At the heart of an abundant cultural return, the proposal is a miracle. The Musée d’Orsay is organizing its first exhibition dedicated to Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), on the occasion of the 130th anniversary of his early death at the age of 45. A fair return for one of the greatest masters of impressionism, known more for having supported his friends, notably Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir, to the point of becoming their patron. So much so that when he suddenly died (due to cerebral congestion), there were more than 70 in his collection. But his are just as worth the detour! As evidenced by the retrospective which features 140 paintings, drawings, photographs, clothing and accessories, in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Art Institute of Chicago, which will host it next year.
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A new angle: the man
With a unique angle: his taste for the representation of modern life through the male figures he encounters on a daily basis in his family or those around him, whom he encounters in the streets of Paris (workers at work and bourgeois out for walks) or on vacation. When his acolytes sketched women in all their forms, like Edgar Degas who immortalized washerwomen and ironers, milliners and dancers, he stood out. “He brings together throughout his work a whole kaleidoscope of masculinities from the end of the 19th century: the worker building the new town, the bathers and boaters in the countryside, even the naked man captured in the intimacy of his toilet, underlines Sylvain Amic, president of the Musée d’Orsay. This look is supported by bold artistic choices: photographic framing with back views, high or low angle views, close-ups. »
A painter who shakes up social conventions
In order to reveal a “a more nuanced and ambiguous vision than it seems”when Gustave Caillebotte shakes up social conventions in resolutely mysterious paintings where a homoerotic dimension sometimes emerges. Parquet planers (1875) shows three individuals at work, on their knees and without shirts; The Man in the Bath (1884) paints a realistic portrait of a regatta competitor drying his body with a towel, in a voyeuristic device: he has drawn a curtain, but the spectator observes him from behind!
Emotion when discovering a window with the Parisian’s panoply: top hat, frock coat, pommel cane.
Usually, the male nude is heroic and idealized in academic painting, especially historical and mythological scenes. That being said, all of the pieces that punctuate the thematic route, in a scenography of rare elegance, reflect the way in which Gustave Caillebotte appreciated his time, with a certain melancholy.
An avalanche of masterpieces
Like the enigmatic Young man at the window (1876), where his brother René, who died at the age of 25, scans the Boulevard Malesherbes. “He seems to have just gotten up from his armchair to take a closer look at the spectacle in the street, perhaps a passer-by, says Paul Perrin, the commissioner. From his silhouette emanates the feeling of assurance of an annuitant, because he and his brothers have inherited several buildings, but tinged with boredom. » Emotion when discovering a window with the Parisian’s panoply: top hat, frock coat, pommel cane. But especially in front of the avalanche of masterpieces accompanied by studies which tell the story of the creative process, the colors that sparkle, the movements of a material that pulsates, the nervous and precise touch. Dazzling.
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“Caillebotte, painting men”. Until January 19. musee-orsay.fr.
