Picnic Under The Trees 1895

Julius Leblanc Stewart painted this oil on canvas, "Picnic Under The Trees", sometime in the late 19th century. It depicts a group of well-dressed individuals enjoying leisure time in a natural setting. Paintings like this one tell us much about the cultural values of the Gilded Age. The sitters are arranged in a way that displays social harmony, suggesting an ideal of bourgeois life. Leisure activities such as picnics became popular as a means of displaying one’s wealth. The landscape, with its soft lighting and leafy trees, echoes the aesthetic of the Barbizon school. Artists of this movement sought to depict nature in an unidealized way. Stewart seems to engage with this tradition. Understanding paintings like this one relies on a deep knowledge of social and artistic history. To learn more, you can consult primary sources from the period, such as etiquette guides, fashion magazines, and exhibition catalogs.