From scandalous scenes in the French countryside to Rubens' plea for the pleasures of peace, here are the finest al fresco dining paintings in history
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This great painting introduces a theme the impressionists would love the bourgeois picnic but with a tough irony all its own. Manet deliberately evokes Renaissance paintings of sensual leisure in particular the masterpiece below but updates the idyll to show bohemian gents of his own class accompanied by women who may be prostitutes. It's a raw blast of reality disguised as a rustic fantasy. This picnic bites back.
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