Life Imitates Art...

....or so says Oscar Wilde and Andy Warhol and potentially hundreds of others. If Lisa and I are to become successful picnickers, then, it seems that we must turn our eyes to the artistic examples that have been set before us and learn from the past.

One of the art movements that is most predisposed to depictions of picnics is the Rococo, which is not coincidentally also one of the most frivolous art movements of all time. Watteau's "Les Champs-Elysees" is a fine example of this.



Clearly one of the most famous examples of picnic art would be Edouard Manet's "Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe."



The predecessor to this charming picnic display dates back to the High Renaissance, with Giorgone's "Fete Champetre," another depiction of naked Ladies picnicking with bohemian fellows. The lesson we are supposed to take away regarding proper picnics is quite clear from these two images, but I don't think we are quite ready for that just yet.



For a more modern look at picnics in art, we could turn to the work of the Colombian artist, Fernando Botero. His picnics seem to be more our speed, with a tendency towards drinking, smoking, and napping.



However, the contemporary artist who perhaps captures the picnic atmosphere that we would most like to emulate is Vladimir Pervuninsky, a Russian whose paintings would seem just as relevant hundreds of years ago as they do today, much like our picnics. Behold "A Picnic in the Pink Garden," painted in 2007, for example.

An Unsteady Debut

Date: Friday, July 22nd
Place: St. James's Park

According to the "Royal Parks" website put forth by the City of London, "St James's Park is the oldest Royal Park in London and is surrounded by three palaces. The most ancient is Westminster, which has now become the Houses of Parliament, St James's Palace and of course, the best known, Buckingham Palace."

This royal pedigree, combined with the fact that it is perhaps the closest park to Lisa's house and that we were feeling exceptionally lazy this afternoon (as we are on most afternoons), made it the perfect spot for our debut picnic as true London Ladies.

Before beginning our picnic, we popped by Sainsbury's for a few essentials.



Although we usually tend to spend several hours in Sainsbury's weighing the merits of each aisle's treats, we were shockingly efficient due to hunger and the threat of rain, and managed to purchase: two tomato tarts, olives with sundried tomatoes and manchego, a tropical fruit assortment, orange juice, and a bottle of prosecco. (For proper mimosas, not "Buck's Fizz" bullshit.)

We were mighty pleased with ourselves.




We engaged in pleasant ladylike conversation and tried to shush ourselves whenever the word "hate" entered the vocabulary. ("I hate children." "I hate couples making out in the park." "I hate geese." "I hate eating outside.")

There were indeed many couples making out, or "snogging" in the park that day, despite the overcast weather. Many of these couples were approximately twelve years old. Because watching twelve year olds groping one another is not ladylike behavior, we turned our heads. Except for when we took photographs of them.



In addition to tweens in reclining positions, St. James's Park is also home to squirrels that are able to perform hitherto unheard-of acrobatics, bees the size of golfballs, and men who like to stare at ladies having picnics.

Although we thought we had brought a very reasonable amount of food and drink to our first picnic, we still felt uncomfortably full at the conclusion. This led to much complaining, and clutching of the stomachs.



Our time in St. James's Park was not only a learning experience but a wonderfully pleasant afternoon, and we delight in the thought of many more to come this summer, with increasingly ladylike results.