Luncheon of the Boating Party

This painting depicts a group of Renoir's friends relaxing along the Seine river on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise in Chatou, France. The painter and art patron Gustave Caillebotte is seated in the lower right, and Renoir's future wife, Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with a small dog. On the table there's fruit and wine while the diagonal of the railing serves to demarcate two halves of the composition: one densely packed with figures, the other all but empty save for the two figures of the proprietor's daughter Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise and her brother Alphonse Fournaise, Jr, who are made prominent by this contrast. In this painting Renoir has captured a great deal of light with the main focus of light coming from the large opening in the balcony next to the standing man in the left foreground. The light shirts of both men in the foreground and the table-cloth all work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition.