Boating

From The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide, 1983 page 234.

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140 EDOUARD MANET, French, 1832-1883
Boating
Oil on canvas; 381/4 x 511/4 in. (97.2 x 130.2 cm)

Boating was painted during the summer of 1874, when Manet was working with Renoir and Monet at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine northwest of Paris. The high-keyed palette, the elevated viewpoint from which the water's surface rises up as a backdrop, and the artist's decision to celebrate the everyday pleasures of the middle class are in keeping with the Impressionist style recently developed by his younger colleagues. The cutting of forms at the edges of the picture reflects Manet's interest in Japanese prints. H. 0. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. 0. Havemeyer, 1929, 29.100.115