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居斯塔夫˙卡玉伯特 1875 至 1877 年的繪畫 及其藝術影響 Gustave

居斯塔夫˙卡玉伯特 1875 至 1877 年的繪畫 及其藝術影響 Gustave

國立臺灣師範大學藝術史研究所 碩士論文

National Taiwan Normal University Graduate Institute of Art History Master’s Degree Thesis

居斯塔夫˙卡玉伯特 1875 至 1877 年的繪畫

及其藝術影響

Gustave Caillebotte’s Paintings in 1875–77

and the Works’ Artistic Reception

指導教授 Advisor: Professor Dr. Candida Syndikus

詹乃毓 Jan, Nai-Yu

中華民國 104 年 8 月 August 2015

Table of Contents

English Abstract...... 3

Chinese Abstract...... 6

1. Introduction...... 9

2. State of Research...... 11

3. A Short Biography of ...... 16

4. Caillebotte’s Works in the Years 1875–77

4.1 The Floor Scrapers of 1875...... 21

4.2 The Pont de l’Europe of 1876...... 26

4.3 Street; Rainy Day of 1877...... 29

4.4 Synthesis: Caillebotte’s Three Paintings and ...... 32

5. Caillebotte’s Paintings in the Light of the Contemporary Art Criticism

5.1 Contemporary Literary Reception...... 33

5.2 A Caricature of Caillebotte as a Floor Scraper...... 49

6. The Response to Caillebotte’s Paintings in Belgium

6.1 Fernand Khnopff...... 51

6.2 James Ensor...... 56

7. Caillebotte and the Norwegian Painters

7.1 Christian Krohg...... 61

7.2 Edvard Munch...... 65

8. Caillebotte and the Italian Artists

8.1 Italian Artists in Nineteenth-Century Paris...... 71

8.2 Angelo Morbelli...... 72

8.3 Mario de Maria...... 80

1

9. Conclusion: The Response to Caillebotte’s Works in Europe...... 87

10. Bibliography...... 91

Appendix: Figures...... 96

Photographic Credits...... 128

2

English Abstract

This study proposes an analysis of Gustave Caillebotte’s (1848–94) major works in the second half of the 1870s and the works’ artistic receptions by other European artists. For this master thesis, I have chosen Caillebotte’s three major works – The

Floor Scrapers of 1875 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), The Pont de l’Europe of 1876

(Geneva, Musée du Petit Palais), and Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877 (Art Institute of

Chicago) – to discuss the reception of Caillebotte’s art, because these are his most representative and influential works which show unique perspectives towards the cityscapes in nineteenth-century Paris under Baron Haussmann’s (1809–1891) renovation. The survey begins with an analysis of Caillebotte’s three pictures and the discourse on them in contemporary art criticism with the goal to find out which of the paintings’ features were appraised or condemned by contemporary viewers.

In The Floor Scrapers, Caillebotte develops a characteristic style concerning both content and form which categorically differ from the artistic goals of his

Impressionist colleagues at that time. Many of Caillebotte’s French Impressionist colleagues like to make landscape paintings and render them with loose brushstrokes, such as Claude Monet (1840–1926) and Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), or some other colleagues favor the subjects of bourgeois women, such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir

(1841–1919). When Floor Scrapers was shown at the first Impressionist Exhibition in

1876, Caillebotte impressed the contemporary audience because this work presents an unusual subject – the urban laborers, and an uncommon Impressionist style with meticulous brushstrokes and smoothly painted surface. Caillebotte’s other two iconic works, The Pont de l’Europe and Paris Street; Rainy Day are unique representations of the city life in Paris. His use of asymmetrical composition, multiple-point perspective, bold cropping of the scene and figures is quite untypical amongst his

3 contemporaries. When presented at the second Impressionist Exhibition in 1877, the two works attracted many critics’ attention; most of them were amazed at

Caillebotte’s boldness composition and meticulous brushstrokes.

To discuss what makes Caillebotte’s three major works untypical amongst his contemporary Impressionists, and how are the contemporary artists’ responses to

Caillebotte’s art, I will compare his method of composition with some works by the following artists: the Belgians Fernand Khnopff (1858–1921) and James Ensor

(1860–1949), Norwegians Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and Christian Krohg (1852–

1925), the Italians Angelo Morbelli (1853–1919) and Mario de Maria (1852–1924). I choose the six artists because some of their works have occasionally been mentioned in the research on the similarities between Caillebotte’s and his contemporaries’ works.

In order to develop and support my argument of the artistic reception of

Caillebotte’s works by the six contemporaries, I first verify their possible opportunities to learn Caillebotte’s art in Paris. From their biographies, the six artists did pay visits to Paris in the nineteenth-century when the French Impressionists, including Caillebotte’s, were popular and influential in Europe. In the next step, I discuss the similarities between some paintings produced by the six artists either during or after their visits to Paris and Caillebotte’s three major works, because the compositions and styles appear to be indebted to Caillebotte’s art.

First of all, the case study on Belgian artists’ response begins with an analysis of a work by the Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff, as its composition reveals a close association with Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day. Another case study is the comparison of James Ensor and Caillebotte’s city scenes. Second, the compositional relationships between two paintings by Norwegian Naturalist painter Christian Krohg and Caillebotte’s canvases are examined. The street scenes by Edvard Munch and 4

Caillebotte will be compared in terms of their compositional similarities. In addition, the similarities and differences between how Caillebotte employs space in The Pont de l’Europe and Munch does in The Scream (Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet) are investigated.

Last, the response to Caillebotte’s style by a group of Italian artists, who sojourned in late-nineteenth-century Paris, is considered. The case study begins with a series of paintings named The Poem of Old Age (Il poema della vecchiaia) executed by the

Italian Divisionist Angelo Morbelli. Then, several views of Paris depicted by

Bolognese painter Mario de Maria are checked.

Key words: Gustave Caillebotte, Impressionism, nineteenth-century Paris, la vie moderne, Symbolism, Naturalist, Divisionism

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Chinese Abstract

本研究針對法國十九世紀印象派畫家居斯塔夫˙卡玉伯特(Gustave Caillebotte,

1848–94) 在 1870 年代的新繪畫風格,及其對於同時代其他歐洲藝術家的影響,

來進行研究。本文針對卡玉伯特的三件代表作來分析一 1875 年的〈刮地板的工

人〉(The Floor Scrapers),1876 年〈歐洲橋〉(The Pont de l’Europe) 以及 1877

年〈雨天的巴黎街道〉 (Paris Street; Rainy Day)。此三件作品極具時代性觀點,

卡玉伯特以其獨特的風格描繪了在歐仁˙奧斯曼男爵 (Baron Haussmann, 1809–

1891)重新規劃之下後的十九世紀巴黎城市風景。首先,為了解卡玉伯特畫作風

格及其十九世紀的藝術評價,進行了三件作品的風格分析,並爬梳這些作品,於

十九世紀印象派展覽中展出後,所得到的藝術評論。

卡玉伯特的〈刮地板的工人〉,無論在畫作主題或是風格上面,皆有別於同

時代的法國印象派畫家。他們的畫作通常以風景為主題,筆觸較為寫意且隨興,

例如像克勞˙德莫內 (Claude Monet, 1840–1926) 和卡米耶˙畢沙羅 (Camille

Pissarro, 1830–1903);或者像皮耶-奧古斯特˙雷諾瓦 (Pierre-Auguste Renoir,

1841–1919),以中產階級的女性為主要題材。當〈刮地板的工人〉於 1876 年第

一次印象派展覽中亮相時,觀眾們都非常訝異於這個在印象派繪畫中極為少見的

題材一都市勞動者,及其不同於其他印象派作品的風格一細緻且寫實的筆觸。卡

玉伯特的另外兩件代表作一〈歐洲橋〉及〈雨天的巴黎街道〉,以獨特的視角描

繪了十九世紀巴黎的城市生活。卡玉伯特運用了不對稱構圖、多點透視、對場景

以及人物的大膽剪裁;比起同時期的主流印象派畫作,這些畫作風格顯得非常獨

樹一幟。卡玉伯特的這兩件代表作於 1877 年第二次印象派展覽展出時,吸引了

眾多藝評家的目光,很多人都讚嘆於卡玉伯特大膽、創新的構圖,及其嚴謹細膩

的筆觸。除此之外,同時代的一些藝術家們,也被卡玉伯特獨特的構圖及透視法

吸引,從中學習一些視覺技法,進而融入自己的作品裡。

為了分析卡玉伯特具有影響力的三件代表作,被視為非典型印象派作品的

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原因 ,及探討其他歐洲藝術家受卡玉伯特作品風格影響的情形,我選了以下六位

藝術家的一些作品,來與卡玉伯特的畫作進行比較:比利時畫家費爾南˙克諾普

夫(Fernand Khnopff, 1858–1921)、詹姆斯˙恩索爾(James Ensor, 1860–1949),挪

威畫家愛德華˙孟克(Edvard Munch, 1863–1944)、克里斯蒂安˙克羅格(Christian

Krohg, 1852–1925),以及義大利畫家安傑洛˙馬爾貝里(Angelo Morbelli, 1853–

1919)、馬力歐迪馬里亞(Mario de Maria, 1852–1924)。在卡玉伯特的相關研究中,

上述六位藝術家的某些作品,有時候會被拿來與卡玉伯特的作品,進行構圖及風

格方面的比較。

為了闡述並證明以上六位藝術家,確實有受到卡玉伯特三件代表作的啟發,

首先我必須證實他們看過或得知卡玉伯特作品的可能性。從這些藝術家的傳記中,

可以證實他們皆曾經於十九世紀,印象派畫家(包括卡玉伯特)當紅時,造訪過

巴黎。接下來,我將這些藝術家在停留巴黎時或返回家鄉後所創作的某些作品,

與卡玉伯特的主要作品做比較,因為這些作品在其構圖或風格上的變化,似乎有

受到卡玉伯特的影響。

案例討論從比利時象徵主義畫家克諾普夫的其中一件作品開始,此畫作的

構圖,明顯受卡玉伯特〈雨天的巴黎街道〉之影響。接著,將另一位比利時畫家

一恩索爾的城市街景,與卡玉伯特的巴黎街景作比較。至於卡玉伯特對挪威畫家

的影響,從 克羅格的瑞典畫家卡爾˙努德斯特倫(Karl Nordström)肖像畫開始分析,

其構圖原型來自卡玉伯特〈奥斯曼大道,陽臺上的男人〉(Man on a Balcony,

Boulevard Haussmann)。接著討論孟克的巴黎街景畫及一系列克利斯蒂安娜(奧

斯陸)街景,與卡玉伯特巴黎街景的空間表現之相似處。另外還有其著名的〈吶

喊〉(The Scream),與卡玉伯特〈歐洲橋〉構圖的關聯性。最後,探討兩位曾於

十九世紀晚期造訪巴黎的義大利藝術家—分離派畫家馬爾貝里,以及以描繪月光

著名的迪馬里亞。分析前者在〈晚年的詩篇〉 (The Poem of Old Age) 一系列中

的幾張畫,與卡玉伯特〈刮地板的工人〉的透視空間之相似性;討論後者的兩張

巴黎街景畫與卡玉伯特街景的構圖特色。 7

關鍵字:居斯塔夫卡玉伯特、印象派、19 世紀巴黎、現代生活、象徵主義、自

然主義、分離主義

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1. Introduction

In April 1876, the second exhibition of the Impressionists was presented at the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel on the Rue Le Peletier in Paris. On this occasion, a still unknown newcomer, Gustave Caillebotte (1848–94), made his debut with eight works, the most innovative canvas among which is The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet) of

1875 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 1),1 a paining with an unorthodox subject (urban workers) and composition (large empty space). Caillebotte, then twenty-eight-years old, is both a friend and a patron of (1834–1917), Claude Monet (1840–

1926) and Camille Pissarro (1830–1903).2

Born into a wealthy family, Caillebotte began his professional law studies and obtained a law degree in 1870. However, he did not follow this professional career.

Two years later, in 1872, he entered Léon Bonnat’s (1833–1922) studio. In the following year, Caillebotte even passed the entrance examination for the École des

Beaux-Arts in Paris. Unfortunately, no record of his works at the École was found and it seems that his attendance did not last long.3 Although Caillebotte was trained at the

Academy, new experiments attracted him more, so that he opposed against academic art and joined a group of painters who were later known as the Impressionists. Edgar

Degas, whom Caillebotte met in 1874, invited him to participate at the first

Impressionist Exhibition at the Nadar Gallery in Paris. Yet, Caillebotte did not present his works until 1876, at the second Impressionist Exhibition.4 From 1875 to 1876, he strived to make his ambitious works, one of which was The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1),

1 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, donated by Gustave Caillebotte to the state in 1894, entered into the collection of Musée du Luxembourg in 1896,attributed to in 1929, assigned to Musée d’Orsay in 1986, oil on canvas, 102 x 146.5 cm, Inv. RF 2718, signature and date bottom right: “G. Caillebotte. 1875”; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=105. 2 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 4. 3 Ibid, p. 2. 4 Gabriel P. Weisberg, The realist tradition: French painting and drawing, 1830–1900, Cleveland 1980, p. 278. 9 executed probably in April 1875.5 This canvas, a modern interpretation of urban laborers, offers a realist approach to the subject and reveals, at the same time the artist’s former academic training. With regard to its subject – his depiction of urban laborers, there is obviously no close predecessor to The Floor Scrapers in French painting before 1875. Caillebotte played a pioneer role by giving the urban workers an outstanding significance in the picture. When it was first shown in 1876, The Floor

Scrapers not only drew the critics’ attention but also left an impression on the other artists. Another two iconic canvases by Caillebotte were presented in 1877 at the third exhibition of the Impressionists. These are (1) Pont de l’Europe of 1876 (Geneva,

Musée du Petit Palais; fig. 2)6 and (2) Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris; temps de pluie) of 1877 (Art Institute of Chicago; fig. 3),7 the former a depiction of the newly built, massive structure of a bridge near Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, the latter an exceptionally large-scale on the cityscape of modern Paris.8 In Paris

Street; Rainy Day, a wide stone street is depicted in a plunging perspective, and the scene with strollers is both orderly designed and asymmetrically disposed. Caillebotte again amazed the contemporary critics with this prosaic but large painting. For example, the French writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) said that Caillebotte is a painter who showed the courage to treat modern subjects on such a life-sized scale.9

5 Michael Marrinan, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, p. 21. 6 Geneva, Musée du Petit Palais, acquired by Modern Art Foundation Oscar Ghez, oil on canvas, 125 x 180 cm, Inv. 111, signature and date bottom right: “G. Caillebotte. 1876”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 85, no. 49. 7 Chicago, Art Institute, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, oil on canvas, 212.2 × 276.2 cm, Inv. 1964.336, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte. 1877”; notice of the work from Art Institute Chicago at http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/20684. 8 Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 93. 9 Émile Zola,“Notes parisiennes: Une Exposition: Les Peintres impressionnistes,” in: Le Sémaphore de Marseille, 19 April 1877: “Finally, I will name Caillebotte, a young painter who shows the finest courage, and who does not hesitate to treat modern subjects on a life-sized scale. His Rue de Paris par un temps de pluie shows some passers-by – above all a man and a woman in the foreground – who seem very real. Once his talent has become more supple, Caillebotte certainly will be among the boldest of the group.” An English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, 10

Caillebotte’s artistic achievements in his three representative works, Floor

Scrapers (fig. 1), Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2) and Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) have been widely noted since the late 1870s in terms of the unusual compositions and perspectives. When European artists paid visits to Paris in the late nineteenth-century, some of them had the opportunities to see Caillebotte’s works at the Impressionist

Exhibitions (i.e. Fernand Khnopff and Christian Krohg), and a few of them heard about Caillebotte via their friends in Paris (i.e. Edvard Munch). The artists’ trips to

Paris and their knowledge of Caillebotte’s works exercise some influences on them.

