Gustave Caillebotte in the exhibition of the Foundation Mapfre of Madrid

On Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 11:30

Gustave Caillebotte in the Exhibition of the Foundation Mapfre of Madrid

Possibly, today we can contemplate this exhibition thanks to the unpayable work of those who manage the program of the Foundation Mapfre. The efforts that have had to do, insurance, which they are immense. Many museums and prestigious rooms will have disputed the works that today here we can contemplate. The works have gone out of Paris why the Museum of Orsay has tackled a renewal of its rooms and has had to relocate its funds on having closed the plant 5. Muchos museos y prestigiosas salas se habrán disputado las obras que hoy aquí podemos contemplar. Las obras han salido de París por que el Museo de Orsay ha emprendido una renovación de sus salas y ha tenido que reubicar su fondos al cerrar la planta 5.

But if we go back a little in the time to who we should thank it is to Gustave Caillebotte. He was a painter and friend of the impressionists and he was for them an authentic patron since he was buying to them its works when nobody trusted in them. To its death it donated the works to the French state and Renoir was in charge of making come this legacy. It had many problems so that they were accepting its legacy. A su muerte donó las obras al estado francés y Renoir se encargó de hacer llegar ese legado. Tuvo muchos problemas para que aceptaran su legado.

Let's see a brief Cailllebote portrait.

Gustave Caillebotte (1848 - 1894)

One of the most unknown impressionistic artists was Gustave Caillebotte. For many years its works happened unnoticed and the criticism did not bear him in mind.

But its role inside the group was fundamental. It was the one that more contributed to the impressionistic phenomenon ahead of some of the big teachers. Its pictorial work was the most important although perhaps not at the same level as Monet, Renoir or Cezanne but its economic situation and social position allowed him to be a patron in those moments in which the desperation was taking possession of the painters on having seen that its paintings were not reaching the due recognition and nobody was buying them. He died young and donated an important paintings collection to the French state. Su obra pictórica fue importantísima aunque quizás no al mismo nivel que Monet, Renoir o Cézanne pero su situación económica y posición social le permitió ejercer de mecenas en aquellos momentos en que la desesperación se adueñaba de los pintores al ver que sus pinturas no alcanzaban el reconocimiento debido y nadie las compraba. Murió joven y donó una importante colección de pinturas al estado francés.

He is born in Paris on August 19, 1848 in the bosom of a family of upper class. Its father inherited a familiar business of military pledges, also he was a judge of the Court of Commerce. From 1860 during the summers it begins frequenting the city of Yerres, located to few kilometers of the south of Paris and it is there where, possibly, in this epoch it began doing and drawing. A partir de 1860 durante los veranos empieza a frecuentar la ciudad de Yerres, ubicada a pocos kilómetros del sur de París y es allí donde, posiblemente, en esta época empezó a pintar y a dibujar.

In 1868 he graduated in right and two years later he happened to exercise the jurisprudence. And later also he graduated in marine engineering. It was enlisted in the French army owing to the franco-Prussian War. Fue alistado en el ejército francés con motivo de la Guerra franco-prusiana.

At the end of the war it joined the workshop of the academic painter León Bonnat where it began in a serious way in the study of the painting. In 1873 it approved the entrance examination of the School of Fine arts in to which it did not remain in a lot of time. In 1874 its father dies. Four years later its mother would die inheriting a considerable fortune. But we fly a year 1874. It is in this year when capture contacted with the impressionistic painters who were lodged in the academy of French art. Degas stands out between them and Of Nittis. In the same year it comes like onlooker to the first impressionistic exhibition to take part in the second celebrated in 1876. It presented eight works between which he emphasized The teases of parquet (They raboteurs of parquet – to see comment of the picture). En 1874 fallece su padre. Cuatro años más tarde fallecería su madre heredando una fortuna considerable. Pero volamos al año 1874. Es en este año cuando toma contacto con los pintores impresionistas que estaban alojados en la academia de arte francesa. Destacan entre ellos Degas y De Nittis. En este mismo año acude como curioso a la primera exposición impresionista para participar en la segunda celebrada en 1876. Presentó ocho obras entre las que destacó Los acuchilladores de parqué (Les raboteurs de parquet –ver comentario del cuadro).

The Caillebote style is framed inside the called pictorial realism of which they were precursors Jean-Francoise Millet y Gustace Courbet. Its work is hard influenced by its impressionistic companions who were straining in painting the such reality which exists in the reality. It was taking given of each one its style and skill but without becoming attached to any style in particular. Sometimes it is Degas which more it is alike capturing in its works a realism with a wide colors wealth. In others of its these works they acquire a palette of colors pastries and free strokes similar to those of Renoir and Pisarro. Tomaba prestado de cada uno su estilo y técnica pero sin apegarse a ningún estilo en particular. En ocasiones es Degas al que más se asemeja plasmando en sus obras un realismo con una amplia riqueza de colores. En otras de sus obras estas adquieren una paleta de colores pasteles y pinceladas sueltas semejantes a las de Renoir y Pisarro.

