Picnics from noble feasts to rural relaxing

Picnics were the very epitome of innocent pastoral delight, but allow Alexander Lee to give us the history of this form of fun. Then I will add my own histories.

The French root of picnic may derive from piquer/to peck and nique/small amount. The word first appeared in 1649, a burlesque satire on Fronde hypocrisy, an insurrection chal­l­enging French absolutism. Ironically the main character, Pique-Nique, was a guzzling millitary hero.

In any case, it caught the imagin­ation of Paris’ beau monde and soon lost any pejorative assoc­iations. As Gilles Ménage’s Dictionnaire (1694) showed, a pique-nique had become a fashionable dinner, to which each guest contributed.

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, 
Édouard Manet, 1863 
Pushkin Museum, Moscow. 

Picnics really started to come into their own during the C18th. A favourite pastime of the aristocracy, they were indoor affairs, held at home or in hired rooms. They were contrasted with the elab­orate fêtes champêtres depicted by Antoine Watteau etc. Att­end­ees could either bring a dish or drink, OR pay a share of the cost.

Like cultural salons, picnics were linked to intellectual refinement. Typical was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who, while rewriting the first act of Les Muses galantes in Paris, would often dine with the Abbé de Condillac ‘tête à tête en pique-nique’. At larger gatherings, there was also music or a dance, just like a party.

The French Revolution changed everything. Many aristocrats fled abroad to Austria, Prussia or America; but more chose Britain. Settling prim­arily in London without much money, they did their best to maintain their old lifestyle. But in London, the picnic became more raucous, thanks to a group of 200 wealthy young Francophiles, who founded the Pic Nic Society in late 1801. Held in hired rooms in Tottenham St, their gatherings were extravagant. Every member was required to bring a dish and six bottles of wine, and each strove to outdo the others in luxury. After dinner there was singing, dancing and gambling; but the key entertainment was always an amateur play.

Before long journalist-politician  Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) , owner of Drury Lane Theatre, was alarmed at losing business to the Pic Nics. Sheridan used his influence to have the Pic Nics shut down; but not before the caricaturist James Gill­ray had ridiculed the lot of them in 1802.

Just as Sheridan was becoming furious in London, picnics were taken up by the emergent middle classes and moved outdoors. Why? Possibly the socially asp­irat­ional applied a fash­ion­ab­le French word to a pre-existing prac­t­ice, without being aware of its connotations. Anyhow picnicking ceased to be associated with music-dancing and became a simple, hosted meal. And thanks to the ideal­is­ation of the countryside, the event became more innocent.

The earliest reference appeared in John Harris' The Court­ship, Merry Marriage and Pic Nic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren (1806), a children’s book. But such was its popularity that it soon found its way into literary works. In 1808, writer Dorothy Word­sworth picnicked with others on Gras­mere Island. In Emma (1816) Jane Austen gave a vivid port­rait of a rustic picnic on Box Hill.

James Tissot 
Holyday, aka The Picnic, c1876. 
Tate Gallery 

In the Victorian era, picnics were grand affairs! In 1861, a definitive list of upper class Victorian picnic fare appeared in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Manage­ment. One couldn't eat outdoors without tables, linens, crystal and servants!

The development of new modes of transport (trains, cars, bikes) and the acceleration of social change made the country­ accessible to a greater proportion of the population. Be­fore long, their popularity had grown so much that picnic baskets were being produced for the mass market eg Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows (1908).

Though restoration of the French monarchy accompanied the ret­urn of picnicking to French aristocracy, the indoor version prev­ail­ed. When outdoor picnics eventually gained ground in France, they were regarded with sus­pic­ion. Perhaps because of a growing reaction against the Romantic ideal­is­ation of nature, they were not seen as innocent and whole­some. But as decadent. This was most ev­ident in Édouard Manet’s Le Dé­jeuner sur l’herbe (1862-3), depict­ing one naked and one scantily clad woman, picnick­ing with two fully dressed men.

As the outdoor picnic found its way to the USA, it remained a gent­eel pursuit of the urban middle classes. But unlike in Britain, its bucolic setting was associated more with a flight from civilisation than with childlike simplicity. Though still tinged with innocence, depictions of American picnics eg by Thomas Cole and Winslow Homer, tended to be craggier.

Pierre-August Renoir's 
Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881 
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC 

Now allow me to add important possibilities that had noth­ing to do with France. People have been eating outside since the beginning of time. The outdoor affair was like a lucky-dip meal; a group of people got together, each contributing to the meal. Cons­id­er Robin Hood and his Merry Men who informally dined outside on bread, cheese and ale. And during the C14th, the earliest picnics were mediev­al hunting feasts in England. These pre-hunt feasts were important, specialising in hams, baked meats and pastries.

Now consider that outdoor summer meals were very popular in countries with long, cold winters. The concept of a picnic was known in Russia, Ger­­many and Sweden be­f­ore it became part of English soc­iety. Russians loved holding picnics, partially because sunny weather was a rare delight to be treas­ured. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) cited the experience in a number of his stor­ies, usually along a river or beach. The Romanovs had elab­orate feasts that richly fed dozens of people; my grandmother had Friday night left-overs, just for the immediate family.

Picnic at Freshwater NSW,  1895, centred around cricket
photographer Arthur Phillips
Collection: Powerhouse Museum

But in Australia, the hottest, most outdoorsy time of year was al­ways Christmas to New Year, when workers were given paid hol­idays and schools were closed. See the Australian picnic with young men and women: cricket stumps and bat were visible, as were the billy and picnic hamper. Kitchen items eg cheap versions of cups, plates and picnic cases, were ad­ver­tised in the catalogues of turn-of-the-century shops eg Anthony Hordens and later David Jones.

School girls enjoying a picnic at Hanging Rock

set in 1900 in Macedon Ranges Vic
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Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) was one of Australia’s most famous books and films. The teenage girls came from a classy private boarding school in the City.