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| Gustave Caillebotte Self-Portrait 1875-78 oil on canvas 64 x 48 cm Private Collection |
Although his closest artist friends were Monet and Renoir, the key advocates for loose brushwork and bright color, Caillebotte preferred the sort of conventional draftsmanship and unaffected urban subjects dear to their fellow Impressionist Degas. Like Degas, he limited himself to strictly subdued visual means, and On the Pont de l’Europe is virtually monochromatic, the pervasive blue tones corresponding in visual terms to the chilling cold in which the figures stand. The man on the left with his collar turned up and the principal figure, their backs turned toward each other, are dressed in identical fashion. The implication, perhaps, is that modern urban society appears no less regularized than modern engineering, with its mass-produced prefabricated parapets, girders, and rivets. For his composition, Caillebotte has adopted the geometric structure of the bridge, one pier of which bisects his picture vertically into two arched bays, these each subdivided by diagonal cross-bracing struts. The humanity of the figures resides in their freedom to escape the rigid symmetry.
The Pont de l’Europe overlooks the Saint-Lazare train station, which was famously portrayed by Monet in a dozen paintings made early in 1877 and included at the third Impressionist exhibition that year. It is at least possible that Caillebotte (who soon purchased three of Monet’s variations on the station theme) refrained from showing his masterful On the Pont de l’Europe at the same exhibition in order not to compete.
As well as being a painter himself, Caillebotte was the most important early patron of the Impressionists. They invited him to be in their second group exhibition in 1876, and later that year he wrote a will promising his controversial collection of works by the artists he championed to the French state. Today these works form the nucleus of the collection at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
This is part 1 of a 5-part series on the works of Gustave Caillebotte:
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| c1870 Colonnade of the Casin oil on canvas 43 x 30 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Effect of light, the Yerres oil on cardboard 28 x 49 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Dark bay horse in the stable oil on canvas 39 x 33 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Camille Daurelle under an oak tree, Yerres oil on cardboard 43 x 32 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Part of the south façade of the casin, Yerres oil on canvas 81 x 65 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Meaux, effect of sunlight on the old Chapterhouse oil on cardboard 37 x 49 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Garlic cloves and knife on the corner of a table oil on canvas 26 x 35 cm |
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| c1871-78 Garden rose and blue Forget-Me-Nots in a vase oil on canvas 34 x 26 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Through the Grove, the ornamental farm, Yerres oil on canvas 32 x 25 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 The lawn in the park, seen from a path, Yerress oil on canvas 24 x 36 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 The Aviary in the Ornamental Farm, Yerres oil on canvas (dimensions not found) Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Path through the woods in the park, Yerres oil on canvas 23 x 39 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871-78 Path through the old growth woods in the park, Yerres oil on canvas 43 x 31 cm Private Collection |
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| c1871 Soldiers in the woods, Yerres oil on canvas 40 x 30 cm Private Collection |
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| 1872 A road near Naples oil on canvas 40 x 60 cm Private Collection |
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| c1872-74 Interior of a Studio with Stove oil on canvas 80 x 65 cm Private Collection |
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| c1872 Willows by the Yerres oil on board 31 x 40 cm Private Collection |
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| c1873 Woman at a Dressing Table oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm Private Collection |
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| 1873 Naked Woman Lying on a Couch pastel on paper 88.9 x 116.2 cm Private Collection |
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| 1874 Woman seated on the lawn oil on canvas 42 x 31 cm Private Collection |
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| c1874 Woman seated beneath a tree oil on canvas 46 x 38 cm Private Collection |
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| c1874 The painter Morot in his studio oil on canvas 45.7 x 55.2 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX |
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| c1874-78 Loaded haycart oil on canvas 36 x 47 cm Private Collection |
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| c1874-78 Harvest, landscape with five haystacks oil on cardboard (dimensions not found) Private Collection |
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| 1875 The Yerres, effect of rain oil on canvas 80.3 x 59.1 cm Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana |
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| 1875 The park on the Caillebotte property at Yerres oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm Private Collection |
1875 Parquet planers:
This painting is one of the first representations of the urban proletariat. While peasants ( Millet's Gleaners ) or rural workers ( Courbet's Stone Breakers ) have often been shown, city workers have very rarely been the subject of paintings. Unlike Courbet or Millet, Caillebotte, a well-off bourgeois, does not introduce any social, moralizing or political discourse into his work. The documentary study (gestures, tools, accessories) places him among the most experienced realists.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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| 1875 Parquet planers oil on canvas 102 xx 147 cm Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
1875 A young man at his window:
The painting depicts the artist's brother, René Caillebotte, wearing informal clothes and standing at a balcony. He is standing at a window from the family home in the Rue de Miromesnil in Paris, looking outwards into Boulevard Malesherbes (the large, oblique cross-street in the background). It is a comparatively early work in Caillebotte's oeuvre and reveals his interest in urban realism.
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| 1875 A young man at his window oil on canvas 117 x 82 cm J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| c1875 By the river, the effect of morning fog oil on canvas 45.7 x 54.9 cm |
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| c1875 Billiards oil on canvas 60 x 81 cm Private Collection |
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| 1875-77 The kitchen garden, Yerres oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm Private Collection |
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| 1875-77 The Gardeners oil on canvas 90 x 117 cm Private Collection |
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| 1876 Young man playing the piano oil on canvas 81 x 116 cm Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo |
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| 1876 The floor scrapers oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm Private Collection |
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| 1876 Luncheon oil on canvas 52 x 75 cm Private Collection |
1876 Le Pont du Europe:
The image shows pedestrians in the Place du Europe in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The plaza is a large bridge joining six avenues, each named for a European capital, over the railroad yards at Gare Saint-Lazare. The view is from the Rue de Vienne, looking towards the centre of the plaza. One of the bridge’s trusses is very prominent, visible in half of the image.
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| 1876 Le Pont du Europe oil on canvas 125 x 181 cm Musée dy Petit Palais, Geneva |
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| c1876 Garden at Yerres oil on canvas 59 x 81 cm Private Collection |
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| 1876-77 On the Pont de l’Europe oil on canvas 105.7 x 130.8 cm Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX |
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| 1876-77 Le Pont De L'Europe oil on canvas 125 x 181 cm Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva |
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| 1877 House painters oil on canvas 89.3 x 116 cm Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| 1877 Boaters on the Yerres pastel 52 x 86 cm Private Collection |
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| 1877 Bathers, banks of the Yerres pastel 75 x 95 cm Museum of Fine Arts of Agen, France |