Several paintings executed after their visits to Paris show compositional changes (i.e.

Angelo Morbelli’s Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan, fig. 4) referring to the features in Caillebotte’s works (Floor Scrapers). Moreover, Caillebotte’s usage of perspective and the cropping of motifs in the depictions of city life, Paris Street;

Rainy Day and Pont de l’Europe, inspired the contemporary artists such the Belgian

Symbolist Fernand Khnopff (1858–1921), Norwegian painters Christian Krohg

(1852–1925) and Edvard Munch (1863–1944).

2. State of Research

The nineteenth-century French painter Gustave Caillebotte was among the distinguished artists when the impressionist movement reached its peak in the late

1870s and early 1880s. However, his works have been ignored for almost a century. In numerous studies on Impressionism before the 1960s, such as John Rewald’s The

History of Impressionism published in 1976, Caillebotte’s achievement as a painter was less emphasized than his influence as a generous patron to many of his colleagues.

His works were not noticed as much as that of other Impressionists such as Edgar

exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 209. 11

Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) and Claude Monet.10 After his death in

1894, the works of Caillebotte were soon forgotten. According to Anne Distel, the long-term neglect of Caillebotte’s works is very likely because of his considerable wealth, which let him free from the need to sell his paintings, and most of his work remained in family hands and private collectors until the mid-twentieth century.11 It was not until the 1960s that Caillebotte’s masterpieces entered the museum collection

(The Art Institute of Chicago, Musée du Petit Palais in Geneva) and were shown to a wider audience through exhibitions.12 In the 1970s, scholars started to notice

Caillebotte and make contributions to several catalogs published in conjunction with the exhibitions of Caillebotte’s paintings.13

The first pioneering catalog was edited by the American scholar Kirk Varnedoe, who curated a major retrospective of the painter at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in 1976.14 This catalog offers a thorough analysis of 62 of Caillebotte’s oil paintings on the basis of their historical and stylistic context. Starting in 1948, the French art historian and curator Marie Berhaut dedicated a great part of her career to the study of

Caillebotte’s œuvre. In 1978, she published a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s works.

Berhaut provided many documents of Caillebotte’s life, and she constructed an

10 Robert Rosenblum, “Gustave Caillebotte: The 1970s and the 1870s,” in: Artforum 15, no. 7, 1977, pp. 46–47. 11 Anne Distel, “Introduction: Caillebotte as Painter, Benefactor, and Collector,” in: Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 24. 12 Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877 was sold to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1964; The Pont de l’Europe of 1876 entered the Musée du Petit Palais in Geneva in 1968. Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, pp. 85, 93. 13 Some major exhibitions of Caillebotte: “Rétrospective Gustave Caillebotte” at Galerie Wildenstein, Paris, 25 May-25 July, 1951. “Gustave Caillebotte: A Retrospective Exhibition” at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 22, 1976-January 2, 1977; The Brooklyn Museum, New York, February 12-April 24 1977. “Gustave Caillebotte, Urban Impressionist” at Galleries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 16 September 1994-9 January 1995; The Art Institute of Chicago, 18 February-28 May, 1995; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 22 June-10 September 1995. 14 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston 1976. Website of the exhibition: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/2342/Gustave_Caillebotte%3A_A_Retros pective_Exhibition. 12 extensive catalog of his works containing 565 items.15 Some primary sources related to Caillebotte collected by Berhaut are the basis of my analysis of the painter’s works.

In 1994–95, a great retrospective, “Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist,” was organized in Paris, Chicago and Los Angeles.16 The catalog reproduces 89 of

Caillebotte’s paintings and 28 of his drawings, many of which came from private collections.17 Essays written by international scholars examined the artist’s works which were then categorized according to different subjects. The volume furnishes, moreover, important sources such as an inventory of his art collection and parts of his correspondence.18 A documentation of the Impressionist Exhibitions between 1874 and 1886 was edited by Ruth Berson in 1996.19 The original texts by the critics on

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1), Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2) and Paris Street; Rainy

Day (fig. 3) considered in this present thesis were taken from this documentation.

What has been lacking so far is an in-depth research focusing the visual connections between Caillebotte’s work and that of his contemporaries as well as a study of the extent to which the European painters of the late nineteenth century have been inspired by Caillebotte’s. In fact, Caillebotte’s treatment of perspective, which produces “overwrought sensation of depth”20 connects him to several works by other younger artists of the time. One of them was the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch

(1863–1944), who in his Rue Lafayette of 1891 (Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet; fig. 5)21

15 Marie Berthaut, Caillebotte, sa vie et son œuvre, catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1978. 16 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago– Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., appendices, pp. 319–344. 19 Ruth Berson, The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886: Documentation, San Francisco 1996. 20 Kirk Varnedoe with Peter Galassi, “Caillebotte’s Space,” in: Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 25. 21 Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, Inv. NG.M.01725; information of the work from Nasjonalmuseet at http://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collections_and_research/our_collections/edvard_munch_in_the_nati onal_museum/Rue+Lafayette%2C+1891.b7C_wljUYO.ips. 13 evidently referred to Caillebotte’s view from the balcony of his apartment down to the

Boulevard Haussmann (fig. 6).22 Kirk Varnedoe pointed out the compositional similarity between Munch’s paintings showing city life on Karl Johan Street in Oslo

(figs. 7–9) and Caillebotte’s cityscapes.23 Varnedoe further argued that the “distorted spatial relationships” in Caillebotte’s The Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2) may have something to do with Munch’s Despair of 1892 (Stockholm, Thielska Galleriet; fig.

10)24 and The Scream of 1893 (Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet; fig. 11).25 Munch’s teacher,

Christian Krohg (1852–1925), a Naturalist painter, revealed a compositional affinity with Caillebotte’s Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (Homme au balcon, boulevard Haussmann) of 1880 (Switzerland, private collection; fig. 12)26 in a portrait of the Swedish painter Karl Nordström (1855–1923) executed in 1882 (Oslo,

The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design; fig. 13).27

The Italian painters, Angelo Morbelli (1853–1919) and Mario de Maria (1852–

1924), who paid numerous visits to Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, are also to be considered. It will be shown that especially some of the Macchiaioli,

22 This reference was from Reinhold Heller, Edvard Munch: The Scream, New York, 1972, pp. 62, 64. Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976, p. 150, note 2. 23 The three pictures are as follows: Music on Karl Johan Street, 1889, oil on canvas, 101.5 x 140.5 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; Sketch for Spring Day on Karl Johan Street, 1889, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 82 cm, Munch Museum, Oslo; Rainy Day on Karl Johan Street, 1891, oil on canvas, 38 x 53 cm, Munch Museum, Oslo. Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976, p. 150, note 2. 24 Stockholm, Thielska Galleriet, oil on canvas, 92 x 67 cm; information of the work from Thielska Galleriet at http://www.thielska-galleriet.se/samlingen/samlingen-2/fortvivlan_1892-2/. 25 Oslo, Nasjonalmuseet, tempera and crayon on cardboard, 91 x 73.5 cm, Inv. NG.M.00939; information of the work from Nasjonalmuseet at http://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collections_and_research/our_collections/edvard_munch_in_the_nati onal_museum/The+Scream,+1893.b7C_wljU1a.ips; Kirk Varnedoe with Peter Galassi, “Caillebotte’s Space,” in: Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 25; Kirk Varnedoe, “Gustave Caillebotte in context,” in: Arts Magazine 50, no. 9, May 1976, pp. 98–99. 26 Switzerland, private collection, oil on canvas, 117 x 90 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1880”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 132, no. 149. Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 216, note 1 of plate 42. 27 Oslo, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, oil on canvas, oil on canvas, 61 x 46.5 cm, Inv. NG.M.01223; information of the work from The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design at http://www.kunstsamling.no/no/object.php?coll=NMK-B&invnr=NG.M.01223. Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 144. 14 either in contact with Caillebotte or knew his works from exhibitions in Paris, got inspired by the painter’s style. Although studies of this relationship remain strikingly rare in the Italian academia, we can observe how some of the Macchiaioli were fascinated by the art scene of Paris from their biographies.

None of the studies on Angelo Morbelli discuss the analogies between his paintings, such as Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan (Giorno di festa al Pio

Albergo Trivulzio) of 1892 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 4)28 and Caillebott’s Floor

Scrapers (fig. 1).29 The stylistic relationship between Caillebotte’s painting and

Morbelli’s works is shortly mentioned by Robert Rosenblum in his description of

Morbelli’s Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan in a catalog of paintings in the

Musée d’Orsay published in 1989.30 However, due to the limited space of a collection catalog, the author has not further explored the analogies.

Rosenblum’s reference is the starting point of the present inquiry. I shall try to illuminate further the artistic relationship between Morbelli’s and Caillebotte’s works.

Morbelli visited Paris in 1889 when his first work in the series of The poem of Old

Age (Il poema della vecchiaia; figs. 4, 14–18),31 Last Days! (Giorni ultimi!) of 1883

(Milan, Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna; fig. 14)32 was exhibited at the Universal

Exposition. Morbellis’s trip to Paris, where he could have the opportunity to know

28 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, oil on canvas, 78 x 122 cm, Inv. RF 1192, JdeP 280, signature and date on the left edge: “Morbelli 1882”; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=9270. 29 Lara Pucci described Morbelli’s Last Days! series in the exhibition catalog Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891-1910, London 2008, pp. 150–151, but she did not mention the analogy between the Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan and Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers. 30 Robert Rosenblum, Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay, New York 1989, p. 642. 31 The six paintings are listed chronologically as follows: Last Days! (Giorni ultimi!) of 1883; Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan (Giorno di festa al Pio Albergo Trivulzio) of 1892; I remember when I was a girl (Mi riccordo quand’ero fanciulla) of 1903; Christmas of the Left Behind (Il Natale dei rimasti) of 1903; A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio (Un Natale! al Pio Albergo Trivulzio) of 1909; The Refectory of the Old People (Il refettorio dei vecchioni) of 1919; Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, pp. 43, 55, 83, 84, 91; Aurora Scotti Tosini, Angelo Morbelli, Soncino 1991, p. 86. 32 Milan, Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, 1883, oil on canvas, 100 x 157 cm; Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 55. 15

Caillebotte ’s works, exercised some influence on his following work, Feast Day at the

Hospice Trivulzio in Milan (fig. 4), because this painting shows drastic compositional changes compared to Last Days!. In Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan,

Morbelli’s emphasis on the empty space and perspectives appears to echo the composition in Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1). In highlighting the links between the works of both painters, criteria for an analysis of the stylistic connection between

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers and Italian paintings will be carried out.

Concerning the reception of Caillebotte’s compositions by Belgian artists, Kirk

Varnedoe briefly mentions the analogis33 between Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) and Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff’s Passing Boulevard du Régent (En passant

Boulevard du Régent) of 1881 (Brussels, private collection; fig. 19).34 Sharon Hirsh further elaborates the compositions’ similarities.35 Rodolphe Rapetti indicates that the

Belgian painter James Ensor’s city views used a composition evocative of

Caillebotte’s bird’s-eye view of Paris scenes.36 This will be the starting point to a more intense exploration of the influence of Caillebotte’s city views on the Belgian artist.

3. A Short Biography of Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte has been regarded for a long time as an unusual artist among the

French Impressionists. Both his life and his art are quite different from his colleagues.37 During his life-time, Caillebotte is, due to his exceptional economic

33 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 92. 34 Brussels, Paul Rouffart’s private collection, gouache and watercolor, 9 x 17.2 cm; Robert L. Delevoy, Fernand Khnopff, Brussels 1987, p. 213; Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 97. 35 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 97. 36 Rodolphe Rapetti, “Paris Seen from a Window,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles 1994/95, New York 1995, pp. 145–146. 37 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 1. 16 possibilities, an important patron of the French Impressionists.38 He is on good terms with Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, of whom he is friend, colleague and patron at the same time.39

Compared to these friends, Caillebotte had a relatively short albeit fulfilled life which lasted only 46 years. In addition to his role as a patron of the Impressionists, he himself is an accomplished painter, too. Although Caillebotte’s name is usually associated with Impressionism, his painting style and, occasionally, his subject matters are much closer to the French Realists.40 Being wealthy enough to support not only himself but also others and practicing an untypical approach, Caillebotte is a peculiar figure in the circle of the Impressionists.

Born on August 19, 1848 in Paris, Gustave Caillebotte grew up in an environment of wealth and privilege.41 His father Martial is a successful textile merchant.42 Gustave was first trained as a lawyer and, in 1868, was bestowed a bachelor degree of law.43 Three years later, in 1872, he made a significant change in his career from law to art, enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in the class of Léon

Bonnat, a renowned portrait painter. However, there are no records which mention

Caillebotte’s works at the Academy. According to Kirk Varnedoe, it might be supposed that his presence in the class was quite limited.44 He, obviously, did not show much interest in the academic training, but turning his attention to the anti-academic rebels, who were later known as the Impressionists.

1874 was the crucial year in Caillebotte’s early artistic development. In that year,

38 The inventory of Gustave Caillebotte’s collection was published by the French art critic Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926) in 1894, and reprinted in Gustave Geffroy, Claude Monet, sa vie, son temps, son œuvre, Paris 1922, pp. 178–179. 39 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 4. 40 Gabriel P. Weisberg, The realist tradition: French painting and drawing, 1830–1900, Cleveland 1980, p. 278. 41 Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 3. 42 Ibid. 43 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 312. 44 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 2. 17 he met Edgar Degas, a friend of his teacher Léon Bonnat, at the house of their common friend, the Italian Impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis, and invited him to participate in the First Impressionist Exhibition at the Nadar Gallery in Paris.45

Though he did not present his own works, Caillebotte had the opportunity to witness the works of the leading figures of the group shown at the First Impressionist

Exhibition in 1874, such as the paintings by Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Camille

Pissarro and Edgar Degas.46 After the death of his father in the same year, Caillebotte inherited a sizable fortune.47 Being financially and artistically independent, some of his earliest masterpieces were executed between 1875 and 1877. April 1876 marked

Caillebotte’s debut as a participant in the Impressionist Exhibition. He presented eight works at the group’s second show, one of which is The Floor Scrapers of 1875 (fig. 1), one of Caillebotte’s most representative paintings which, subsequently, becomes a sort of an icon of the painter. Other works, such as Young Man Playing the Piano (Jeune homme au piano) of 1876 (Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art; fig. 20),48 Young Man at His Window (Jeune homme à sa fenêtre) of 1875 (New York, private collection; fig.

21)49 and Luncheon (Le Déjeuner) of 1876 (Paris, private collection; fig. 22)50 present bourgeois interiors of a same apartment where the depicted room in The Floor

Scrapers is located.51

As a key promoter of the Impressionist painters, Caillebotte helped to organize

45 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 312. 46 Gabriel P. Weisberg, The realist tradition: French painting and drawing, 1830–1900, Cleveland 1980, p. 278. 47 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 312. 48 Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art, oil on canvas, 80 x 116 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1876;” information from Bridgestone Museum of Art at http://www.bridgestone-museum.gr.jp/en/collection/. 49 New York, private collection, oil on canvas, 117 x 82 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1875.” 50 Paris, private collection, oil on canvas, 52 x 75 cm, signature and date bottom right: “G. Caillebotte 1876”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 79, no. 37. 51 Ibid., pp. 148, 193, 194. 18 and finance the following exhibitions of the years 1877 and 1879.52 He participated five times until 1882. Caillebotte has been continuing his distinctive use of a dropping perspective and unanticipated angles of view in two large-scale paintings representing

Paris’s modern street scenes shown at the 1877 exhibition – Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877 (fig. 3) and The Pont de l’Europe of 1876 (fig. 2).53 Some changes on viewpoints in Caillebotte’s cityscape paintings have been made since the late 1870s.

With his brother Martial, Caillebotte moved to a flat located at the Boulevard

Haussmann in 1879.54 From then on, he started to depict views of the Boulevard

Haussmann from an elevated viewpoint. For example, two works of 1880, Boulevard

Haussmann, Snow (Boulevard Haussmann, effet de neige; Paris, private collection; fig.

23)55 and Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (fig. 12),56 present the spaciously laid out road seen from the balcony of Caillebotte’s apartment.

After Caillebotte’s last participation at the Impressionist Exhibition in March

1882, he spent more time at his estate of Petit-Gennevilliers near Argenteuil, where he became interested in sailboats.57 The paintings executed during this period at

Petit-Gennevilliers no longer show the urban landscapes; instead, scenes of the Seine, the countryside, gardens, seascapes and sailboats become his favorite themes.

Different from the previous canvases which were rendered in realistic approach,

Caillebotte’s works after 1880 are obviously painted in a much looser manner and reveal more Impressionist qualities. The Sailboats at Argenteuil (Voiliers à Argenteuil) of 1888 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 24),58 for example, shows his applications of

52 Ibid, pp. 313–314. 53 Ibid., pp. 102, 116. 54 Ibid, p. 314. 55 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 152. 56 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 168. 57 Ibid., p. 315. 58 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, oil on canvas, 65 x 55.5 cm, Inv. RF 1954 31, signature bottom right: “G. Caillebotte”; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=108 19 bright colors and loose brushwork as well as his concerns in outdoor light. These are artistic features widely identified in the typical Impressionist works. In 1888, three new buildings were constructed at Petit-Gennevilliers, and the property became

Caillebotte’s primary residence;59 He, then, paid much effort in gardening. At the meantime, Caillebotte produced numerous paintings on different flowers during the first years of the 1890s. In February 1894, Caillebotte died suddenly from apoplexy at his home in Petit-Gennevilliers.60

As a major patron of the Impressionists, Caillebotte bought a huge number of paintings executed by his friends. His art collection includes the Impressionists’ masterpieces such as Auguste Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du

Moulin de la Galette) of 1876 (fig. 25), Claude Monet’s Saint-Lazare Station (La gare

Saint-Lazare) of 1877 (fig. 26), Edouard Manet’s Balcony (Le balcon) of 1869 (fig. 27) and Edgar Degas’s Ballet (The Star) of 1876 (fig. 28; all Paris, Musée d’Orsay).61 In his first will of 3 November 1876, Caillebotte, with assertive words, bestowed his collection to the Musée du Luxembourg and determined that it should later be transferred to the Louvre:

“I give to the state the pictures I own; only as I want that this gift to be accepted, and accepted in such a way that the paintings go neither into an attic nor to a provincial museum but right to the Luxembourg and later to the Louvre, it is necessary that a certain time go by before execution of this clause, until the public may, I don’t say understand, but accept this painting.”62

90. 59 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 317. 60 Ibid, p. 318. 61 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 198. The paintings’ descriptions are as follows: Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876, oil on canvas, 131 x 175 cm; Claude Monet, The Saint-Lazare Station, 1877, oil on canvas, 75 x 105 cm; Edouard Manet, The Balcony (Le balcon), 1868-1869, oil on canvas, 170 x 124.5 cm; Edgar Degas, Ballet (The Star), 1876, pastel, 58.4 x 42 cm, all Musée d’Orsay, Paris. 62 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe; ibid., p. 197. The original French text quoted by Marie Berhaut in Caillebotte, sa vie et son œuvre, catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1978, p. 281 is as follows: “Je donne à l’Etat les tableaux que je possède, seulement comme je veux 20

Caillebotte anticipated that the state would hardly accept the avant-garde paintings in his possession, but he insisted that these paintings were worthwhile to be introduced to as well as appreciated by a wider audience. As he had suggested, only

38 of his 67 Impressionists works were accepted by the Musée du Luxembourg.63 In

1986, the collection was moved to Musée d’Orsay in Paris, where it forms a crucial part of the museum’s Impressionist collection.64

4. Caillebotte’s Works in the Years 1875–77

4.1 The Floor Scrapers of 1875

Scholars generally agree that the jury of the Salon in spring 1875 rejected the bigger version of Caillebotte’s The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) which is now in the Musee d’Orsay.65 This work, one of the artist’s most representative masterpieces, shows the painter’s originality in the choice of subject matter as well as the treatment of perspective and space. At the official Salon, nude torsos in paintings and sculptures have been always the heroes from Antiquity.66 The Floor Scrapers was denied as it was unimaginable for the jury of the Salon to exhibit modern workers with nude

que ce don soit accepté et le soit de telle façon que les tableaux n’aillent ni dans un grenier, ni dans un musée de province, mais bien au Luxembourg et plus tard au Louvre, il est nécessaire que s’écoule un certain temps avant l’exécution de cette clause jusqu’à ce que le public, je ne dis pas comprenne, mais admette cette peinture. Ce temps peut être de vingt ans au plus; en attendant mon frère Martial ou, à son défaut, un autre héritier, les conservera.” 63 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, pp. 198–204. 64 Robert Rosenblum, Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay, New York 1989. 65 A letter of 13 April 1875 written from Marcellin Desboutin in Paris to Giuseppe de Nittis in London refers to the rejection of one of Caillebotte’s paintings at the Salon of 1875; Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 206, n. 13. In this letter, published by Mary Pittaluga and Enrico Piceni in their monograph De Nittis, Milan 1963, p. 353, Desboutin described Caillebotte as “bien triste de refus de son tableau par le Jury du Salon.” I here quote Michael Marrinan’s explanation as follows: “No surviving documents state clearly which picture was denied entry to the Salon. But if we consider the time for completing a picture by April 1875, the fact that Caillebotte would have submitted only a painting he considered important, and the lack of any other ambitious canvases by him during this period, we must conclude that the big version of The Floor Scrapers was the painting refused by the jury.” Michael Marrinan, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, p. 28. 66 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 37. 21 torsos .67 One year later, in April 1876, Caillebotte presented this canvas again in the second Impressionist Exhibition.68 After the exhibition, on May 28, 1877, at an auction organized by the Impressionists at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, The Floor

Scrapers was listed in the auction’s catalog.69 The painting was finally purchased by

Caillebotte himself with a bid price of 655 francs, the highest one among all lots at the auction.70 Thus, The Floor Scrapers remained in Caillebotte’s own collection until his death in 1894. Between 18 April and 30 June 1886, The Floor Scrapers was displayed in public for the second time, in the exhibition “Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris” in New York, organized by the French art dealer Paul

Durand-Ruel (1831–1922).71 A catalog by the American Art Association together with the National Academy of Design was published in the same year.72 In June 1894, a few months after Caillebotte’s death, a retrospective of his paintings was held at the

Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris.73 The Floor Scrapers was exhibited and listed as no.

29 in the catalog of the Musée du Luxembourg.74 Since 1929, the canvas was kept in the Louvre, and it was finally transferred to the new Musée d’Orsay in 1986.75

According to an official inventory of Caillebotte’s estate, the room depicted in

The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) is supposed to be the artist’s new studio in his family’s

67 Ibid. 68 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 3. 69 Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 76. 70 Gustave Geffroy, Artistes d’hier et d’aujourd’hui: Claude Monet – sa vie, son œuvre: vol. 1, Paris 1924, pp. 146–147. 71 The presence of Caillebotte’s œuvres in this exhibition was mentioned by Lionello Venturi, Les archives de l’impressionnisme. Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley et autres. Mémoires de Paul Durand-Ruel. Document, Paris 1939, vol. 2, p. 124, but the author did not provide a list of the œuvres exhibited. A list of Caillebotte’s œuvres exhibited is reconstructed in Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 283. 72 Ibid, p. 283. 73 R. Sertat, “Le Legs et l’exposition rétrospective,” in: La Revue encyclopédique, 15 Dec., 1894. Cited in Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 37. 74 Ibid. 75 Notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=105. 22 apartment located at 77, rue de Miromesnil in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.76 In the picture, the floor in an empty room forms a stage for the three bare-chested workers, kneeling on the ground. The painting exclusively focuses on the room’s lower part, especially the floor and one corner. Straight lines scraped during the construction of the floor stretch from the picture’s foreground towards its background, achieving a strong effect of linear perspective. The representation of the boarded surface determines the painting’s structure. The boards form strong vanishing lines, which lead into the picture’s depth. In order to disturb the system of linear perspective and, at the same time, to enliven the composition, a bottle of wine and a glass are depicted on the right-hand foreground. A few sacks in folds, lying against the back corner, add some curves at the end of the straight lines of the floor.

The three protagonists in The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) are depicted from an elevated position; the viewer, therefore, clearly observes well the laborers’ powerful movements. What the viewers could hardly see are their faces which remain anonymous; only the worker in the center, who wears a ring on his fourth finger, reveals some personal details. The great vigor of the three workers is expressed in the way they forcefully stretch their arms during the process of scraping the floor with sharp tools. Seen from an elevated point of view, the arms of the laborers seem to be rather elongated. Comparing the large oil sketch (France, private collection; fig. 29)77 to the finished canvas (fig. 1), the most remarkable difference is the leftmost worker.

In the finished canvas, he reaches for a sharpening file; his stretched-arm posture echoes the two co-workers who are scraping the parquet, and thus creates a smooth

76 Inventaire Caillebotte après le décès de M. Martial, Archives Nationales, Minutier Central, Étude LVIII, répertoire 26, no. 55 (4 February 1875). Cited in Michael Marrinan, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, pp. 21, 58. 77 France, private collection, Floor Scrapers (Sketch) [Raboteurs de parquet (esquisse)], 1875, oil on canvas, 29 x 39 cm; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 74, no. 33. 23 tempo. On the other hand, in the sketch, the leftmost worker sits on his knees to sharpen his tool; as a result, he breaks the movement of floor scraping and also cuts the horizontal line of the wall. In the finished canvas, the three workers are almost identical if only judged from the characteristics of their figures: their legs are clad in dark trousers; their small oval heads are of the same size and their short, dark hair is cut in a similar style. In addition, the muscles and skins of the workers’ upper bodies are pronounced with the reflections of natural light on their bare backs and arms.

Generally, the emphasis in the painting is not the workers’ individuality, but the workers’ bodies and movements.78

In The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1), natural light comes from the French window in the back wall, through which blurred outlines of some roofs of houses at the opposite side of the street can be observed. A balcony’s wrought iron grill forms a pattern against the backlight. The window serves a double function: It lights up the room and creates reflections on the floorboards’ shining surface and on the bare backs of the three men. With the help of the light source, the quality of the wooden floor on which the shreds of woods and tools are lying is highlighted. The texture of the wooden floor, the lightness of the curly shreds and the solidity of the tools are emphasized as substantially contrasting elements as they are all lightened up by the natural light. To achieve a uniform tonality in The Floor Scrapers, manipulation of colors plays an important role: somber colors are interplayed of the surface’s reflecting and dull quality. Caillebotte skillfully uses the color to stress the effect of light from the play of shadows, reflections, and varnished surfaces. The truthful depiction of light and

78 A short description from a journal written by the French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix (1798– 1863) on 7 September 1856 echoes the image of Caillebotte’s floor scrapers: “From my window I can see a parquet layer working naked to the waist in the gallery. In comparing the color of his skin to that of the exterior wall, I notice how highly colored the flesh half-tones are compared to inert materials.”78 Surprisingly, Delacroix’s observation of the “highly colored flesh half-tones” of a parquet planner is analogous to Caillebotte’s depictions of the workers. Both artists have a similar observation on the reflections of light on the floor planners’ skins. 24 shadows makes the painting very realistic, almost photographic.

Tools are indispensable for floor scrapers. Every instrument is depicted in detail in the picture. It seems that the artist wanted to emphasize the importance of different tools used by the workers. Kirk Varnedoe has provided explanation of the tools and their different functions:79 The worker on the right side uses a rabot (two-handled plane), whereas his partner (the man in the middle) works with a simple racloir

(one-handled plane). They turn away their heads and seem to talk to each other. The strips in the floor are dry wood exposed after the passage of rabot, “walking” over the planks. It is the result of the first step in the scraping process. The second step is the scraping with a smaller blade, the racloir held by the middle worker. If one gets closer to the picture, a tiny metal ring is visible on the ring finger of the middle worker’s left hand. A hammer lying between the two workers is used to pound down loose nails.

The leftmost worker is reaching for a file in order to sharpen the racloir in his left hand. On the painting’s lower left edge, a cropped file used to sharpen up the racloir is shown intruding the scene. In fact, the inclusion of an “intruding file” into the picture is a late decision, since it is not presented in the oil sketch. In the oil sketch, a single line is scratched parallel to the bottom edge of the picture, which suggests

Caillebotte’s intention to crop the scene, and the “intruding file” in the finished canvas makes the cropping more evident.

