Men planing a parquet floor, getting out of the bath or walking in the rain, painted as if they had let themselves be surprised by a photographer friend: this is the feat achieved by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), to whom the museum ‘Orsay dedicates a unique exhibition.
Around 140 works and documents, including 65 paintings representing “the majority of his masterpieces”, as well as a number of drawings and preparatory studies are presented from Tuesday until January 19, according to Paul Perrin, director of collections of the museum and curator of the exhibition, entitled “Caillebotte, painting men”.
Two emblematic works of his work are at the origin: “Boat part”, acquired in 2022 by Orsay, and “Young man at his window”, acquired in 2021 by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, partner of the Musée d’Orsay with the Art Institute of Chicago, both lenders and which will host the exhibition in 2025.
We see two men, painted with a “genius framing which makes Caillebotte so unique”, for Mr. Perrin. The first rows energetically, sleeves rolled up, facing the “viewer” who seems to be sitting in the same boat. The second observes the roofs of Paris from his window, from behind, observed very closely by the painter.
The exhibition, the first dedicated to the painter in Orsay since its opening in 1986, is built chronologically, from the years 1870 to 1894, around these male figures: brothers, friends, sportsmen with whom he rows and sails, workers, passers-by he meets on his way to the café, near the Saint-Lazare station or on the Grands Boulevards.
They represent “two-thirds of his figure painting, unlike Manet, Degas or Renoir for whom modernity is rather embodied by female figures” and compose “a sort of personal autofiction, reflection of his own identity”, explains Mr. Perrin.
– “Parquet planers” –
Among the masterpieces exhibited, the “Parquet Planers” (1875), usually shown at Orsay, and his preparatory studies, showing to what extent the artist observed and worked on each gesture and posture before creating his painting .
Another nugget, “Le Pont de l’Europe” in its 1876 version, representing passers-by and a dog walking along heavy iron structures and balustrades above the Saint-Lazare station, and in the 1877 version, zoomed in, showing three men looking through metal structures where smoke from a train is escaping.
“Paris Street, Rainy Weather” (1877) and its famous blue umbrellas rub shoulders with lesser-known interior scenes, such as one of the painter’s three brothers, in close-up, cutting his meat during a family lunch, or a man and a woman reading in a living room, whose roles seem reversed.
“Boulevard seen from above” (1880) or “A refuge, boulevard Haussmann” evoke perspectives worthy of drones.
Caillebotte has long been considered, wrongly, “as an amateur painter because of his wealth”, a family fortune which he inherited and which allowed him to very strongly support the Impressionist movement, whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated this year, all by nourishing other passions: sailing, philately and horticulture, according to the commissioner.
– Naked men –
One of the most astonishing rooms is devoted to nudity, the social codes of which the artist deconstructs: naked men replace the traditional bathers and have nothing in common with naiads.
In “The Man in the Bath” (1884), a man’s back, leaning slightly forward, vigorously wipes himself in an unfavorable posture while traces of water impregnate the bathroom floor.
“It’s so radical, even Degas (who comes close, editor’s note) never did that,” comments Gloria Groom, chief curator of the European painting and sculpture department at the Art Institute of Chicago, for AFP. .
If the eroticization is obvious, “nothing allows us to attest to the homosexuality of the painter”, according to Mr. Perrin. Caillebotte never married and had no children. He lived with a woman, Charlotte Berthier.
In the exhibition, a “Nude au divan” represents a young woman lying on a flowered couch which appears in other works. Covering her face with one arm, she casually folds one leg, seeming to pay no attention to whoever is looking at her.
Related News :