Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) Luncheon of the Boating Party www.phillipscollection.org What's Left Untold By Theo Steinman SNAP! utensils clanking, Sparky barks from the Lilliputian puppy, chic sweethearts flirting and teasing the, scruffy fisherman flaunting their biceps, aroma of seaweed, thick, affluence, musky, perfume, bread, grapes, and sweat; chilly breeze lightly caressing the skin of the bourgeois like silk, spilled glass of red wine about to stain the already grimy white table cloth and leave it blemished for eternity, almost drunken party guests tipsy from refills of the mediocre wine, mingling young woman playfully dancing, sophisticated men boasting and bantering about politics and business in loud drunk voices, children under the table giggling while tangling the laces of elders’ shoes into tight knots impossible to disembroil, SNAP! In lies a secret beneath the bulk of all the drunken ladies and lads flirting and flaunting, the ankle biters giggling and teasing, the elderly slumping in their tired seats, the pooch, the food, the wine , and the aroma, they all cherish a secret. When I look at this painting I see a secret in the shadow behind all the fabricated faces, however the only rambunctious chaos I hear is within me. Although I can see it as though I was looking through a clean glass door, In reality they are frozen ; their bodies cold stiff and lonely the spirit sucked out of them. They are frozen in silence with a snap once the artist’s paint brush makes its last flourish across the canvas and the secret will not be shared.