A smaller version of The Floor Scrapers (Paris, private collection, fig. 30),80 exhibiting alongside with the larger version at the Impressionist Exhibition in 1876, was painted one year later than the larger version. In the small version, the window’s iron grill and the wall’s modeling are different from those portrayed in the large

79 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, Houston 1976, p. 84. 80 Paris, private collection, Floor Scrapers (Variant) [Raboteurs de parquet (variante)], 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte. 1876”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 77, no. 35. 25 version , which suggests that Caillebotte paints another room. This time, the room is rendered diagonally; two figures are gathered near the upper corner, conceding a large empty space to the lower left foreground. Compared to the workers’ elongated proportions in the larger version, the two men in the smaller version are closer to the real scales. It seems that the images of the two workers are derived directly from

Caillebotte’s preliminary drawings made during the actual construction of the floors

(private collection, figs. 31, 32).81

4.2 The Pont de l’Europe of 1876

The Pont de l’Europe in 1876 (fig. 2), one of three large canvases of Parisian street scenes Caillebotte presented at the third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877, is an iconic nineteenth-century depiction of a metal viaduct spanning the tracks of the Gare

Saint-Lazare in Paris. The bridge acquired its name (The Europe Bridge) because the six roads extending from the bridge center are named after six major cities in

Europe,82 and Caillebotte’s Pont de l’Europe is a view seen from rue de Vienna.83

Built between 1858 and 1868, the Pont de l’Europe was a complex metal structure built above the rail tracks leading to the Gare Saint-Lazare.84 However, the site’s current appearance (fig. 33)85 is different from the situation in Caillebotte’s time; the

81 Two Studies of a Young Man Seated, in Profile, Facing Left, c. 1875–76, graphite on white laid paper, 47.6 x 31.1 cm, private collection; Study of a Kneeling Floor-Scraper, in Profile, Facing Left, c. 1875– 76, graphite on gray laid paper, 47.9 x 30.5 cm, private collection; Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, pp. 45–46, nos. 8, 9. 82 The six streets are as follows (clockwise): la rue de Vienne, la rue de Madrid, la rue de Constantinople, la rue de Léningrad (ex- rue de Saint-Pétersbourg), la rue de Liège (ex-rue de Berlin), la rue de Londres. Peter Galassi, “Caillebotte’s Method,” in: Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 29, fig. 1. 83 Kirk Varnedoe, “Gustave Caillebotte’s Pont de l’Europe: A New Slant,” in: Gustave Caillebotteand the fashioning of identity in impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, pp. 8–9. 84 Claude Ghez and Pietro Galifi della Bagliva, “Deconstructing Gustave Caillebotte’s Le Pont de l’Europe (1876),” in: Gustave Caillebotte: impressionist in modern Paris, exhibition catalog, Tokyo 2013, Tokyo 2013, p. 230. 85 A photo from Google map at https://www.google.com.tw/maps?hl=zh-TW&tab=wl (accessed April 2, 2015). 26 entire girder structure depicted in the painting was demolished in 1930 and the roads are asphalted today.86 A woodcut dated 1866 (fig. 34)87 shows a contemporary view of Pont de l’Europe; according to Kirk Varnedoe, the arrow added on the woodcut points out the approximate location of Caillebotte point of view. In the woodcut, the central area connecting six roads is called Place de l’Europe, a square where carriages and pedestrians intersected with each other.

The overall composition (fig. 2) is dominated by the perspective view of the massive structure of the bridge looming from the right, and the sidewalk beside it extends into the distance. It is the solid railing and intersecting trellis which span almost two-thirds of the picture that capture the viewer’s eyes. On the left, two major figures are walking towards us: a man in a black top hat and a woman holding a parasol. The man’s face is shown in profile as his head is turned to the woman; they are perhaps having a conversation. The man turns back to the lady, who is walking a few steps behind him, as if waiting a moment in order to let her join him. Dressed fashionably and elegantly, the man and the woman accompanying him appear to be from a bourgeois background. Behind the man and woman are some more figures populating the scenery on the bridge. A man wearing a dark green coat is walking towards the opposite direction from them, which creates a back-and-forth movement.

In the distance, a tiny figure in red pants striding leftward forms a lateral path vertical to that of the man and woman. In addition to the elegant couple, the third main figure of a man, perhaps a worker is leaning on the iron railing. The contrast between his bright smock and the darker girders of the bridge is so sharp that it is hard to ignore his presence. In the foreground, a dog is briskly trotting into the scene. In the picture, the broad sidewalk is terminated with two Haussmannian buildings which are

86 Ibid., p. 231. 87 The Pont de l’Europe, a bird’s eye view looking toward the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1866, woodcut, from Le Monde illustré, no. 14; Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 72, 15a. 27 standing against the bright blue sky. The white vapor rising through the trellis is from a train passing underneath the bridge while approaching or leaving the nearby Gare

Saint-Lazare. Apart from the vapor which implies the whistles of the train, the depicted scene represents a tranquil moment with little disturbances.

Four preliminary oil sketches demonstrate how carefully Caillebotte prepared the details of his composition (figs. 37–40).88 The sketch at the Musée des Beaux-arts in Rennes (fig. 35) is perhaps the first one as many details are not depicted. An accent on the construction, vanishing lines is evident in this sketch. The couple is substituted by patches of gray color, their shadows which functioning here as placeholders. In the presumably last of the four sketches (fig. 38), instead, most of the details such as the two major figures, the two men leaning on the railing and the vapor are depicted. An attentive study of the man leaning on the railing could be observed from two oil sketches (figs. 36, 37). It seems that the painter intended to highlight the man and his area independently and draw our attention to this figure.89 As presented in the final painting (fig. 2), Caillebotte makes a connection between the two major figures and the leaning man by directing the gentleman’s gaze at him.90

In the finished painting, Caillebotte adds a dog and a man seen from the rear, wearing a dark green coat; both of them are illustrated in the preliminary drawings

(private collection; figs. 39, 40)91 but none of them are presented in the oil sketches.

Actually, the dog exercises some vital functions. First of all, since the dog is depicted

88 Ibid., p. 234. The sketches are as follows: The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, c. 1876, oil on canvas, 33 x 45 cm, Musée des beaux-arts, Rennes; The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, 1876, oil on canvas, 56 x 46 cm, private collection; The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, 1876, oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm, private collection; The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, c. 1876, oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm, private collection; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, pp. 82– 83. 89 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976, p. 99, note 6. 90 Peter Galassi, “Caillebotte’s Method,” in: Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 34. 91 Study for The Pont de l’Europe: Three views of a dog, 47 x 31.5 cm, private collection; Study for The Pont de l’Europe: Standing man seen from rear, 48 x 31 cm, private collection; Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 78, 15q, 15 r. 28 entering the picture, it leads the viewers’ eyes into the pictorial space. Second, the dog is a spatial “bridge” which connects our view to the top-hatted gentleman and the leaning man; its paces are directed to the gentleman and its tail points at the worker.

This animal’s body movement also echoes that of the man in a green coat walking into the distance. The last-minute addition of the dog and the man in a dark green coat into the finished picture serves the function to reinforce the depth of the receding space as well as to create a back-and-forth path together with the walking direction of the two major figures – the gentleman and lady. In short, a visual relationship between the gentleman, the lady, the leaning man and the dog is deliberately designed through the disposition of their body movement. The presence of the numerous preliminary drawings, oil sketches and architectural studies (private collection; fig. 41)92 for the finished piece reveals to us how Caillebotte acts as a choreographer who directed his protagonists on his pictorial scene.

4.3 Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877

First exhibited in the Impressionist exhibition of 1877, Caillebotte’s Paris Street;

Rainy Day (fig. 3) is the artist’s exceptionally large-scale oil painting of the Parisians going out and about on a rainy day. This canvas depicts a wide intersection of the rue de Moscou and the rue de Saint Pétersbourg, two boulevards named in 1877 in the 8th arrondissement behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, between Place de Clichy and Place de

L’Europe.93 In the painting, a broad cobblestone street stretches out and looms in front of the viewer. The street is dotted with gray umbrellas held by well-dressed pedestrians. Only a few strollers – first and foremost the couple in the foreground –

92 Study for The Pont de l’Europe: Architectural and perspective study, pencil and ink, 16 x 19 cm, private collection; Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 74, 15h. 93 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 88. 29 are shown with faces, but they all seem unaffected by emotions. The grand streets and the massive, uniform buildings which set the scene are the result of the renovation of

Paris by the civic planner Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann (1809–1891) between

1853 and 1870.94 In this painting, Caillebotte documents the new intersection at his time by illustrating the ongoing renovations at the buildings’ façades shown in the scaffolding in the far background.

The overall composition is deliberately organized. In the middle of the scene, a green lamppost and its shadow vertically separate the scene. Whereas clear horizontals are hardly to be perceived, diagonal vanishing lines are distinctly depicted on the level of the cobbled street. It is important to note that this seemingly casual spatial arrangement is carefully organized. This can be observed by how the two spaces separated by the lamppost differ in cadence as well as in visual weight. On the right foreground of the picture, the major figures, a life-sized and well-dressed couple, moves forward towards the viewer while the other minor figures, drastically diminished in size, walk down the streets in different directions. Seemingly random placement and drastically different sizes of the pedestrians create dynamic rhythms in the picture. In contrast to the compositional density produced by the life-sized couple and the man entering from the right of the composition, the sense of emptiness prevails in a wide area of the picture. This is achieved by Caillebott’s arrangement of the far-reaching cobbled boulevards from the foreground to the background, and by populating the intersection with isolated city flâneurs instead of crowds. In short,

Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) achieves a dramatic visual effect, as the life-size flâneurs coming immediately towards the viewers and the wide expansion of the empty space are both so overwhelming that one would easily feel being drawn into the scene when standing in front of the canvas.

94 Ibid. 30

It is worthwhile to note that the strollers in the painting created by Caillebotte are not purely an accident but the fruit of careful craftsmanship which has gone through numerous stages of preparatory sketches (private collection; figs. 42, 43).95

In fact, Caillebotte went through trials of positioning his strollers, one of which can be observed in a small preparatory drawing (private collection; fig. 44)96 where the vertical zigzag lines suggest the future location of the strollers in the finished painting.

In addition, the position of the flâneurs and carriages are also carefully designed in advance. By the careful as well as seemingly natural placement of the moving figures,

Caillebotte masterfully creates a sense of time momentarily suspended in this canvas.

Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) documents a scene situated in Haussmann’s

Paris as well as the contemporary fashion. In the foreground, a well-dressed couple, whose bodies are cropped at their knee level, is a good example of Parisians dressed in the latest fashion: the man in a starched white shirt covered with dark-grey buttoned waistcoat wears a dark top hat, bow tie and a long coat; the woman in a modest dark-brown two-piece dress has a hat, veil and shining earrings.97 The couple avoids eye contact with the viewer, looking to their right-hand side and, therefore, seemingly unaware of the gentleman approaching who is situated furthest to the right, partly cropped out at the edge. Other pedestrians as well as two carriages are passing through the streets. These uncommunicative, isolated flâneurs represent the anonymity of a modern city.

95 Study of a Couple Seen from the Front under an Umbrella, 1877, graphite and charcoal on buff paper, 47 x 30.9 cm, private collection; Study of a Man under an Umbrella Facing Right, 1877, graphite and charcoal on buff paper, 45.1 x 39.2 cm, private collection; Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 258, cat. 98, pp. 124, 129, nos. 41, 46. 96 Perspective Study of Streets, 1877, graphite and charcoal on buff paper, 30 x 46 cm, private collection; Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 123, no. 39. 97 Aileen Ribeiro, “Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day,” in: Impressionism, fashion & modernity, Chicago 2012, pp. 189–190. 31

Although not a drop of rain can be perceived in the picture, the skillful depictions of water reflection as well as the usage of umbrellas create a strong impression that it is indeed raining. The suggestion of a rainy weather is evident in the realistically painted puddles in the cobbled boulevards and the reflections of pedestrians stepping on it. Also, the clear reflections of the lamppost standing on the sidewalk reveal the wetness of the ground.

In addition to the reflections, Caillebotte’s choice of color is crucial to the mood of the painting. First, the light brown sky reflected by the rain-washed pavements creates a cool tonality. Second, the dominant color of dark-grey in the stroller’s costumes and silver on the surface of the umbrellas further accentuate the coolness.

What is more, the khaki color of the limestone buildings echoes the light brown pavements and both of them create a dull atmosphere. The apathetic mood the painting arouses is, however, counteracted by the warmer and earthier colors. For instance, the copper red of the building in the right front of the composition and the deep green surface of the bronze lamppost add liveliness into the picture.

4.4 Synthesis: Caillebotte’s Three Paintings and Impressionism

Analysis on three of Caillebotte’s massive paintings completed between 1875 and

1877 – The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1), The Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2) and Paris Street;

Rainy Day (fig. 3) – have always drawn attention to a question of the extent to which

Caillebotte can really be categorized as an Impressionist?98 First of all, the canvases’ smoothly painted surfaces distinguish them from other paintings displayed alongside at the Impressionist Exhibitions.99 For example, Monet’s Pont de l’Europe, Gare

98 Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, San Francisco 1986, p. 197. 99 Ibid. 32

Saint -Lazare of 1877 (Paris, Musée Marmottan; fig. 45),100 exhibited with

Caillebotte’s Pont de l’Europe at the 1877 Impressionist Exhibition, has been painted with sketchy brushstroke whose unfinished appearance is in sharp contrast to

Caillebotte’s meticulously rendered surfaces. Second, Caillebotte’s swift reduction of scale and radical cropping of figures such as those in Paris Street; Rainy Day are also unique among other Impressionist paintings.101 For instance, none of the strollers in

Renoir’s Pont Neuf, Paris of 1872 (Washington, of Art; fig. 46)102 are cropped out and they are depicted in similarly small scales. Third, Caillebotte made preliminary drawings and even oil sketches to prepare his large works. His approach is still close to the canons taught in the academy.

