Mark Klett’s Picnic on the Edge of Rim, Grand Canyon (1983)

Mark Klett’s Picnic on the Edge of Rim, Grand Canyon (1983)

Relaxed and easy. I wish I had created this photograph. Mark Klett’s Picnic on the Edge of the Rim is a Grand Canyon vista that brings the vast landscape into manageable focus. Featured Image: Picnic on the Edge of Rim, Grand Canyon (1983), Gelatin silver print...
John Byrum’s The Razor’s Edge (/em> (1984)

John Byrum’s The Razor’s Edge (/em> (1984)

At Byrum’s July Fourth picnic, lovers cuddle, kiss, and roll on the grass. Larry Darrell wants more, but Isabel Bradley wants to wait. At the lover’s picnic in Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, never touch or kiss or even hold hands As in...
David Lean’s A Passage to India (1984)

David Lean’s A Passage to India (1984)

The Marabar Caves picnic is a metaphor for the irreconcilability of Anglo-Indian relationships. Lean’s careful version of the catastrophic “Caves” episode, like Forster’s, constitutes the middle third of A Passage to India. Dr. Aziz’s...
James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1985)

James Ivory’s A Room with a View (1985)

Ivory is faithful to Forster’s picnic at Fiesole, where a group of English tourists gathers to enjoy the view from Fiesole. * This prospect offers a glorious of Florence, but neither Ivory nor Forster describes it. As so many picnics do, the day begins well but...
Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden (1986)

Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden (1986)

Juan Gris’s Woman with a Basket is the dust jacket for the 1st edition of The Garden of Eden. Gris was among Hemingway’s favorite painters, and Patrick Hemingway thought this work expressed his father’s narrative’s “somber...
Larry Rivers’s Picnics (1985-1990)

Larry Rivers’s Picnics (1985-1990)

Rivers expressed his appreciation of good picnic fun in Picnic (1985) and The Pleasant Picnic (1990). Both are inspired by Leger’s series La Partie de Campagne [The Country Outing, or Picnic] (1952/53). The Pleasant Picnic changes the scene. Now the picnickers...
Rita Dove’s “Wingfoot Lake” (1986)

Rita Dove’s “Wingfoot Lake” (1986)

Dove’s collection of poems Thomas and Beulah is a history of her mother Beulah and her father Thomas’ life together from their courtship to his death. “Wingfoot Lake,” subtitled “Independence Day,” signifies the Fourth of July. More...