Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881 Oil on canvas Acquired 1923

Amanda-Clearcreek Fourth Grade Project

Luncheon of the Boating Party

Welcome to a brand new school project. This art and culture project will be unlike anything you've done in school before. Not only are you going to make a painting, but you are also going to study who the people are and what they used to do for a living way back in 1880 (when the painting was painted). To be able to understand them better (and why the artist made the painting) we will need to study French culture and history. Finally, we're going to show everyone what we've learned by creating a "living painting" ("tableau vivant") with dialogue that we will write in class and perform for our families and friends during the Amanda-Clearcreek Festival of Arts on March 13. 2007.

Unlike your usual art projects, this unit will also involve your regular classroom studies and teacher. Everyone will be doing something different: some classes will learn French songs, some classes will learn French words, and some classes might make a menu such as the one the people in the painting might have used.

To be able to see what's happening and what this unit lesson plan is all about, just click on the above blue buttons and read to get a background on the painting. This website is your guide to everything you will be learning in your classrooms and beyond...there are plenty of links so you can find out more information about anything that interests you.

There are a few new vocabulary words we will be using. If you read and try to memorize the words and their definitions below, you will understand what we are talking about in class. Your teachers will also go over these words with you, and add others..

Vocabulary

Canotier--1. rower, oarsman, boatman; 2. sailor hat, straw hat.

Composition--the artist's organization of the visual elements& -- the lines, colors, and shapes -- in a work of art.

Fête galante--light-hearted, elegant outdoor amusements such as picnics and flirtatious games; a subject often depicted in 18th century paintings of French aristocratic life.

Genre--1. subject category in art of scenes of everyday life; 2. any of the traditional subject categories of painting including: historical, mythological or religious subjects, portraiture, still life, landscape, and scenes of every day life.

Guinguettes--café; usually an open-air, suburban restaurant; sometimes with music and dancing.

Impressionism--1. a painting style developed by French artists in the 1870s, characterized by quickly applied brushstrokes and patches of bright color that blend when viewed from a distance to convey atmosphere and the fleeting effects of light; 2. the innovative artistic movement of the 1870s and 80s led by a group of artists who painted scenes of modern life and organized exhibitions of their own work in Paris. The artists most often associated with the movement are: Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité--trans. "liberty, equality, and brotherhood"; late eighteenth-century motto that reflected the goals of the French Revolution.

Pentimento--evidence of a change made by an artist in a painting that appear over time as some opaque pigments used to cover a change become transparent revealing the artist's earlier version.

Plein air--trans. "fresh air or open air"; to paint en plein air means to paint out of doors

Tableau vivantr--trans. "living painting "; to stage a play with actors visually based on an artwork.

X-radiography and infrared reflectography--scientific imaging techniques that penetrate upper paint layers to reveal underdrawing and/or changes made to the composition.