In these three large-scale representations stemming from the ordinariness of urban life in Haussmann’s Paris,103 the typical “Caillebotte style” is expressed in asymmetrical compositions, unexpected cropping of motifs, and precisely constructed perspectival space in which the plunging lines of the architecture are emphasized. The three paintings portray everyday scenes from a city in unusual visions.104

5. Caillebotte’s Paintings in the Light of the Contemporary Art Criticism

5.1 Contemporary Literary Reception

In April 1876, two years after their first joint exhibition, the group of artists described as the “Indépendents” or “Intransigents,” presented more works in their second exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, 11 rue Le Peletier.105 Most of the participants

100 Paris, Musée Marmottan, oil on canvas, 81 x 64 cm; information of the work from Musée Marmottan at http://www.marmottan.fr/fr/claude_monet-musee-2517. 101 Linda Nochlin, Realism, 1971, p. 168. 102 Washington, National Gallery of Art, oil on canvas, 75.3 x 93.7 cm; information of the work from National Gallery of Art at http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.52202.html. 103 Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. IX. 104 Ibid. 105 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 30. 33 were those who had also attended the first exhibition, such as Edgar Degas, Claude

Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. The group also invited several newcomers to this show, one of which was Caillebotte.106

Although the number of participants and presented works was smaller than at the first exhibition, the second show attracted many critics’ attention, and there were even reviews written for English-speaking readers. The American author Henry James

(1843–1916) wrote the following remarks after his visit to the 1876 Impressionist

Exhibition:

“It is being held during the present month at Durand-Ruel’s, and I have found it decidedly interesting. […] The young contributors to the exhibition of which I speak are partisans of unadorned reality […]; the painter’s proper field is simply the actual, and to give a vivid impression of how a thing happens to look, at a particular moment, is the essence of his mission.”107

According to James, the Impressionist painters are the supporters of plain reality; they depict things that happened in an instant from their daily lives. In an essay about the

1874 and 1876 Impressionist Exhibitions, the French Symbolist poet Stéphane

Mallarmé (1842–1898) stated that Impressionism was the dominant art movement in the mid-1870s:

“Yet, and notwithstanding all this, and in spite of concurrent Salons, the public rushed with lively curiosity and eagerness to the Boulevard des Italiens and the galleries of Durand Ruel in 1874 and 1876, to see the works of those then styled the Intransigents, now the Impressionists. And what found they there? A collection of pictures of strange aspect, at first view giving the ordinary impression of the motive which made them, but over beyond this, a peculiar quality outside mere Realism. And here occurs one of those unexpected crises which appear in art. […] At a time when the romantic tradition of the first half of the century only lingers among a few

106 Charles S. Moffett, The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, San Francisco 1986, p. 145. 107 James’s letter was re-edited in Parisian sketches: letters to the New York Tribune, 1875–1876, New York 1957, pp. 126–135. 34

surviving masters of that time, the transition from the old imaginative artist and dreamer to the energetic modern worker is found in Impressionism.”108

Here, Mallarmé’s “ordinary impression of the motive” echoes James’s “unadorned reality,”109 and both writers point out the mediocrity of the subjects depicted by the painters. Mallarmé stresses that Impressionists are not “imaginative artists” like the

Romanticists, but they are artists who pay attention to every scene in modern life.

While Mallarmé’s response to the “Intransigents” exhibition is positive, James shows a rather hostile attitude:

“But the Impressionists, who, I think, are more consistent, abjure virtue altogether, and declare that a subject which has been crudely chosen shall be loosely treated.”110

James’s early review of Impressionism is conservative, as he considers the subject is not serious (“crudely chosen”) and the technique is too sketchy

(“loosely treated”).111 When criticizing the Impressionist works, James still follows the criteria of academic painting.

Although James’s attitude towards the Impressionists is conservative, many contemporary critics appreciate the Impressionists. A typical partisan of the Impressionists is the French art critic Louis Edmond Duranty (1833–1880).

His important article about the second show is entitled “La nouvelle peinture: à propos du groupe d’artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel.”112

Duranty prefers to use the expression “new painting” instead of “Impressionism” to describe the works in the exhibition. Furthermore, he omits to give the names

108 Excerpts from Stéphane Mallarmé, “The Impressionists and Edouard Manet,” in: The Art Monthly Review and Photographic Portfolio, London, translated by George T. Robinson, Vol. 1, no. 9, 30 September 1876, quoted after Ruth Berson, The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 92, 97. 109 Ibid, note 3. 110 Ibid, note 3. 111 Henry James, Parisian sketches: letters to the New York Tribune, 1875–1876, edited by Ilse Dusoir Lind and Leon Edel, New York 1957, p. 249, note 2. 112 Louis Edmond Duranty, La nouvelle peinture: à propos du groupe d’artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris 1876. 35 of the painters in his article. Duranty explains the nature of the “new painting” as a realism of faithful observation based on the knowledge of science.113 He, for example, refers to Caillebotte’s Young Man Playing the Piano (fig. 20), as follows:

“As we are solidly embracing nature, we will no longer separate the figure from the background of an apartment or the street. In actuality, a person never appears against neutral or vague backgrounds. Instead, surrounding him and behind him are the furniture, fireplaces, curtains, and walls that indicate his financial position, class and profession. The individual will be at a piano, examining a sample of cotton in an office [...].”114

Duranty further explains Caillebotte’s depiction of the room with precise observation of the furniture, wallpapers and curtains.

Although Caillebotte’s name is not expressly mentioned nor by Mallarmé neither by James, the works of the newcomer attract the attention of many critics. One of Caillebotte’s most often cited works is the larger version of The Floor Scrapers (fig.

1). More than fifteen reviews about the exhibition mentioned this canvas;115 the echoes showed that most critics were astonished when they first saw the picture. It is the subject and the unorthodox spatial structure of this painting that shock the contemporary viewers. Some conservative observers are offended by the supposed

113 Charles S. Moffett, The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, San Francisco 1986, p. 145 114 English translation quoted after Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874– 1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 43. The original French text from Louis Edmond Duranty, La nouvelle peinture: à propos du groupe d’artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris 1876 reads as follows: “Et puisque nous accolons étroitement la nature, nous ne séparerons plus le personnage du fond d’appartement ni du fond de rue. Il ne nous apparaît jamais, dans l’existence, sur des fonds neutres, vides et vagues. Mais autour de lui et derrière lui sont des meubles, des cheminées, des tentures de murailles, une paroi qui exprime sa fortune, sa classe, son métier: il sera à son piano, ou il examinera son échantillon de coton dans son bureau commercial, ou il attendra derrière le décor le moment d’entrer en scène, ou il appliquera le fer à repasser sur la table à tréteaux, ou bien il sera en train de déjeuner dans sa famille, ou il s’assoira dans son fauteuil pour ruminer auprès de sa table de travail, ou il évitera des voitures en traversant la rue, ou regardera l’heure à sa montre en pressant le pas sur la place publique. Son repos ne sera pas une pause, ni une pose sans but, sans signifi cation devant l’objectif du photographe, son repos sera dans la vie comme une action.” 115 Original texts from the reviews of the 1876 Impressionist Exhibition were quoted by Ruth Berson, The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 53–113. 36 bana lity of the subject, three bare-chested men working on a floor. The journalist

Louis Enault (1824–1900) commented the painting in the following way:

“The subject is surely vulgar, but we can understand how it might tempt a painter. All those who have had the pleasure or the bother of having a house built know the way these robust fellows work, unabashedly putting aside any encumbering outfit, leaving only the most indispensable clothing, and thus offering to the artist who wants to make a study of the nude, a torso and a bust that other trades do not expose as freely. Monsieur Caillebotte’s planers are certainly not at all badly painted, and the effects of perspective have been studied by an eye that sees correctly. I only regret that the artist did not choose his types better, or, once he accepted what reality offered him, that he did not give himself the right, which I can assure him no one would have denied him, to interpret them more freely. The arms of the planers are too thin, and their chests too narrow. Do the nude, gentlemen, if the nude suits you; I’m not prudish, and I won’t be so wrong-headed as to find it bad. But may your nude be handsome or don’t get involved with it!”116

It is obvious that Enault’s viewpoint represents the more conservative rationale just as in the official Salon, in which significant portrayals of ordinary workers were not welcomed at that time, except for peasants.117 The three iconic peasant women depicted by Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) in of 1857 (Paris, Musée

116 Louis Énault, “Mouvement Artistique–L’Exposition des Intransigeants dans la Galerie de Durand-Ruel,” in: Le Constitutionnel, 10 April 1876, English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 186. The original French text quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 82–83 reads as follows: “Que M. Gustave Caillebotte sache son métier, c’est ce qu’il ne viendra à personne l’envie de contester. Il y a certainement un faire assez habile dans les deux tableaux qu’il vient de consacrer à la gloire de MM. les raboteurs de parquets, qui, peut-être, peut-etre, ne s’attendaient pas à tant d’honneur. Le sujet est vulgaire sans doute, mais nous comprenons pourtant qu’il puisse tenter un peintre. Tous ceux qui ont eu le plaisir ou l’ennui de faire bâtir connaissent la façon de travailler de ces robustes gaillards, qui mettent franchement de côré rout cosrume gênant, ne gardant du vêtement que sa partie la plus indispensable, et livrent ainsi à l’artiste désireux de faire une étude de nu, un torse et un buste que les autres corps de métiers n’exposent pas aussi librement. Les raboteurs de M. Caillebotte ne sont certes point mal peints, et les effets de perspective ont été étudiés par un œil qui voit juste. Je regrette seulement que l’artiste n’ait pas mieux choisi ses types, ou que, du moment où il acceptait ce que la réalité lui offrait, il ne se soit pas attribué le droit contre lequel je puis l’assurer que personne n’eut protesté, de les interpréter plus largement. Les bras de ses raboteurs som trop maigres, et leurs poitrines trop étroites. Faites du nu, messieurs, si le nu vous convient; je ne suis pas bégueule, et je n’aurai point l’esprit assez mal fait pour le trouver mauvais. Mais que votre nu soit beau ou ne vous en mêlez pas!” 117 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 37. 37 d’Orsay ; fig. 47)118 shown at the 1857 Salon is a typical example. In the past, only heroic figures could be painted as nudes;119 therefore, the way in which Caillebotte depicts the bare-chested workers seems unacceptable for the conservative viewers.

The critic Paul Mantz (1821–1895) also said the The Floor Scrapers had “nothing heroic in this composition of unadulterated realism.”120 Besides, Caillebotte’s talent for faithful depiction was commented by no less a figure then Émile Zola:

“Caillebotte showed The Floor-Scrapers and a Young Man at His Window, paintings done in astonishingly high relief. But because of their precision, the paintings are entirely anti-artistic, clear as glass, bourgeois. The mere photography of reality is paltry when not enriched by the original stamp of artistic talent.”121

Zola first praised Caillebotte’s skills to execute paintings in excellent three-dimensionality, that is, a precise depiction of reality, but then called it an

“anti-artistic” painting and criticized the artist’s “exactitude of the copying”122

118 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 110 cm; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=342. 119 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 37. 120 Paul Mantz, “L’Exposition des peintres impressionistes.” Le Temps, 22 April 1877, English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 191. The original French text quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 167 reads as follows: “Les œuvres de M. Gustave Caillebotte promettent un peintre qui pourra devenir inréressant. Il n’est pas aussi révolté qu’il l’imagine, car il cherche la lumière exacte, et c’est là une ambition qui le sauvera. Lors de l’exposition organisée l’année dernière dans les salons de M. Durand-Ruel, il s’est révélé par un tableau, dont les gens difficiles ont pu sourire, et qui avait cependant de la vigueur. Rien d’héroique dans cette composition d’un réalisme sans mélange. Il s’agissait de deux ouvriers qui, le torse nu, les bras inondés de sueur, rabotaient péniblement le parquet d’une chambre. La perspective était un peu folle, car, au lieu de travailler sur un plan horizontal, les malheureux manœuvraient sur un parquet incliné et menaçaient de glisser sur le spectateur inoffensif. Mais les figures étaient bien dans la lumière; le pinceau s’annonçait énergique, et, dans sa grossièreté apparente, la peinture avait des fìnesses.” 121 English translation quoted after Michael Marrinan, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, p. 21. The original French text by Émile Zola quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 112 reads as follows: “Caillebotte a exposé Les Raboteurs de parquet et Un jeune home à sa fenêtre, d’un relief étonnant. Seulement c’est une peinture tout à fait anti-artistique, une peinture claire comme le verre, bourgeoise, à force d’exactitude. La photographie de la réalité, lorsqu’elle n’est pas rehaussée par l’empreinte originale du talent artistique, est une chose pitoyable.” 122 Émile Zola, “Lettre de Prais, deux expositions d’art en mai,” in: Le Messager de l’Europe, June 1876, English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 187. The original French text reads as follows: “Cependant c’est une peinture anti-artistique, une peinture proprette comme du verre, une peinture bourgeoise, en raison de la precision de la copie.” 38 without any individual temperament. This photographic realism rendered by

Caillebotte seems too modern for the contemporary critics to understand and embrace.

In addition to the rendering of subject matter, Caillebotte astonished the critics with his untraditional treatment of perspective. Paul Mantz described the artist’s perspective in the following way:

“The perspective was a little crazy, because, instead of working on a horizontal plane, these unfortunates did their work on an inclined floor and threatened to slide out onto the innocent spectator. But the figures were well set in the light; the brushwork gave evidence of energy, and, in its apparent crudeness, the painting had some moments of finesse.”123

The author underlines that the floor plane is depicted tipped-up from the foreground to the background as if it is a sloping floor. If we extend the lines of the floor strips, the vanishing point will go beyond the upper-right frame of the picture. Since the borderline of the depicted room is partially cut by the “intruding” file at the bottom, the viewers would feel so close to the scene as if they would share the same pictorial space. Indeed, Caillebotte’s extreme perspective is quite effective, as it successfully attracted the critics’ eyes:

“In the second room, let us stop in front of the canvases of Monsieur Caillebotte, the least bad of the exhibition. One of the missions that Impressionism seems to have set for itself is to torture perspective: you see here what results can be attained.”124

In short, Caillebotte, as a newcomer in the 1876 exhibition, surprised the contemporary audience by his conspicuously modern depiction of ordinary

123 Ibid. 124 Emile Porcheron, “Promenades d’un flâneur: Les impressionnistes.” Le Soleil, 4 April 1876, English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 185. The original French text quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 103 reads as follows: “Dans la deuxième salle, arrêtons-nous devant les toiles de M. Caillebotte, les moins mauvaises de l’exposition. Une des missions que l’impressionnisme semble s’être imposé, c’est de martyriser la perspective: vous voyez d’ici à quels résultats on peut atteindre.” 39 figures. The viewers were “astounded by their truth, their life, their simple and fresh intimacy.”125

In 1877, Caillebotte presented six canvases at the third Impressionist

Exhibition organized by him; two of them are recognized as his masterpieces:

Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) and Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2), which received most discussions from the critics. The two canvases are remembered because of their impressive size and proficiently painted surfaces.126 Philippe Burty (1830–

1890) revealed his opinion towards the motifs’ big dimensions:

“His Europe Bridge, his Rainy weather, enlivened by life-size figures, have the disadvantage of also calling for the rendering of umbrellas as large as life. It is too epic for easel painting.”127

Pont de l’Europe and Paris Street; Rainy Day surpass the ordinariness in terms of their large sizes, but Burty did not agree with the artist’s rendering of ordinary figures and common things in such an impressive dimension. On the other hand, Zola appreciated Caillebotte’s boldness to depict the protagonists in Paris Street; Rainy

Day in life-sized scale:

“Finally, I will name Caillebotte, a young painter who shows the finest courage, and who does not hesitate to treat modern subjects on a life-sized scale. His Rue de Paris par un temps de pluie shows some passers-by – above all a man and a woman in the foreground – who seem very real.

