Luxe, Calme et Volupté, or Calm, Luxury, and Sensual Pleasure, was Matisse’s shimmering beach picnic at Saint-Tropez, was a belated response to Édouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass (1864). Painted in Saint-Tropez, Matisse’s atmosphere vibrates with glowing reds,...
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...
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...
“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...
Grahame’s picnic in The Wind in the Willows (1908) is a wonder. What child (or adult) could ever conceive of a picnic for one eating basket full of “cold chicken. ....
Sloan’s diary for his outing to South Beach and the Happy Land Amusement Park is laconic: June 23, 1907: “Dolly and I went to Staten Island, South Beach this afternoon by Municipal Ferry and Train. Our first visit and we found the place to our liking. Reminds one of...
Astrum’s recurring theme is the picnic bonfires lighted on Midsummer’s Eve, June 23, marking the summer solstice. Though it’s a pagan holdover, Christians celebrate the evening honoring St. John the Baptist’s birthday on June 24. In deeply...
A second picnic in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows is a stark contrast to the Spring picnic on the riverbank. Water Rat is restless as the fall season is ending, and as he wanders about rather aimlessly, he comes upon Sea Rat and invites him to lunch....
Francis Luis Mora flourished between the 1900s and the 1930s. At the time of his death in 1940, he had lost his following. Currently, he is scarcely remembered. Featured Image: F. Luis Mora Twilight Picnic (1915 c.), oil on canvas.
Picnics in Jack London’s Martin Eden contrast social disparities between the poor working and genteel upper classes. London’s Martin Eden alludes to Horatio Alger Jr.’s heroes who rise in society through hard work and education. But London disparages Alger’s optimism....
