old. Typical “The Pic-Nic” is sung to the air of “Here’s the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen” from Sheridan’s The...
Being Anglophile and aware of London happenings, Irving probably picked up the aftermath of the Pic Nic Society scandal during his tour of Europe 1804-1806. The word stuck, but it’s used only once as an adjective to mean something silly. Under the heading “Fashions by...
Homer’s A Picnic in the Woods is a pleasant joke, suggesting that the usually staid picnic might also be tumultuous. The action here is everywhere. A large picnic blanket is spread and filled with food: a bowl of fruit, a large ham with a knife for carving, a...
Boudin’s Luncheon Grass, the Family of Eugene Manet (1866) is a typical landscape with picnickers. Unlike Manet’s Luncheon, this is not confrontational or sexual. Because Boudin was a friend of the Manet family, especially Eugène, this picture of them...
Thomas Wright found songs, now obscure, about women having meals in taverns and bathhouses that are suspiciously like picnics. He writes about this in The History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England, suggesting that sharing food and entertainment is common...
Tolstoy’s “The Hunt” from Childhood, Boyhood, Youth is a memoir episode of picnicking with his father during a hunt in which he remembers the sights, sounds, and smells of the forest: the chatter of the peasants, rumbling of horses, cries of quails,...