125 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 185. The original French text by Émile Blémont quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 63 reads as follows: “M. Caillebotte est un nouveau venu qui sera le bien venu. Son Jeune homme à la fenêtre, son Jeune homme jouant du piano, ses Raboteurs de parquet sont d’une modernité frappante, et contiennent des parties fermement modelées. C’est étonnant de vérité, de vie, d’intimité simple et franche. M. Caillebotte n’a pas été admis l’an dernier au jury avec un des tableaux qu’il nous montre. Un très mauvais point à MM. les jurés officiels!” 126 Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 198. 127 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe in Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 191. The original French text by Philippe Burty quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 124–125 reads as follows: “Son Pont de l’Europe, son Temps de pluie, animés par des personnages grandeur de nature, ont l’inconvénient de provoquer la traduction de parapluies grands comme nature. C’est trop épique pour de la peinture de chevaler.” 40

Once his talent has become more supple, Caillebotte certainly will be among the boldest of the group.”128

Caillebotte is one of the pioneers who painted modern subjects in such large dimensions:

“Caillebotte challenged an audience as to where a large painting of an urban scene could be exhibited […] It is this work, among others by Caillebotte, which suggested that Impressionism could challenge the importance of Salon shows through the dynamic scale of a modern painting dedicated to urban life.”129

In Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3), the couple in the foreground seems very realistic to Zola. The couple’s life-sized dimension and the accuracy of their bodily movement and physiognomy also attracted other critics and were closely observed by

Edmond Lepelletier:

“Two figures in the foreground stand out in harsh light: a gentleman and a lady, modern dress, contemporary physiognomies, sheltered under an umbrella that seems freshly taken from the racks of the Louvre (department store) and the Bon Marché. In the middle ground, another gentleman with an umbrella, carefully lifting his right foot, standing on the heel, and putting only the toes of the left foot on the wet pavement. Very lively this figure as well. The man walks, and you know the play of the muscles by the pants-legs.”130

128 English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 209. The original French text by Émile Zola quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 191 reads as follows: “Enfin, je nommerai M. Caillebotte, un jeune peintre du plus beau courage et qui ne recule pas devant les sujets modernes grandeur nature. Sa Rue de Paris par un temps de pluie montre des passants, surtout un monsieur et une dame au premier plan qui sont d’une belle vérité. Lorsque son talent se sera un peu assoupli encore, M. Caillebotte sera cenainement un des plus hardis du groupe.” 129 Edwin Becker and Gabriel Paul Weisberg, “Introducing Naturalism,” in: Gabriel Paul Weisberg et al., Illusions of reality: naturalist painting, photography, theatre and cinema, 1875–1918, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam–Helsinki 2010/11, New York 2010, p. 15. 130 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 188. The original French text by Edmond Lepelletier quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 158–159 reads as follows: “Deux figures au premier plan se détachent en pleine clarté crue; un monsieur et une dame, costume moderne, physionomies contemporaines, abrités sous un parapluie qui semble décroché fraîchement des rayons du Louvre et du Bon Marché. Au deuxième plan, autre monsieur à parapluie, levant avec précaution le pied droit, s’appuyant du talon, et faisant seulement porter la pointe du pied gauche sur le pavé mouillé. 41

T his vivid description of the couple and the man in the middle ground is a good example of Caillebotte’s faithfully depictions of human figures. In fact, not only the figures, but also the paving stones are painted in precision in Paris Street; Rainy Day.

The “sweeping expanse”131 of neatly arranged and absolutely cleaned paving stones which occupies one-fourth area of the painting was noted by the critics in 1877.132

Lepelletier commented the pavement in the following way:

“It is a spacious intersection, with its sidewalks and paving-stones washed by the waters of the sky, like the old bricks of Amsterdam by the Dutch housewives. Each paving-stone stands out with an unheard-of precision. You can count them, measure them, study them as a geologist, as a chemist, as a geometer and as a paver. […] It is the exaggeration of detail, the enlargement of that which is accessory, it is the care, the touch, the light, the talent of the artist concentrated on secondary objects, it is the eye of the spectator pulled in all directions by things of secondary importance and of the tertiary plane treated and brought forward like the principal masses and the main items of the composition. […] Let us continue the examination of Monsieur Caillebotte’s canvas: on the meticulously clean paving stones, where I have difficulty in recognizing my old and always dirty Parisian pavement, several groups move about.”133

In Paris Street; Rainy Day, even ordinary things like paving stones are painted so meticulously that the critic admired the artist’s precise depiction of light reflection and textural surfaces. These washed, clean paving stones let the critic almost forget the

Très vivante aussi cette figure. L’homme marche, et l’on suit sur le pantalon le jeu des muscles.” 131 Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 96. 132 Ibid. 133 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 188. The original French text by E. Lepelletier quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, pp. 158–159 reads as follows: “C’est un carrefour spacieux, avec ses trottoirs et ses pavés lavés par les eaux du ciel, comme les mauvaises briques d’Amsterdam par les ménagères hollandaises. Chaque pavé se détache avec une précision inouïe. On peut les compter, les mesurer, les étudier en géologue, en chimiste, en géomètre et en paveur. [...] C’est l’exagération du détail, c’est le grandissement de l’accessoire, c’est le soin, le toucher, la lumière, le talent de l’artiste concentrés sur les objets secondaires, c’est l’œil du spectateur tiraillé en tous les sens par les choses de seconde importance et de troisième plan traitées et mises en avant comme les masses principales et les points capitaux de la composition. Le talent de l’artiste et l’attention du spectateur s’éparpillent également dans cette diffusion. […] “Continuons l’examen de la toile de M. Caillebotte: sur ce pavé méticuleusement nettoyé et où j’ai peine à reconnaître mon vieux et toujours gras pavé parisien, plusieurs groupes circulent.” 42 dirty Parisian roads in the past; what Caillebotte wants to emphasize is the city’s new look after Haussmann’s renovation.

No matter how great Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) is painted, it received a certain negative criticism, mainly about the strange composition cut by a lamppost in the middle, and the unusual cropping of the main figures by the frame edge.134 Roger

Ballu’s (1852–1908) severe criticism is as follows:

“It is easy to see furthermore, that Monsieur Caillebotte considers the composition of a picture as a business unworthy of him: his people are grouped by chance, the frame cuts in two, from head to toe, a figure of a man seen from the back.”135

This conservative point of view suggests that the artist does not treat his composition strictly enough. Moreover, the French writer Paul Sébillot (1843–1918) praised the artist’s great draftsmanship but then criticized the disposition of the lamppost and cropping of the man on the right hand side:

“The Rue de Paris by Caillebotte offers some bits of striking Realism: the houses are finely observed and convincingly drawn, and there are some subtle colors in the heads of the young woman and gentleman who are walking under their umbrella. But why does this streetlamp stretch its disagreeable perpendicular smack right into the middle of the picture? Why is this gentleman wearing a long overcoat, his body cut in half by the frame? With its disdain of composition and of proper technique, despite its unquestionable strengths, this paintings amazes, but does not move you. It gives an idea of what photography will become when the means are

134 Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 197. 135 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 190. The original French text by Roger Ballu quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 125 reads as follows: “Est-i1 impressionniste, par exemple, M. Caillebotte, dans sa grande toile intitulée: Rue de Paris-Temps de pluie? Les parapluies ouverts sont tous d’une teinte uniformément argentée. La pluie ne se fait voir nulle part; le peintre n’a pas su rendre cette sorte de brouillard que forment les gouttes en tombant; par contre, il y a une certaine main qui donne l’impression d’un dessin bien pauvre. – Il est facile de voir en outre que M. Caillebotte considère la composition d’un tableau comme affaire indigne de lui: ses personnages sont groupés au hasard; le cadre coupe en deux, de la tête aux pieds, une figure d’homme vu de dos.” 43

found to reproduce colors with their full intensity and subtlety.”136

What Sébillot criticized is exactly Caillebotte’s breakthrough in compositional design. For the viewers in 1877, it is quite ridiculous and unacceptable to see a picture cut by a vertical object right in the middle. In fact, the lamppost in Paris

Street; Rainy Day serves a function to link the foreground and the background, but what makes it unusual is its position in the painting, that is, right in the middle. Conservative critics, such as Sébillot, consider the lamppost annoying as it breaks the structure of a picture. In addition, Sébillot and Ballu respectively scorned Caillebotte’s strange cropping of the gentleman approaching at the picture’s extreme right-hand side and the way of painting him seen from the back. The man cropped by the frame to the extreme right, holds an umbrella which nearly collides with the one held by the approaching couple. Like the umbrellas held by the couple and other pedestrians, the one held by this man is like a protection from embarrassing close contact with strangers on the street, just as the French illustrator and engraver Bertall (1820–1882) commented:

“The Paris street, rainy weather, with the half-length tall fellows armed with umbrellas, is hardly strange as by the ridicule of the composition and the desired blue gauze that covers it.”137

That the figures are “armed” with umbrellas, as the author puts it, should

136 English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 209. The original French text by Paul Sébillot quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 190 reads as follows: “La Rue de Paris de M. Caillebotte offre des morceaux d’une réalité saisissante: les maisons sont bien observées et bien à leur plan, il y a de fines colorations dans la tête de la jeune femme et du monsieur qui se promènent sous leur parapluie; mais pourquoi ce réverbère qui étale juste au milieu du tableau sa désagréable perpendiculaire? pourquoi ce monsieur en gâteuse coupé juste par le milieu du corps par le cadre? Avec ce dédain de la composition et de la mise en toile, ce tableau, malgré d’incontestables qualités, étonne et n’émeut pas; cela donne l’idée de ce que sera la photographie quand on aura trouvé le moyen de reproduire les couleurs avec leur intensité et leur fìnesse.” 137 My translation. The original French text by Bertall quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 132 reads as follows: “La rue de Paris, temps de pluie, avec les grands bon hommes à mi-corps armés de parapluies, n’est plus guère étrange que par le ridicule de la composition et la gaze bleue voulue qui le recouvre.” 44 s uggest these pedestrians avoid contact with strangers by keeping themselves in the “private space” outlined by their umbrellas. Interestingly, this gap between the pedestrians is reverberated by the painting’s grey tonality. Gaston Vassy

(1847–1885) remarked that Paris Street; Rainy Day is “too uniformly grey, but very well drawn.”138 However, the prevalence of grey in this painting together with the uniformity of the color, especially concerning the umbrellas, is already too distant from a naturalistic view. Consequently, Mantz observed the painting with this regard: “He mutes the local tones a little too much in a large harmony of slate grey, which has softness, but which is not completely authentic.”139

The other important canvas presented in 1877 exhibition, Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2), received more positive than negative comments. Critics in

1877 generally preferred the relatively small-sized Pont de l’Europe (125 x 180 cm) to Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3),140 since the latter’s extremely large dimension together with its subject presenting a view of modern life was too unusual to be accepted by the contemporary viewers. In 1877, an anonymous writer considered that Pont de l’Europe and Paris Street; Rainy Day “deserve all possible critical praises although the latter would have gained in being scaled down.”141 Besides, the brighter tonality of Pont de l’Europe also pleases the

138 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 187. The original French text by Gaston Vassy quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 145 reads as follows: “Citons surtout deux immenses tableaux, tous deux beaucoup trop uniformément gris, mais très bien dessinès.” 139 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 191. The original French text by Paul Mantz quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874– 1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 167 reads as follows: “Il éteint un peu trop les tonalités locales dans une grande harmonie d’un gris d’ardoise, qui a de la douceur, mais qui n’est pas tout à fait authentique.” 140 Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 101, note 90. 141 English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 209. The original French text from La Petite Republique française quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 176 reads as follows: “Le Pont de l’Europe et Une Rue de Paris, par un jour de pluie – ce dernier eût gagné à avoir des proportions moindres – méritent tous les éloges de 45 critics. A reviewer who wrote under the pseudonym “Jacques”142 stated his preference for this canvas as follows:

“Nevertheless, I prefer a hundred times over his Pont de l’Europe, whose sober composition offers at once more truth and grace. The sky is blue, the clear air throws the shadows sharply into relief […].”143

According to Jacques, Pont de l’Europe is true to nature as it captures the momentary quality of a sunny day and truthfully depicts the effects of light and shadows, such as the sunlight shed on the iron trellises of the bridge and its shadows on the road. Another critic Charles Bigot directly pointed out that Pont de l’Europe is present with impressionist quality while Paris Street; Rainy Day is not:

“Is M. Caillebotte indeed an impressionist? Yes, if one looks at his Pont de l’Europe and Portraits in the Country; no, if we look at his other submissions, above all his large demonstration picture, Crossroads of Rue de Moscou in Rainy Weather. […] The subject lacks interest, as do the figures and indeed the painting.”144

Bigot’s opinion reveals his prejudice towards Impressionist paintings. That is, a typical Impressionist painting should present the immediate effects of light and

la critique.” 142 A nineteenth century reviewer who wrote under the pseudonym of “Jacques;” Michael Pantazzi, “Catalogue,” in: Boggs, Jean Sutherland, Douglas W. Druick, Henri Loyrette, Michael Pantazzi and Gary Tinterow, Degas, exhibition catalog, Paris–Ottawa–New York 1988/89, New York 1988, p. 274. 143 English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 210. The original French text by Jacques quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 156 reads as follows: “Néanmoins, je préfère cent fois le Pont de l’Europe, dont la composition, sobre, offre plus de vérité en mème temps que plus de grâce. Le ciel est d’azur, le temps clair accuse les ombres durement […].” 144 English translation quoted after Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, pp. 96–97. The original French text by Charles Bigot quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 135 reads as follows: “Est-ce bien un impressionniste que M. Caillebotte? Oui, si l’on regarde son Pont de l’Europe et ses Portraits à la campagne; non, si l’on regarde ses autres envois, surtout son grand tableau à effet, le Carrefour de la rue de Moscou par un temps de pluie. Une demi-douzaine de personnes, grandeur nature et parapluies ouverts, traversent le carrefour ou marchent sur les trottoirs. Le sujet manque d’intérêt, les personnages aussi, et aussi la peinture.” 46 shadows ; the tonal palette must be lightened and saturated. Accordingly, Pont de l’Europe bears more Impressionist quality than Paris Street; Rainy Day.