The Bridge of Europe (1876, Geneva, Museé du Petit-Palais) and, especially, Paris, time of rain (1877, The Art Institute of Chicago) they maintain the characteristics of the previous painting, and turn the Paris of Haussmann into the favorite stage of the personalísimas Caillebotte perspectives.

From the following year, Caillebotte begins to move away from the serious and cold style of the Lounge to create its own style entirely impressionistic.

The decade of 1880 the Caillebotte career gives a radical draft on having moved to a house opposite to Argenteuil, on the banks of the Seine, where its love begins for the sailing ships and the ditches.

The works of this period are characterized by a moderation in the perspectives, less forced that in most of urban paintings of Paris, although it continues with the unusual compositions, already it is for strange points of view or for being in appearance arbitrarily cut. The beautiful images of sailing ships that Caillebotte paints have a clear influence in those that Monet was representing a few years earlier.

Gustave Caillebotte died 45 years in Gennevilliers on February 21, 1894. It is buried in the cemetery of Pére Lachaise of Paris. Caillebotte donated its works to the State. Its executrix, Renoir, met big difficulties of making to fulfill the desire of its friend, and sometimes commercially, of delivering the paintings collection to the State. It seemed inconceivable to the persons in charge of the cultural policy to present in a museum the impressionistic pictures, which in that epoch were, still, pushed back on a big part of the public. Caillebotte donó sus obras al Estado. Su albacea, Renoir, se encontró con grandes dificultades para hacer cumplir el deseo de su amigo, y en ocasiones marchante, de entregar la colección de pinturas al Estado. A los responsables de la política cultural les pareció inconcebible presentar en un museo los cuadros impresionistas, que en aquella época eran, todavía, rechazados por una gran parte del público.

The parquet teases

They raboteurs of parquet, 1875

Oil on cloth, 102 x 146,5 cm.

Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Nº inv.: RF 2718
(C) RMN (Musée d'Orsay)

The central topic of the painting is the representation of a few workers preparing the wooden apartment. The criticism considered it to be vulgar and, probably, this was the reason for which the work was pushed back by the judges of the Lounge of 1875. In that epoch, the art academy was considering to be acceptable the representation of rustic peasants or farmers as the admissible subject-matter on topics regarding the working class. This picture constitutes one of the first representations of the urban proletarian. En aquella época, la academia de arte consideraba aceptable la representación de campesinos rústicos o granjeros como la temática admisible sobre tópicos referentes a la clase obrera. Este cuadro constituye una de las primeras representaciones del proletario urbano.

Unlike Courbet or Millet, Caillebotte introduces no social speech neither in its work, nor nor moralizer either politician. simply its work is a documentary study (gestures, hardware, accessories) that places it between the artist of the realism more experienced.

Caillebotte shows to three kneeled down workers, with the naked torso, on the parquet of an empty room. They predominate over the tones beiges - marrones-negros.

The light that enters the door of the balcony of the fund produces a grand back light effect: it falls down on the backs and arms of the workpeople. The perspective is accentuated by the effect of stung and by the alignment (the diagonals) of the parquet stage. A few streaks are dark for the varnish that they confirm with other egg whites that have been brushed. It is a question of a study of the rhythmic movements, comparable to the ballet dancers of ballet or the racers of Edgar Degas. La perspectiva se acentúa por el efecto de picado y por la alineación (las diagonales) del las tablas de parquet. Unas rayas son oscuras por el barniz que contrastan con las otras claras que han sido cepilladas. Se trata de un estudio de los movimientos rítmicos, comparables a las bailarines de ballet o los caballos de carreras de Edgar Degas.

The painter drew one for one the parts of the picture before capturing them in the linen. The anatomy of the workpeople remembers that of the gods of the classic painting.

One of the innovations of the impressionists, that the realists had already pointed, was to spoil the conventions with regard to the considered topics adapted for a painting: opposite to the preference to the historical and mythological topics own of the academic art, the impressionists aspire to reflect the contemporary forms of life, the new ways of living and the new figures of a society in an intensive modernization process.

It is necessary to point out that inside the subject-matter of the modern life, the manual work was not of the favorite topics of the impressionists. Only the proper Caillebotte and Degas

they treat with certain frequency (the last one in a magisterial way with its series of presses).

Now we have the opportunity to see in Spain not only the work of Gustave Caillebotte but that of many other artists that under the title Impressionism, a new Renaissance presents the Foundation Mapfre.