Luncheon of the Boating Party

Le Déjeuner des canotiers. Renoir and his intimate friends having a lake view lunch party. Wine, food, and breeze. How ideal? Conversations chattering, glasses clinking, and laughter echoing all through the lake.

The landscape part of the painting and the portraits of his 14 friends are distinguished by a railing. To the right stays the crowd fading into a lonely lake to the left. Renoir metaphorically hid his ache in such a manner. They are in their 40s. Industrialization, job, and friends scattering. This was not a farewell lunch. But this was a lunch when the fear of bidding a farewell anytime soon struck him.

To the bottom left is the woman with a dog, who Renoir fell in love with and later married. To the bottom right is Gustav Caillebotte, a famous impressionist. He is deeply looking at the scenery, ignoring the lady Angèle and Adrien are having an argument and are asking for Caillebotte's opinion. In the same year he bought a property across the lake he was eyeing on while playing the muse. The primal focus, the lady with a glass, is actress Ellen Andrée, staring right at the artist or spectator, knowing how she will portrayed. The man and the lady by the railing are siblings who ended up staying longer than other friendships.

This painting is the picture of the word "change". Renoir accepted the change that was going to hit them eventually. It is the exact moment when he accepted change, but also the very moment when he realised the constants that he is going to lean on forever. All beside the same lake, at the same time. He stated that this was the painting he was most proud of. We know why. This is the people of his life worth missing, worth bagging for the rest of his life all in one frame with him.

This painting is a man being grateful for the time he has had and that he has to let go, and is excited about the time that is coming. This is his joy tightly gripped between the visible bushes, lake, and people, and the invisible breeze, ache of parting and love.