Furthermore, without the presence of visible raindrops, a typical feature in

Impressionists’ depictions of a rainy day, Paris Street; Rainy Day goes against the principle of Impressionism. Several critics questioned this aspect, such as

Vassy and Ballu:

“The most remarkable canvases are, without argument, those of Monsieur Gustave Caillebotte, […] One represents a View of the Europe bridge. […] Our compliments, Monsieur Caillebotte…You must have had gay impressions that day. The other canvas is the intersection formed by the rue de Turin and the rue de Moscou, seen on a rainy day. Again, very well drawn… Only, Monsieur Caillebotte forgot to represent the rain. Apparently on that day it made no impression on him.”145 “Is he an Impressionist, for example, Monsieur Caillebotte, in his large canvas entitled Street in Paris – Rainy weather? The umbrellas are all of a uniformly silvered tint. The rain is visible nowhere; the painter did not know how to render that sort of mist that the drops form in falling. […]”146

Both Vassy and Ballu expected to see raindrops in a painting whose title

145 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 187. The original French text by Gaston Vassy quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 145 reads as follows: “Les toiles les plus remarquables sont, sans contredit, celles de M. Gustave Caillebotte, un millionnaire qui fait de la peinture à ses moments perdus. Citons surtout deux immenses tableaux, – tous deux beaucoup trop uniformément gris, mais très bien dessinés. L’un représente une Vue du pont de l’Europe. Le principal personnage est le peintre lui-même, causant de près avec une très jolie femme, – encore un portrait sans doute. Nos compliments, monsieur Caillebotte . . . Vous deviez avoi, ce jour-là, des impressions gaies! L’autre toile, c’est le carrefour formé par les rues de Turin et de Moscou, vu par un jour de pluie. Encore très bien dessiné . . . seulement, M. Caillebotte a oublié de représenter la pluie. Il paraît que ce jour-là elle ne lui avait pas laissé d’impression du tout.” 146 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 190. The original French text by Roger Ballu quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 125 reads as follows: “Est-i1 impressionniste, par exemple, M. Caillebotte, dans sa grande toile intitulée: Rue de Paris-Temps de pluie? Les parapluies ouverts sont tous d’une teinte uniformément argentée. La pluie ne se fait voir nulle part; le peintre n’a pas su rendre cette sorte de brouillard que forment les gouttes en tombant; par contre, il y a une certaine main qui donne l’impression d’un dessin bien pauvre. – Il est facile de voir en outre que M . Caillebotte considère la composition d’un tableau comme affaire indigne de lui: ses personnages sont groupés au hasard; le cadre coupe en deux, de la tête aux pieds, une figure d’homme vu de dos.” 47 includes “Rainy Day.” From their viewpoint, an Impressionist painter should show the instantaneous effect of a rainy day by accurately illustrating the falling raindrops. Besides, the surfaces of umbrellas should not be rendered in

“uniformly silvered tint,” but with momentary reflections of the surroundings.

Caillebotte’s two large canvases presented in 1877 show a quality of extraordinary draftsmanship which is different from other Impressionist works, as an anonymous commentator said: “Monsieur Caillebotte is an Impressionist in name only. He knows how to draw and paint more seriously than his friends.”147 Renoir’s friend, Georges Rivière (1855–1943), an open-minded supporter of Caillebotte’s art,148 admires the artist’s efforts and skills to execute the large Paris Street; Rainy Day:

“Monsieur Caillebotte has nonetheless great virtues and does not paint what blind critics call “a debauchery of colors.” Could it be that they criticize everything from prejudice? They have not wanted to see in Monsieur Caillebotte the noble, simple, very sincere and very realist draftsmanship that is the first of his qualities. They have not wanted to see either the investigation of atmosphere and light, investigation that, I agree, results perhaps in a slight discoloration, but which gets no less close to the truth for that. In the Europe Bridge there are great qualities and a pleasing disposition of the subject on the canvas. The figures are drawn in a very intelligent and very amusing way. The Rainy Weather is a considerable effort, a fact they do not take sufficiently into account. Those who have criticized the picture have not dreamed how difficult it was, and what skill was necessary to bring off a canvas of this size.”149

147 English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 209. The original French text from La Petite Republique française quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 176 reads as follows: “M. Caillebotte n’est impressionniste que de nom. Il sait dessiner et peint plus sérieusement que ses confrères.” 148 Sue Roe, The private lives of the Impressionists, London 2007, p. 144. 149 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 190. The original French text by Georges Rivière quoted by Ruth Berson in The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 183 reads as follows: “M. Caillebotte est moins heureux sous ce rapport, il est bien peu d’absurdités qui n’aient été dites sur son compte. Un critique a écrit que, dans le Temps de pluie, tout y était excepté la pluie, qu’on ne voyait pas tomber; c’est plein 48

Despite the “discoloration,” Rivière still considers Caillebotte’s paintings faithful to nature, as they are all rendered with “very sincere and very realist draftsmanship”, an expression which best describes Caillebotte’s artistic achievements.

5.2 A Caricature of Caillebotte as a Floor Scraper

After the exhibition in 1876, The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) attracted significant attention from both art critics and the artist’s friends.150 In the previous chapter, I show the literary reception of Caillebotte’s paintings. More than that, there is a criticism through caricatures, which is very typical for the French art scene, as the case of

Gustave Courbet (1819–77) shown in one of the caricatures of 1853 (fig. 48).151

In 1882, a caricature represented Caillebotte as a floor scraper (Paris, Musée du

Louvre; fig. 49).152 The author of this caricature cannot be identified, as it is found as a slice of paper clipped by the French art collector Étienne Moreau-Nélaton (1859–

1927) from an unknown source.153 This caricature transforms Caillebotte into an unusually dressed up worker who is scraping the floor with a racloir. His attire

de naiveté. Le même monsieur, je crois, est exaspéré à la vue d’un petit chien qui passe sur le Pont de l’Europe. M. Caillebotte a cependant de grandes qualités et ne fait pas ce que les critiques aveugles appellent “une débauche de couleurs”. Serait-ce donc qu’on critique tant de parti pris? On n’a pas voulu voir dans M. Caillebotte le dessin noble, simple, très sincère et très réaliste qui est la prermière de ses qualités. On n’a pas voulu y voir non plus la recherche d’atmosphère et de lumière, recherche qui, j’en conviens, arrive peut- être à une légère décoloration, mais ne se rapproche pas moins de la vérité. Dans le Pont de l’Europe, il y a de grandes qualités et une heureuse disposition du sujet dans la toile. Les personnages sont dessinés d’une facon très intelligente et très amusante. Le Temps de pluie est un effort considérable, dont on ne tient pas suffisament cornpte. Ceux qui ont critiqué ce tableau n’ont pas songé combien il était difficile et quelle science était nécessaire pour mener à bien une toile de cette dimension.” 150 Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 39. 151 Nadar, A True Portrait of Saint Courbet, Painter and Martyr, from Le Journal Pour Rire: Journal d’image, journal comique, critique, satirique et moquer 211, 13 October 1855, p. 3, no. 11937. 152 Caillebotte as a Floor-Scraper, c. 1882, caricature clipped by Étienne Moreau-Nélaton from an unidentifed source, Musée du Louvre, Paris; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 283; Oskar Bätschmann, “The Artist on Show: ,” in: Candida Syndikus (ed.), Representation and Show, studies in nineteenth-century art (Shida Studies of Art History, vol. 2), Taipei 2013, p. 13. 153 Ibid. 49 resembles the working clothes he wears in several photographs taken by his brother

Martial in the gardens of Petit Gennevilliers (fig. 50):154 a cap (maybe the sailor’s cap he used to wear), a casual suit and wooden slippers with socks. The caricaturist represents the painter’s face with an extremely long aquiline nose, an exaggeration of the physiognomic feature identified in a photo of Caillebotte (fig. 51).155 The text accompanying the caricature reads as follows:

“CAILLEBOTTE (C. DE). – One of the youngest fathers of Impressionism. He started as a floor planer, then as a landscapist. He revealed to the Parisians the beauty of the panorama of Place de l’Europe, and the horizons of Rue Lafayette. Now he devotes himself to still lifes... in the way of the millionaires. When he passes in front of a shop the display of which pleases him, he enters, covers it with gold – the display – and lets it bring, to his studio, where it might serve him as model.”156

Dated in 1882, the caricature was probably executed after the seventh Impressionist

Exhibition where Cailleotte presented seventeen canvases. Therefore, it is inferred in the above quoted text that Caillebotte presented several works in the Impressionist

Exhibitions, such as Pont de l’Europe of 1877 (fig. 2) and Fruit Displayed on a Stand

(Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; fig. 52)157 of 1882.

The caricature reveals a rather sarcastic attitude toward the wealthy French painter. Characterized by an aquiline nose, which in contemporary anti-Semitic

154 Gustave Caillebotte in His Garden (Gustave Caillebotte dans son jardin), 1892, silver print, 11 x 16 cm; Gabrielle Andries, “Les plaisirs au jardin,” in: Serge Lemoine et al., Dans l’intimite des frères Caillebotte: peintre et photographe, exhibition catalog, Paris–Quebec 2011/12, Paris 2011, p. 162, cat. 52 F. 155 Private collection, c. 1878; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 3. 156 My translation. The original French text from Anonymous, Caillebotte as a Floor-Scraper, c. 1882, caricature clipped by Étienne Moreau-Nélaton from an unidentifed source, Musée du Louvre, Paris reads as follows: “Caillebotte (C. DE). Un des plus jeunes pères de l’impressionnisme. A débuté par raboter des parquets, puis paysagiste. A découvert aux Parisiens les beautés du panorama de la place de l’Europe, et les horizons de la rue Lafayette. S’adonne aujourd’hui aux natures mortes… à l’usage des millionnaires. Quand il passé devant une boutique dont l’étalage lui plaît, il entre, le couvre d’or– l’étalage– et le fait porter à son atelier pour lui servi de modèle.” 157 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Fruit Displayed on a Stand (Fruits à l’étalage), c. 1881–82, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 100.6 cm; information of the work from Boston Museum of Fine Arts at http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/fruit-displayed-on-a-stand-34313. 50 caricatures often typified Jewish faces, the caricature presents Caillebotte as a man of great wealth like Jews. Ironically, Caillebotte, dressed as a simple gardener (fig. 52), is now doing a heavy job of scraping the floor. The working pose refers to the older man in the smaller version of Floor Scrapers (fig. 30). The caricaturist, thus, lets

Caillebotte slip into the role of one of his floor planers. The sarcastic text further underlines Caillebotte’s fortunate economic situation which is quite different from the conditions under which most of his colleagues had to make a living by selling their own art works. Caillebotte makes paintings “in the way of the millionaires;” that is, if he was attracted by certain display in a shop, he directly bought (“covers it with gold”) the whole things back, and displayed them in his own studio as the model for still lifes.

As the contemporary critic Philippe Burty said, Caillebotte “made himself known last year by Floor-scrapers, which demonstrated a curiosity about strictly professional types and occupation.”158 It was this discrepancy between the subject matters and the artist’s social background, on which the caricaturist focuses here.

6. The Response to Caillebotte’s Paintings in Belgium

6.1 Fernand Khnopff

Kirk Varnedoe first pointed out the resemblance between the cityscapes painted by the leading Belgian Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff and Caillebotte.159 According to

Varnedoe, Khnopff’s preliminary watercolor and gouache sketch, Passing Boulevard du Régent of 1881 (fig. 19), is reminiscent of Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day

158 English translation quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 191. The original French text written by Philippe Burty as quoted by Ruth Berson, The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, San Francisco 1996, p. 124 reads as follows: “M. Caillebotte s’était signalé, l’année dernière, par des Racleurs de parquet, qui témoignaient d’une curiosité, rare aujourd’hui, des types et des occupations strictement professionnels.” 159 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 92. Sharon L. Hirsh further discussed this pictorial connection in Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, pp. 97–99. 51

(fig. 3). The small sketch helps Khnopff to prepare his large pastel entitled Régent

Boulevard in 1882 (now lost) shown at an exhibition of the artist group L’Essor in

Brussels organized in the same year.160 Between 1877 and 1880, Khnopff undertook several trips to Paris where he could have had the opportunity to see Caillebotte’s paintings, and, most probably, at the 1877 Impressionist Exhibition.161

Passing Boulevard du Régent (fig. 19) demonstrates Khnopff’s interest in

Caillebotte’s rendering of the Paris cityscape. Khnopff appears to have borrowed the rainy-day scene from Caillebotte to depict the Boulevard du Régent in Brussels.

Anonymous figures with umbrellas are shown strolling down the wide boulevard. The woman in the right foreground, the only figure with a roughly indicated face, is represented in a much larger scale than the other pedestrians. Cut by the lower border, she is moving towards the viewer, but, as in Caillebotte’s painting, she seems to concentrate on a target outside the picture plane, a feature which contributes to the incidental quality of the scene. Khnopff ’s emphasis on the vertical lines of the tree trunks and his inclusion of a cropped lamp in the left foreground, which further underlines the composition’s sectional character, also echoes Caillebotte’s Paris Street;

Rainy Day. During the preparatory phase of his painting, Caillebotte invests a lot of effort to the composition of the wet street pavement –this is made evident by the presence of a preliminary sketch (Paris, private collection; fig. 53).162 Khnopff pays equal attention to the detail of the street in Passing Boulevard du Régent by enlivening it with reflections of light and shadows cast by the figures.

160 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 97. 161 Ibid. 162 Gustave Caillebotte, sketch for Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, private collection; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 90, no. 54. 52

In 1881, when Khnopff first exhibited the finished pastel at the exhibition of

L’Essor in Brussels, the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916) described it as a work which “produced an excellent impression”163 and commented that:

“This work of art makes us think and hope. The damp time of winter, the soaked soil, the faded green of the trees, the uniform gray of the atmosphere are sincerely and successfully rendered.”164

According to contemporary criticism, Khnopff’s pastel of Passing Boulevard du

Régent is a faithful representation of Brussels’s street scene in winter. It is the sophisticated flair of the spacious late-nineteenth-century avenues peopled by elegant flâneurs which fascinates and attracts, at least at that moment, Khnopff’s attention.

