Coming Down the Seine, Robert Gibbings (Dutton, 1953; Interlink, 2003). First published in 1953, this new edition includes Gibbings’s original black-and-white engravings of Seine scenes. This is noteworthy since “however good his writing was, Robert Gibbings was primarly an artist and he attached equal importance to the wood-engraved illustrations in his books,” Martin Andrews informs us in the 2003 foreword. Andrews believes Gibbings’s love for la France profonde—the France of small villages, cafés, and good food—“will be shared by many modern-day readers, and for this reason, as well as for its delightful illustrations, this book should be essential reading for travellers in France today.” I wholeheartedly agree, and I think you will share my opinion that this is a lyrical love letter to the river that has played a vital role in the history of France.
River of Light: Monet’s Impressions of the Seine, Douglas Skeggs (Knopf, 1987). In this beautiful and interesting book, Skeggs presents a portrait of Monet and his lifelong connection to the Seine, but this is as much a story of the river as it is of Monet. As Skeggs writes in an early chapter, “The river Seine was Monet’s landscape, his subject, and his home. The lessons that he learned from painting its water inadvertently altered the course of the arts. The vision that he imposed on it is still with us today.” Chapters focus on different geographic points along the river, such as Sainte-Adresse, Paris, La Grenouillère, Argenteuil, Vétheuil, and Giverny, with nearly 150 reproductions of Monet’s paintings and period photos.
The Secret Life of the Seine, Mort Rosenblum (Addison-Wesley, 1994). “There is not a river like it in the world,” writes Rosenblum of the Seine, and he reveals just how unique it really is in this truly marvelous and engaging book. Rosenblum spent many years as a journalist in Paris, starting out at the Associated Press and eventually becoming editor in chief of the International Herald Tribune. He’s written several other books on French-related topics that I’ve mentioned in these pages. Rosenblum’s expert reporting sense is abundantly clear as he traces the Seine from its source, in Burgundy, to its mouth, at Le Havre, providing us along the way with a historical and present-day perspective on the river and the communities it serves. The geographic term for a river that flows into a sea is fleuve, he notes, but for the people who live and work on the Seine the river has always been just la rivière, which technically refers to inland waterways. He should know, as he lives aboard a fifty-four-foot boat moored in the center of Paris—talk about a room with a view!
Sundays by the River, Willy Ronis (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999). Strolling or picnicking near water—oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, tributaries of any length—is a time-honored tradition in France. Sunday mornings and afternoons are still often reserved for this pastime, by residents and visitors alike. This favored loisir (leisure activity) is captured in this book by noted documentary photographer Willy Ronis. The forty-eight duotone images featured span nearly half a century, and they’re reminiscent of scenes from Impressionist paintings.
Île de Chatou
When my friend Jay entered the room housing Renoir’s Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party) at the Phillips Collection (phillipscollection.org) in Washington, D.C., he actually gasped: he was simply unprepared for the effect this wonderful painting would have when seen up close. It is wildly popular, and long one of my favorites as well. Its history, including its acquisition by Duncan Phillips, is rather interesting. According to Susan Vreeland in her wonderful novel Luncheon of the Boating Party (Viking, 2007), Renoir finished the painting in 1881 and soon after it was purchased by the noted art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, a champion of the Impressionists. Durand-Ruel sold it to a Parisian collector, but then reacquired it in 1882. Though originally against Renoir’s wish, the painting was shown at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in March 1882, and also in London, Zurich, and New York, but was never shown at the Salon. In 1923, Duncan Phillips and his wife, Marjorie, were in Paris on an art-buying trip for what was then the Phillips Memorial Gallery. Duncan and Marjorie were invited to a lunch at the apartment of Joseph Durand-Ruel, son of Paul. According to the Phillips museum publication Duncan Phillips Collects: Paris Between the Wars, the couple, seated directly across the room from the painting, were so transfixed that the question of its purchase was not “if” but “how much.” Just how much was soon revealed to be $125,000, a record price, even though it far exceeded Duncan’s acquisitions account. But Duncan believed the painting would be a “cornerstone” of the museum and he bought it anyway. He explained to museum treasurer Dwight Clark that it was “one of the greatest paintings in the world … finer than any Rubens … as fine as any Titian or Giorgione. [It] will put us on the map as a collection of modern art second to none anywhere.”
I absolutely love books devoted to single works of art, so I was thrilled when Scala published Renoir: Luncheon of the Boating Party (2003) in its 4-Fold series, a great concept with pages that fold out vertically and horizontally. A who’s who of the figures in the painting reveals that painter Gustave Caillebotte is among the lively group on the terrace of the restaurant La Maison Fournaise, along with Charles Ephrussi, Baron Raoul Barbier, Aline Charigot—the seamstress Renoir met in 1880 and married ten years later—and Alphonsine and Alphonse Fournaise, daughter and son of the restaurateur, Alphonse Sr. The book refers to the work as “a clear attempt to match the achievement of some of the old masters Renoir admired in the Louvre”—notably Veronese’s Wedding at Cana and Watteau’s Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera—and “a fête champêtre set in a modern industrialized world.”
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (Photo Credit 43.1)
La Maison Fournaise began on the Île de Chatou, a small island in the Seine just west of Paris, in 1857, when Alphonse realized there was an opportunity to cater to all the visitors the expanded railroad had brought to Chatou, beginning twenty years earlier. The train enabled working-class Parisians, who worked a six-day workweek with only Sundays free, to buy an inexpensive round-trip ticket to the Seine suburbs of Chatou, Argenteuil, Asnières, and Bougival. Alphonse started by renting out small boats and added a restaurant and hotel in 1860. La Grenouillère, the restaurant and swimming establishment in Bougival (made famous in paint by both Monet and Renoir), by this time had begun to be too crowded. Visitors looked farther afield to Fournaise. In 1877 a terrace and balcony were added, and Alphonse Jr. took over its operation in 1890. By the time he passed away in 1900, bicycling had outpaced boating as an attraction, but Alphonsine continued to run the restaurant until 1906. She offered lodging until she died in 1937, leaving La Maison Fournaise to cousins. In 1953 the property was sold and became an apartment building; it fell into disrepair and was purchased by the town of Chatou in 1979. After a lengthy renovation, it reopened in 1990 and, somewhat remarkably perhaps, La Maison Fournaise remains much the same.
Chatou, which has been renamed the Île des Impressionnistes, is easy to reach by car, RER, bus, and river transport. Check out the Maison Fournaise Web site (restaurant-fournaise.fr) for directions and more about its history, and to compare before and after pictures of the restoration.
When crossing the Seine I repeat to myself: “My God, how beautiful Paris is!” as if I were the first one to say it. Beside Tarascon, I don’t know where else I could live!
—Inès de la Fressange, Paris
