Picnics In Art and Storytelling

Alice Mary Havers - The First Arrivals 1881

Picnics — literal picnics — play an important role in Western children’s literature. When discussing children’s literature, ‘picnic’ has a different, related meaning.

Perhaps the stand-out example of picnicking in children’s literature is The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. This utopian setting has been rendered even more memorable because of the beautiful illustrations by various artists over the generations.

The Wind In The Willows includes a great picnic scene and is used on the cover of various editions.

E.H. Shepard
Charles Van Sandwyk

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PICNICS

This artwork by Arthur Sarnoff captures the feel of a mid-century village picnic, with the women organising everything and the men carrying the heavy things. Looking at that steeple in the background, I’m reminded of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, in which Call (a cowboy born in the early 1800s) isn’t quite sure what picnics are, exactly, but thinks they have something to do with church.

Arthur Sarnoff
Henry Nelson O'Neil - A Picnic
Henry Nelson O’Neil – A Picnic

One of the better picnic scenes of literature comes from Jane Austen’s Emma.

from the 1996 film

Another is from Charles Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Margaret Winifred Tarrant
Rabbit family having a picnic by Racey Helps
Molly Brett
Racey Helps
Molly Brett
Jill Barklem
by Harald Skogsberg
Four Leaf Clover Lura Runkel 1925
The Family Minus enjoying a picnic
Inge Look
from a Ladybird book
Johnny Gruelle

THE BRITISH PICNIC

This is a spread from James Herriot’s The Market Square Dog, with illustrations by Ruth Brown.

If a family had servants to set it all up, the picnic could be a lavish affair indeed.

Charles James Lewis, 1830-1892 British  The Picnic
Charles James Lewis, 1830-1892 British The Picnic
George Goodwin Kilburne – The Picnic. This English illustrator was well known for his interiors, but here he applies his technical skills to an outdoors scene, still domestic.
James Archer - The Picnic 1870
James Archer – The Picnic 1870. Archer was Scottish.
Frederick Morgan - Charity picnic
Frederick Morgan – Charity picnic
'Holyday' by James Tissot c.1876
‘Holyday’ by James Tissot c.1876. Set in the artist’s garden in the wealthy north London suburb of St John’s Wood. The cast-iron colonnades enclose a large ornamental fishpond. St John’s Wood was considered a louche area and this picture of young people flirting, unnoticed by their sleeping chaperone, was considered vulgar by some. The shaped glass bottles are Hamilton or Torpedo bottles, used to store carbonated water. The men are wearing the caps of I Zingari, an elite amateur cricket club.
Miguel Mackinlay (1895–1958) British picnic
Miguel Mackinlay (1895–1958) British picnic
Harold Williamson ‘Picnic’ 1940
Brambly Hedge picnic

THE AMERICAN PICNIC

James Taylor Harwood (1860-1940) American painter - All the World's a Stage, Liberty Park 1893
James Taylor Harwood (1860-1940) American painter – All the World’s a Stage, Liberty Park 1893
Gourmet The Magazine of Good Living July 1959 - Flower Rum Song
Gourmet The Magazine of Good Living July 1959 – Flower Rum Song
Woman’s World Magazine April 1916
Adirondack Picnic advertisement 1909
Adirondack Picnic advertisement 1909
by Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) 1945 picnic
by Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) 1945 picnic
Humorous cover illustration of Cow joins the picnic for The Saturday Evening Post magazine, August 26, 1933

The bird’s eye perspective of Steven Danlos’s cover for the Saturday Evening Post has both a Where’s Wally panoramic feel to it, but is also slightly disconcerting, standing in contrast to all of those picture book picnics, genuinely cosy, in which the eye is down much lower. Who is watching these people? While they’re having a good time they are distracted.

1954, “Labor Day Picnic”, Stevan Dohanos
Horizon Blue 1957 Imperial advertisement. This looks straight out of Mad Men.
Horizon Blue 1957 Imperial advertisement. This looks straight out of Mad Men.

THE AUSTRALIAN PICNIC

Since moving to Australia and I don’t think this country is especially well suited to picnicking. It’s either too hot and dry or your BBQ attracts flies. There are certain times of year and certain specific places where picnics work well. That probably isn’t summer.

