Gustave Caillebott representative of Impressionism

The discreet charm of bourgeois life



Young Man Playing the Piano - 1876, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)

The Orange Trees - 1878

The Pont du Europe - 1876

The Man on the Balcony - 1880

Roses, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers - 1886

Richard Gallo and His Dog at Petit Gennevilliers - 1884

Portraits in the Countryside - 1876

Portrait of Henri Cordier - 1883

Place Saint-Augustin, Misty Weather - 1878

Paris street, Rainy Day - 1877

Luncheon - 1876, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)


Game of Bezique - 1880

Fishing - 1878

A Balcony - 1880 - Private collection, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)

Banks of the Yerres - 1878

Boating Party - 1877, Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)


Bathers - 1878

Gustave Caillebotte | XIXe | Gustave Caillebotte
French collector and painter, representative of Impressionism.
Gustave Caillebotte was born on August 19, 1848 in Paris in a family that belonged to the higher strata of Parisian society. His father, Martial Caillebotte (fr. Martial Caillebotte) (1799-1874), inherited the textile industry, he also served as a judge in Senskom Tribunal for trade. Martial Caillebotte twice widowed before married Gustave mother, Celeste Defraigne (fr. Celeste Daufresne, 1819-1878). In addition Gustave they had two more sons - Rene (1851-1876) and Martial (1853-1910).

Caillebotte was born in the house in Paris Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis and lived there until 1866, until his father built a house on the street de Miromesnil in Paris. Gustave family spent a lot of time in the summer in Hyères - city on the river of the same name about 15 km south of Paris, after in 1860 Martial Caillebotte bought a mansion. Around this time, Gustave began to paint. Many paintings Caillebotte depict members of his family and daily life. On the canvas, "the young man at the window" (1875) chronicled Rene in a house on the rue de de Miromesnil, and "orange tree" (1878) depicts a Martial cousin Zoe in their garden at Yerres; on "Portraits in the countryside" (1875) depicts a mother Caillebotte, his aunt, cousin and friend of the family.

Caillebotte completed his law degree in 1868 and obtained a license to practice in 1870. Shortly thereafter, he took part in the Franco-Prussian War. After the war, Caillebotte visited the studio of artist Leon Bonnata, where he studied painting seriously. In 1873, Caillebotte entered the School of Fine Arts, but apparently, he studied it seriously enough. At the same time, Caillebotte met and became acquainted with several artists working outside the official French Academy, including Edgar Degas and Giuseppe de Nittis, and attended the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 (but did not participate in it).

After his father died in 1874 and his mother in 1878, Gustave received a solid state, which allowed him to paint without worrying about selling their work. He also has the opportunity to participate in the financing of Impressionist exhibitions and support his colleagues and fellow artists (including Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and others.), Buying their work as well - at least in the case of Monet - paying rent studio. In addition, Caillebotte used his fortune to finance a variety of hobbies, which he did with great enthusiasm, including stamp collecting (his collection is now in the British Museum), orchid breeding, construction of yachts, and even textile design (the women in his paintings "Madame Buasser knitting "(1877) and" Portrait of Madame Caillebotte "(1877) probably worked on designs created Caillebotte).

Caillebotte wrote in the style of realism. Like its predecessors, Jean-Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet, as well his contemporary Degas, Caillebotte wanted to portray reality as it is and as he sees it, hoping thereby to reduce the inherent drama of painting. He also shared the commitment of the Impressionists in the transfer of reality. Caillebotte wrote many family scenes, interiors, and landscapes in Yerres, but his most famous paintings have become canvases devoted to Paris, for example, "parquet floor" (1875), "Bridge of Europe" (1876) and "Rainy Day in Batinolskom quarter "(1877). These paintings aroused controversy because of their uncomplicated, often very simple story of profound and exaggerated perspective. Tilted surface common to these paintings is characteristic of Caillebotte's works, which arose under the influence of Japanese graphics and the new technology of photography.

Truncation techniques and increase occurring in the works of Caillebotte, possibly the result of his interest in photography. In many works Caillebotte uses a very high angle view, such as the image on the balconies «Vue des toits, effet de neige» (1878) and «Boulevard vu d'en haut» (1880). In the picturesque career Caillebotte came a sharp decline in the 1890s. When he stopped writing large-format paintings and exhibit their work. In 1881 he acquired the property of the estate in Petit Gennevilliers on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil and moved there to live in 1888. He devoted himself to gardening and construction of racing yachts, spent a lot of time with his brother and a friend of Martial Renoir, who often stayed at Petit -Zhenvile. According to many sources, shortly before his death he had an affair a woman much younger than him, Emilie Schlauch, but this is no official evidence.