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A vivid exploration of one of the most beloved Renoir paintings in the world, ?done with a flourish worthy of Renoir himself? (USA Today)
With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists? lives. Now, as she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland once again focuses on a single painting?Auguste Renoir?s instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a gathering of Renoir?s real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a café terrace along the Seine. Narrated by Renoir and seven of the models, the novel illuminates the gusto, hedonism, and art of the era. With a gorgeous palette of vibrant, captivating characters, Vreeland paints their lives, loves, losses, and triumphs so vividly that ?the painting literally comes alive? (The Boston Globe).
Here, Vreeland uses words to paint the changing world of late 19th-century France. After being stung by remarks in an essay written by French novelist Émile Zola concerning the inadequacies of Impressionism, Pierre-Auguste Renoir is goaded to paint a masterpiece surpassing his Montmartre spectacle Bal au Moulin de la Galette, which will finally establish this school as heir to the artistic traditions of France and Italy. He uses models, allowing the listener to experience la vie moderne, the new modes of living, thinking, and expressing that transformed the social world of the late 19th century into the one we inhabit today. Alphonsine, daughter of the proprietor of La Maison Fournaise, and Angèle, a debauched child of Montmartre, are naturals. The beautiful yet spoiled Circe, fobbed off on Renoir by a jaded Parisian socialite, provokes a crisis when she quits midstream, refusing to be painted in profile. Renoir finds her replacement in Aline, a 19-year-old seamstress he will one day marry. Other models add their own piquancy. Karen White brings a cadenced elegance to her reading that is set off by her irreverent over-the-top voicing of the snobby Circe and the naïve innocence of Aline. Recommended for libraries with a commitment to historical fiction and books about art.
—David Faucheux
Susan Vreeland is the internationally renowned author of five books, including Girl in Hyacinth Blue.
As a grown woman, Vreeland found her own magical way of translating her vision of the world into art. While teaching high school English in the 1980s, she began to write, publishing magazine articles, short stories, and her first novel, What Love Sees. In 1996, Vreeland was diagnosed with lymphoma, which forced her to take time off from teaching -- time she spent undergoing medical treatment and writing stories about a fictional Vermeer painting.
"Creative endeavor can aid healing because it lifts us out of self-absorption and gives us a goal," she later wrote. In Vreeland's case, her goal "was to live long enough to finish this set of stories that reflected my sensibilities, so that my writing group of twelve dear friends might be given these and know that in my last months I was happy -- because I was creating."
Vreeland recovered from her illness and wove her stories into a novel, Girl in Hyacinth Blue. The book was a national bestseller, praised by The New York Times as "intelligent, searching and unusual" and by Kirkus Reviews as "extraordinarily skilled historical fiction: deft, perceptive, full of learning, deeply moving." Its interrelated stories move backward in time, creating what Marion Lignana Rosenberg in Salon called "a kind of Chinese box unfolding from the contemporary hiding-place of a painting attributed to Vermeer all the way back to the moment the work was conceived."
Vreeland's next novel, The Passion of Artemisia, was based on the life of the 17th-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, often regarded as the first woman to hold a significant place in the history of European art. "Forthright and imaginative, Vreeland's deft recreation ably showcases art and life," noted Publishers Weekly.
Love for the visual arts, especially painting, continues to fire Vreeland's literary imagination. Her new novel, The Forest Lover, is a fictional exploration of the life of the 20th-century Canadian artist Emily Carr. She has also written a series of art-related short stories. For Vreeland, art provides inspiration for living as well as for literature. As she put it in an autobiographical essay, "I hope that by writing art-related fiction, I might bring readers who may not recognize the enriching and uplifting power of art to the realization that it can serve them as it has so richly served me."
Vreeland lives in San Diego with her husband, a software engineer. She taught high school English and ceramics for 30 years before retiring to become a full-time writer.
Anonymous
Posted December 6, 2011
A friend had suggested the audio version, but being a lover of books I chose the book. I love Impressionist art and even had a print of the subject painting in my home. I'm really enjoying the details and personality quirks of the characters and how the author has wound the history and politics and fashion of the time into the story. Looking forward to another!!
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Posted December 6, 2011
A very enjoyable read, filled with atmosphere of the period. Interesting insights into the picture and the artist's struggle to depict an idea. Very descriptive of the relationships among the people portrayed.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.There was nothing in the first few chapters to bring me back. While riding to work on the bus, I kept falling asleep!!!!!
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Posted August 22, 2009
This book is great! If you love Renoir (and I do) then you will appreciate this book. It really brings the artist to life and the painting as well. I have enjoyed this author before and look forward to reading more of her books. This would make an excellent gift for impressionist art lovers! I recommend this book to all!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.What goes through an artist's mind during the act of creating a painting? Susan Vreeland makes that question the theme of Luncheon of the Boating Party. Generally agreed to be one of Renoir's masterpieces, Luncheon is a huge canvas depicting fourteen people enjoying a repast at an inn along the River Seine. Renoir is depicted at the pivotal point in his career when he was struggling to decide whether to persist with the impressionist genre, or to incorporate more formal techniques and styles. Provoked by a critical comment from Emile Zola, he embarks upon a quest to produce a work to serve as the definitive rebuttal.
Vreeland immerses her readers within the heart of Montmartre and the romantic Parisian ideal of "modern life". A joyous commingling of street scenes and cafe society, artists and models, dealers and yachtsmen, Luncheon is an earthy, incandescent evocation of one of the art world's most momentous eras. Enjoy!
Anonymous
Posted August 28, 2007
I have often viewed this painting and wondered about the people in the painting. It seemed to me that life was always beautiful to these people and today's problems did not apply. Oh to live in that time. In reading the book, I see the story behind the people and realize that life wasn't all sunshine and Sunday as it shows in the painting. I liked the information given about how the painting came together. I've always loved impressionism but after reading this book, I'll look at art with a more knowledgeable eye and will view lines and colors in a new way.
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Posted July 28, 2007
I picked up this book on the strength of Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue and because I love the impressionist painters. Sadly, I was disappointed. The pace is slow and the characters shallow, and the author seems more intent on showing off her own knowledge of painting than in creating an engaging novel.
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Posted May 29, 2007
The rich characters and luscious landscapes of Paris and the surrounding countryside made this book so much fun to read. Loved it.
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Overview
A vivid exploration of one of the most beloved Renoir paintings in the world, ?done with a flourish worthy of Renoir himself? (USA Today)
With her richly textured novels, Susan Vreeland has offered pioneering portraits of artists? lives. Now, as she did in Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Vreeland once again focuses on a single painting?Auguste Renoir?s instantly recognizable masterpiece, which depicts a gathering of Renoir?s real friends enjoying a summer Sunday on a café terrace along ...