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Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris
Broude, Norma
Rutgers University Press, 2002
Over the last decades, Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), a long-neglected painter associated with the French Impressionists, has suddenly become the subject of intense public interest and renewed scholarly debate. With a series of important exhibitions recently showcasing his work, Caillebotte’s enigmatic paintings have begun to exert an unexpected fascination for postmodern audiences, and they have become rich sites for interpretive debate.

The essays that comprise this volume exemplify the best aspects of recent Caillebotte scholarship. They employ a variety of perspectives to examine the ways in which his art sheds light on the formation of individual and class identities in Paris during the early years of the Third Republic—an era of transition marked by the burgeoning of capitalism and the instabilities of newly shifting gender roles in the modern world.

Addressing a wide range of major paintings by Caillebotte, the contributors reveal the compound ways in which the artist encoded his images and the multiple interpretations to which these images are susceptible. Juxtaposed so as to complement and challenge one another, these essays build a provocative whole as they probe issues of spectatorship and authorial intention. The contributors—all internationally known scholars and art professionals—create an important theoretical framework for the discussion of Caillebotte’s work.

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front cover of Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte
The Painter's Eye
Mary Morton and George Shackelford
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Though largely out of the public eye for more than a century, Gustave Caillebotte (1848–94) has come to be recognized as one of the most dynamic and original artists of the impressionist movement in Paris. His paintings are favorites of museum-goers, and recent restoration of his work has revealed more color, texture, and detail than was visible before while heightening interest in all of Caillebotte’s artwork. This lush companion volume to the National Gallery of Art’s major new exhibition, coorganized with the Kimbell Art Museum, explores the power and technical brilliance of his oeuvre.

The book features fifty of Caillebotte’s strongest paintings, including post-conservation images of Paris Street; Rainy Day, along with The Floorscrapers and Pont de l’Europe, all of which date from a particularly fertile period between 1875 and 1882. The artist was criticized at the time for being too realistic and not impressionistic enough, but he was a pioneer in adopting the angled perspective of a modern camera to compose his scenes. Caillebotte’s skill and originality are evident even in the book’s reproductions, and the essays offer critical insights into his inspiration and subjects.

This sumptuously illustrated publication makes clear why Caillebotte is among the most intriguing artists of nineteenth-century France, and it deepens our understanding of the history of impressionism.
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