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Rating: Romanticizing the life of an artist is much more complex than writing a sober and orthodox biography: to the necessary and indispensable collection of sources, texts, works, and all the required information, the author's mastery in fantasizing about the salient events without severing from their truthfulness or plausibility and without falling into the most traditional of errors, namely anachronism, is added. With the "romanticized" biography, the protagonist is not exclusively the destination and simultaneously the common denominator of a series of events and facts, but the magical fulcrum of an extraordinary universe where fantasy and reality harmoniously blend without producing any conflict or clash. The artist becomes the bearer of a specific temporal atmosphere, the messiah of a historical creed, the evangelist of a dominant sentiment in a certain era, the living symbol of the continuous cultural, social, intellectual, ethical, and material mutation of Man throughout the centuries.
Life Studies by Susan Vreeland (author of the famous The Passion of Artemisia and other literary flashes about figures of high historical and artistic caliber) dives into the intoxicating brightness of French Impressionism, more specifically focusing the lens on the figure of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the leading figures of the revolutionary art movement alongside Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and Degas. It is the end of the 19th century, in the midst of the Belle Époque and the last romantic flare promoted by the triumphant and dominant bourgeoisie, and the Impressionist movement is stuck at an unfortunate crossroads of misunderstandings among members and possible paths for continuation; on one side, the "refuseés" are seeking new followers, fishing them out of the rising socialist turmoil, while on the other, there is an attempt at a laborious renewal of the anti-academic style that could reconcile with bourgeois fastidiousness and the Salon's demands, the Mecca of artistic triumph. Renoir, having distanced himself from Degas and his clique of neo-Impressionists with socialist leanings, is the classic semi-penniless painter, fond of bohemian whims and the Parisian frenzy of Montmartre, searching for new ideas and inspirations to harmonize his many personal turmoils, the "en plein air" art, and the bourgeois taste. The opportunity to realize this desire comes with the decision to produce a large-scale work, the ace that would allow him to reach the Salon and conquer a clientele still too classicist and traditionalist, Luncheon of the Boating Party. Auguste's ambitious project, on which he would work for an entire summer, would see a substantial number of models, bohemian anti-bourgeois, lovers of the pleasures of "vie moderne," flow through a sheltered corner of the Seine outside the Capital, with whom he would build a commendable relationship of trust and friendship in the name of Art.
Life Studies has a triple narrative purpose, namely to expose the personality of the artist, the characteristics of the movement to which he still hopes to belong, and, finally, the society in which he finds himself living. The late-century Paris, far from the tragedy of the Commune and the Prussian siege, is an authentic romantic melting pot of passion, sentiment, and corporeality, a forge for Europe's most extravagant minds, the goal of the artist in search of final redemption. In the midst of Montmartre's alleys, populated by merchants, prostitutes, peddlers, and, naturally, painters of any style and cultural movement, Renoir seeks the subjects that will compose his magnum opus, a representation of an entire branch of society distant from conventions yet so indulged in the pleasure of living and loving. Susan Vreeland proves to be damnably skilled at enriching the long process of the work's production, weaving in the individual stories of Auguste and even his models who are hunting for money to buy painting materials, the "ménage-à-trois" between the painter, Alphonsine (the daughter of the innkeeper by the Seine who hosted him during the work), and a handsome young model who stepped in to replace a capricious and unmanageable colleague, and the characters of Gustave Caillebotte, Guy de Maupassant (who had to be the "quatorzième," the fourteenth person to be depicted to avoid the malevolent number thirteen of the Last Supper) and the other Impressionist comrades now aware of an irreconcilable rift between "purists" and "conciliators" of the bourgeois will. Luncheon of the Boating Party instead represents the pact sealed between spirit and body, between past, present, and future, a work that transcends both the movement and academic conventions: in a tortuous path seeking vivid and radiant impressions that do not negate the real, Renoir bridges the gap between Impressionism and Realism, in a unity of imperfection and verisimilitude, light and fluidity.
Although a bit long to complete, Life Studies is yet another excellent example of biographical fantasy completely free of historical errors, anachronisms, and stylistic falls, a work capable of captivating the reader's attention on the candor of Impressionism and the importance of not betraying one's ego at the expense of blind fidelity to someone else's will and feeling.
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