Painting on canvas, reproduction of Gustave Caillebotte La Rue Halévy seen from the sixth floor 1878
Make reproductions of paintings by Gustave Caillebotte
Even until the 1950s, Gustave Caillebotte was relatively unknown despite his many achievements in Paris during the reign of the Impressionists. Like many of his fellow avant-garde artists, he was fascinated by the impact of industrialization and modernization on the city of Paris and its inhabitants. While he is classified as an Impressionist, the paintings that are considered by most to be his masterpieces actually fall more under the category of realism, like the work of his predecessors Millet and Courbet , and even the earlier works of Degas or Monet.
The individual paintings in his oeuvre frequently feature the loose, distinctive brushstroke and lighter palette of the Impressionist style. However, the paintings for which he is best known are "accurate and large-scale evocations of photographic naturalism," as one contemporary critic put it, although at the time the comment had to be taken pejoratively. In the end, what he had most in common with his fellow Impressionists was his choice of subject matter: he depicted themes of everyday life rather than those favored by formally trained academic painters.
Gustave Caillebotte's painting style
Gustave Caillebotte developed a very personal style and original.
He is recognized for an art that differs from the manners most often attributed to the Impressionists: Caillebotte does not seek to work with the rapid, instantaneous touch of the leaders such as Monet or Renoir , influenced by Chevreul's theories on complementary colors and divided tones. He tried his hand at this in the works of his last period, such as certain landscapes of the Gennevilliers region.
However, Caillebotte, through the choice of realistic themes and open-air atmospheres, joined the Impressionists: he put a very personal touch in his paintings through a skilful use of perspective and framing, a technique that can be found in most of his large Parisian compositions.
His paintings are compared to a photograph of reality, but Caillebotte will bring his effects (play of light...) and a staging that belong only to him.
His technique is a patient construction: he uses preparatory drawings for his large compositions, works with tracing papers, and makes sketches.
- For decades after his death, Caillebotte was best known as a major donor to the French state of a collection of important Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in addition to bequeathing many of his own paintings. In fact, the bequest specified that the works were to be exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg and later at the Musée du Louvre – which was somewhat problematic at the time as his art was still not widely accepted by the traditional art establishment.
- Caillebotte was an enthusiastic collector of photographs, like some of the other artists of the Impressionist group - Degas in particular. In the work of both artists, you can easily identify some of the main formal features that borrow from photography. Most important is the often radical cropping of part of a painting, drawing, or print, mimicking the way the camera lens cuts the edges of a given view. There is evidence that he used photographs produced by his brother, Martial, an accomplished photographer who did not receive much recognition for his work, as references and probably direct guides for some of his compositions.
- Like many of his fellow Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, Caillebotte was influenced by Japanese art, especially printmaking. Prints, particularly those from the Edo period in Japan, provided these artists with thematic inspiration, as they typically captured scenes of everyday life. Their formal influence is even more pronounced, and in Caillebotte's work it can be seen in the often extremely sloping floor of a work and the frequent high vantage points, two major visual features of Japanese prints.
- For decades after his death, Caillebotte was rather known as the major source of financial support and patronage for a number of his fellow artists, including his close friends Renoir and Monet, as well as Manet and Pissarro.