There’s an ‘Australian Golden Book’ — hard to find now, with 1970s images of an English style picnic, but in a realistically depicted Australian setting.

In this story, published 1970, an advertisement-worthy white nuclear family sets off in their brand new yellow station wagon to enjoy a day in the Australian bush.

This is a very typical Australian scene — I believe I see the Blue Mountains in the background.

The mother, dressed in an appropriately feminine pink, dishes up as if they are all at home. These days the children would be wearing wide-brimmed hats.

mother dishes out food_600x373

THE CREEPY PICNIC

These goblin markets aren’t picnics per se, but they feature food in the great outdoors. Like clowns, ice cream vans and nursery rhymes, what is childlike and fun can be repurposed for horror. The carnivalesque, after all, is about both fun and horror.

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti Illustrated by Athur Rackham. White and golden Lizzie stood
Fairy Market. Helen Jacobs (1888-1970)
Falter Family Picnic by John Philip Falter
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Illustrator Gennady Kalinowski, 1970s

ANOTHER USE FOR THE WORD ‘PICNIC’

When talking about central patterns in children’s stories, the word ‘quest’ is used quite frequently: A character leaves home, goes on a quest, comes back home again.

But Maria Nikolajeva chooses the ‘more prosaic’ term ‘picnic’ over ‘quest’ in reference to children’s literature, in particular:

The fact is that in most quest stories for children…the protagonists, unlike the hero in myth (or a novice during initiation), are liberated from the necessity to suffer the consequences of their actions. What is described is not the real rite of passage, but merely play or, to follow Bakhtin’s notion, carnival.

Further points:

  • In the Narnia Chronicles, when the children return to their primary world, ‘the wonderful adventure [in Narnia] has been merely a “time-out”, a picnic.’ Nikolajeva likens these books to a modern computer game, in which the player ‘dies’, but simply plays the game again, consequence free.
  • A crucial discussion of any magical there-and-back-again adventures is whether main characters indeed mature through these exercises in liberation, whether they gain knowledge and experience, and draw conclusions: that is, whether these adventures prepare them for the definite step toward adulthood in the future.’
  • It is extremely seldom that children’s writers describe the impact of a magical journey as negative, as Garner does in Elidor. Another example is Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time, where the protagonist is permanently injured by her involvement with the past, which means that she cannot cope with her real life. […] In adult literature, on the contrary, it is highly probable that daydreaming, the creation of worlds of fancy, leads to a mental disturbance or at least to a total re-evaluation of one’s life. We may recollect, for instance, the reactions of Lemuel Gulliver upon his return from the land of giants or the land of horses.’
  • Nikolajeva argues that there is no real difference between time-shift fantasy and secondary world fantasy, nor is there any real difference between fantasy and ‘realistic’ adventure.
Dutch Illustrator Johanna Frederika (Freddie) Langeler (1900-1948) picnic
Dutch Illustrator Johanna Frederika (Freddie) Langeler (1900-1948)

SWEDISH PICNICS

by Carl Larsson
by Carl Larsson
by Carl Larsson
Drawing by Ilon Wikland (b. 1930) in Children of Noise Village by Astrid Lindgren

THE EUROPEAN PICNIC

Jean-Jacques Sempé (1932)
Summer pictures from Outdoor! Where the birds whistle from the early twentieth century
Ernest et Célestine by Gabrielle Vincent
Jean de Brunhoff, History of Babar (The Story of Babar), 1934
James Jacques Joseph Tissot - La Partie Carrée picnic
James Jacques Joseph Tissot – La Partie Carrée
Don’t litter campaign from Holland 1939
‘Princes and Fairies’ by Stella Mead illustrated by Helen Jacobs 1930

Related Links About Food and Picnics and Children’s Books

A plague on picnics: From the Famous Five to Brideshead, literature’s full of idyllic outdoor feasts, with not a soggy sarnie in sight. Don’t be fooled, warns LAURA FREEMAN

Infant and Toddler Books About Picnics

Food and Sex In Children’s Literature

The Bear Books by Jez Alborough feature a boy and his mother who venture into the woods for a picnic.

CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)

On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.

Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:

1. Get a pet dog

2. Find a friend. Just one. Not too intense.

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