Two years after completing Passing Boulevard du Régent, Khnopff executed another painting, Listening to Schumann (En écoutant du Schumann) of 1883

(Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; fig. 54)165. The compositional details of Listening to Schumann are not only characterized by a symbolic concern for self-contemplation,166 but also by its resemblance to Impressionist scenes167 such as

Caillebotte’s Young Man Playing the Piano of 1876 (fig. 20) and Portrait of Madame

Martial Caillebotte (Portrait de Mme Martial Caillebotte) of 1877 (France, private collection; fig. 55).168 Both Khnopff and Caillebotte are painters from rich bourgeois background whose domestic scenes provoke viewers to look out for the social class of

163 English translation quoted after Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 99. The original French text is from Emile Verhaeren, “Exhibition annuelle de L’Essor.” 164 Ibid. 165 Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, bought at the sale Henri La Fontaine, Georges Giroux Gallery, Brussels, 5 October 1945, No. 242a, oil on canvas, 101.5 x 116.5 cm, Inv. 6366, signature and date upper left: “FERNAND KHNOPFF 1883”; description of the work from Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique at http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/fr/la-collection/fernand-khnopff-en-ecoutant-du-schumann?artist=khn opff-fernand-1. 166 The biography of Fernand Khnopff from Oxford Art online at http://0-www.oxfordartonline.com.opac.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/subscriber/. 167 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 221. 168 France, private collection, oil on canvas, 83 x 72 cm, signature and date bottom right: “G. Caillebotte 77;” Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 94, no. 58. I am grateful to Prof. Valentin Nussbaum for having indicated this relationship to me. 53 the protagonists who are often from high society. Listening to Schumann is an early work by Khnopff of an interior of a private home with haute bourgeoisie furnishing where a woman, the artist’s mother, is sitting on a red-velvet, overstuffed armchair with her head bowed into her hands and listening to a piano rendition.169 A player of the piano is represented only by one hand with the rest of his body cropped out at the left background. Khnopff’s composition of the sitter in a domestic surrounding seems to create similar effects Caillebotte has made with his Young Man Playing the Piano.

According to the French art critic Duranty’s reference to Young Man Playing the

Piano in “The New Painting” of 1876, a painter positions the sitter in a private room with neutral background in order to portray and heighten an individual:170

“As we are solidly embracing nature, we will no longer separate the figure from the background of an apartment or the street. In actuality, a person never appears against neutral or vague backgrounds. Instead, surrounding him and behind him are the furniture, fireplaces, curtains, and walls that indicate his financial position, class and profession.”171

Accordingly, similar to the effects demonstrated in Caillebotte’s Young Man Playing the Piano, Khnopff’s Listening to Schumann is also an exquisite manifestation of immersing the individual in his background. Following Caillebotte’s treatment of figures in domestic spaces, Khnopff also “frames” the figures with furnishings such as

169 Ibid. 170 Gloria Groom, “Interiors and Portraits,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 180. 171 English translation quoted after Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874– 1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 43. The original French text from Louis Edmond Duranty, La nouvelle peinture: à propos du groupe d’artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris 1876 reads as follows: “Et puisque nous accolons étroitement la nature, nous ne séparerons plus le personnage du fond d’appartement ni du fond de rue. Il ne nous apparaît jamais, dans l’existence, sur des fonds neutres, vides et vagues. Mais autour de lui et derrière lui sont des meubles, des cheminées, des tentures de murailles, une paroi qui exprime sa fortune, sa classe, son métier: il sera à son piano, ou il examinera son échantillon de coton dans son bureau commercial, ou il attendra derrière le décor le moment d’entrer en scène, ou il appliquera le fer à repasser sur la table à tréteaux, ou bien il sera en train de déjeuner dans sa famille, ou il s’assoira dans son fauteuil pour ruminer auprès de sa table de travail, ou il évitera des voitures en traversant la rue, ou regardera l’heure à sa montre en pressant le pas sur la place publique. Son repos ne sera pas une pause, ni une pose sans but, sans signification devant l’objectif du photographe, son repos sera dans la vie comme une action.” 54 a comfortable armchair, the carpet, or a fireplace. Besides, Khnopff shares a similar fascination with the furnishing details and textures as Caillebotte. For example, the delicate gilded adornments on top of the fireplace in Khnopff’s domestic scene remind us of the furnishings in Caillebotte’s portrait of his mother (fig. 55). In addition, the depiction of the golden grids created by wall paneling is similar to that in

Caillebotte’s Interior, Woman Reading (Intérieur, femme lisant) of 1880 (France, private collection; fig. 56).172

In Young Man Playing the Piano (fig. 20) and Listening to Schumann (fig. 54), although both artists depict a subject related to piano music, their compositional emphases are different: Caillebotte’s only protagonist is the performer, whereas

Khnopff’s emphasis is on the listener as the piano player is present in the picture with only one hand. What is more, according to the contemporary reviews, the listener’s image by Khnopff, a woman listening to the piano alone with her head bowed into hands, was “a spiritual reverie.”173 One contemporary review of Listening to

Schumann by the Belgian poet Verhaeren in 1886 is as follows:

“It [Listening to Schumann] carries [us] beyond the exterior and because it reflects a wing of today’s soul. It is only over the last few years that music was thus listened to –not with pleasure; [but] with meditation. The effect of art, of our art, is to influence a vague attraction towards a melancholy, momentous ideal. This picture renders that effect visible.”174

172 France, private collection, oil on canvas, 65 x 80 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1880”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 127, no. 139. 173 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 221. 174 English translation quoted after Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 99. The original French text is from Emile Verhaeren, “Silhouettes d’Artistes,” October 10, 1886, p. 323. One anonymous reviewer in 1883 also explained this painting as the follows: “He has tried to express, in a scene of daily life, the elevated sensations which sometimes pass through our humanness and lift it from the earth. In a comfortable bourgeois salon a piano resonates…Subjugated, softly enervated by the pathetic chants of the German master, a young woman, sunk in an armchair, forgets herself, abandons herself, and lets her soul depart for the passionate regions. One can sense the magic in the room. One is won over by the contagion of that poetic emotion.” (English translation quoted after Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 99. The original French text is from an anonymous, “Exposition du cercle artistique,” p. 127.) 55

I n general, Khnopff uses Caillebotte’s scheme of depicting figures against a neutral background, but adds a meditative and spiritual aura to his picture.

To sum up, though recognized as a Symbolist painter, Khnopff showed a temporary interest in French Impressionism, especially Caillebotte’s art, in the

1880s. Completed after his trips to Paris, the compositions and subjects in

Khnopff’s Passing Boulevard du Régent (fig. 19) and Listening to Schumann

(fig. 54) appear to echo the asymmetrical compositions and subjects in

Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) and Young Man Playing the Piano

(fig. 20).

6.2 James Ensor

The early works of the Belgian painter James Ensor include the artist’s rarely achieved city scenes of his hometown, Ostend. Ensor’s city scenes painted from an elevated viewpoint, such as The Rooftops of Ostend of 1884 (Antwerp, Koninklijk

Museum voor Schone Kunsten; fig. 57),175 is similar to that employed by some contemporary French Impressionists.176 For instance, the rooftop scenes in Paul

Cézanne’s (1839–1906) The Roof of Paris (Les Toits de Paris; Paris, Le Musée du

Luxembourg; fig. 58),177 Pissarro’s The Roofs of Old Rouen, Gray Weather (Toledo,

OH, The Toledo Museum of Art; fig. 59)178 and Caillebotte’s Rooftops in the Snow of

1878 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 60).179 In fact, the similarity between Ensor’s early

175 Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, oil on canvas, 157 × 209 cm, Inv. 2706, signature and date bottom right: “EnSOR 84”; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, p. 129, cat. 66. 176 Patricia G. Berman, “The City, the Street, and the Urban Spectacle,” in: Patricia G. Berman, James Ensor: Christ’s entry into Brussels in 1889, Los Angeles 2002, p. 23. 177 Paris, Le Musée du Luxembourg, oil on canvas, 59.7 x 73 cm; the official website of Musée du Luxembourg at http://museeduluxembourg.fr/objet/les-toits-de-paris (accessed July 27, 2015). 178 Toledo, OH, The Toledo Museum of Art, oil on canvas, 72.3 x 91.4 cm, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1951; the official website of Toledo Museum of Art at http://classes.toledomuseum.org:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/People$0040570/4?t:state:flow=d 04aea42-3db8-4aee-b452-c0a4338e0605 (accessed July 27, 2015). 179 Rooftops in the Snow (snow effect), [Vue de toits (effet de neige)], oil on canvas, 64 x 82 cm, RF 56 works of city scenes and the Impressionists’ urban scenes is demonstrated not only in the elevated viewpoints, but also in the manner of brushwork. Like the Impressionists,

Ensor paints the city street under different weather conditions. For example, his

Boulevard Van Iseghem in the Rain (Boulevard Van Iseghem sous la pluie; private collection, fig. 61)180 represents the Belgian street under the rain and the painting is rendered in a quasi-Impressionistic manner.

Ensor’s representations of rooftops of Ostend (figs. 57, 62)181 appear to be comparable to Caillebotte’s Rooftops in the Snow of 1878 (fig. 60); both artists choose to observe their hometowns from a high vantage point; the results, however, are quite different. Caillebotte’s rooftops accentuates the architectural details such as ventilation pipes, chimneys, and gables,182 and the canvases’ roughly painted surfaces reveal that Caillebotte follows Impressionistic manner with the use of noticeable brush strokes.183 Caillebotte’s Rooftops in the Snow is depicted from an angled viewpoint in which the main rooftops were inclined to the left. More than ten years later than Caillebotte, Ensor shows quite different attitudes in The Rooftops of Ostend

(fig. 57) and another canvas, The Rooftops of Ostend of 1898 (Belgium, private collection; fig. 62).184 In the 1884 version (fig. 57), the sky occupies most of the canvas; seen from a distant, wide-ranging view, the rooftops are diminished in size.

876, RF 2730, INV 335, signature bottom left: “G. Caillebotte,” Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 108, no. 96. 180 Private collection, oil on cardboard, 23.5 x 16.5 cm, signature and date bottom right: Ensor 80; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, p. 89, cat. 26. 181 Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, The Rooftops of Ostend (Les Toits d’Ostende), 1884, oil on canvas, 157 × 209 cm, Inv. 2706, signature and date bottom right: “ENSOR 84”; Belgium, private collection, The Rooftops of Ostend (Les Toits d’Ostende), 1898, oil on canvas, 48 x 73 cm, signature and date bottom right: “ENSOR”; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, pp. 129, 199, cats. 66, 136. 182 Rodolphe Rapetti, “Paris Seen from a Window,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 153. 183 Ibid, p. 156. 184 Belgium, private collection, oil on canvas, 48 x 73 cm, signature and date bottom right: “ENSOR”; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, p. 199, cat. 136. 57

W hen Ensor treats the same topic fourteen years later (fig. 62), he employs a closer view to the rooftops; the house, rather than the sky, occupies most of the canvas. In terms of the quality of brushstrokes, the 1884 version (fig. 57) is much sketchier than the 1898 version (fig. 62); the latter’s buildings are much more defined. In general,

Ensor’s rooftop scenes are more panoramic than Caillebotte’s. Ensor usually represents the houses from a more distant view, while Caillebotte likes to render the buildings from a closer and angled position. That is, Caillebotte portrays Paris in different cropped images; Ensor, on the other hand, aims to give the viewer a broad, scenic view of his hometown.

In 1885, when Ensor lived temporarily in Brussels with his mother, sister and aunt, he executed a painting of the capital entitled Brussels Town Hall (Hôtel de ville de Bruxelles) of 1885 (Liège, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain; fig.

63).185 According to Patricia G. Berman, Ensor’s city scenes seen from the roof level, seem to adopt the elevated viewpoint exercised by Caillebotte in several scenes of

Paris dated 1878,186 such as Caillebotte’s The Rue Halévy Seen from the Sixth Floor

(La Rue Halévy vue du sixième étage) of 1878 (Dallas, private collection; fig. 64).187

The Belgian artist’s treatment of light effect is also reminiscent of the mode applied by his French contemporary. In fact, Ensor made several trips to Paris between 1884 and 1889,188 where he could have had the opportunity to know

Caillebotte’s work. Or else, when Ensor studied at the Academy in Brussels between

185 Liège, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, Inv. AM 64/218; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, p. 133, cat. 70. 186 Patricia G. Berman, “The City, the Street, and the Urban Spectacle,” in: Patricia G. Berman, James Ensor: Christ’s entry into Brussels in 1889, Los Angeles 2002, p. 23. 187 Dallas, private collection, oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1878”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 110, no. 100. 188 Anna Swinbourne, et al., James Ensor, New York 2009, p. 198. 58

1877 and 1880, he might have heard about the French Impressionists from his fellow student Fernand Khnopff, who had already sojourned in Paris.189

Both Ensor’s Brussels Town Hall (fig. 63) and Caillebotte’s Rue Halévy (fig. 64) are elevated street views. In the left foreground of both compositions, a close-up of a building – a corner displaying a multicolored billboard in the first and, if we believe

Varnedoe, an “inclined edge of a window-bay”190 in the latter – intrudes the field of view. Ensor’s way of cropping a motif seems to be indebted to Caillebotte. In terms of the handling of light, Ensor’s Brussels Town Hall also recalls an Impressionist approach to cityscape. Caillebotte’s Rue Halévy might show a late winter afternoon when the sun is about to set and the sunlight is weakly glimmering.191 The violet

Haussmannian buildings are reflecting the light. On the other hand, Ensor’s Brussels

Town Hall treats an early morning scene when the sky is about to be lightened up by the rising sun, and the houses as well as the town hall are reflected by the opalescent light radiating from the sky.192

Though sharing similar artistic aspects in their city views, the Belgian artist is to some extent different from Caillebotte. First, Caillebotte’s well-known plunging perspective is almost absent in Ensor’s works, only present in his small painting

Music in the rue de Flandre of 1891 (Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone

Kunsten; fig. 65).193 As suggested in the picture’s title, the large group of people in uniforms marching on a plunging road is a military band. Second, Caillebotte prefers to concede much open space to his composition. In Rue Halévy (fig. 64), the

189 Ibid, p. 197. 190 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976, p. 131. 191 Ibid. 192 Patricia G. Berman, “The City, the Street, and the Urban Spectacle,” in: Patricia G. Berman, James Ensor: Christ’s entry into Brussels in 1889, Los Angeles 2002, p. 24. 193 Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, oil on wood, 24 x 19 cm, Inv. 2230, signature and date middle left: “ENSOR 91”; Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, p. 162, cat. 99. 59 viewpoint is almost directly “above the central axis of rue Halévy;”194 the foreground is open and the broad road extending to the far distance in which recession of the street is stressed.195 Although Ensor does not stress the recession of the roads, his elevated viewpoint in Brussels Town Hall (fig. 63) and Music in the rue de Flandre is inclined towards the left side above the road; as a result, the road is seen partly blanked the buildings. In the latter’s composition, the road is crowded with people who are joining a parade, while in Caillebotte’s Rue Halévy, the road is sparsely dotted with carriages and pedestrians. Though employing an elevated street view from the rooftop as in Caillebotte’s above-mentioned cityscapes, Music in the rue de

Flandre emphasizes the pressing mass of crowds on the street, while Rue Halévy stresses the depth of the road space between the buildings.

Generally, Ensor’s Brussels Town Hall (fig. 63) and Music in the rue de Flandre

(fig. 65) have a similar structure of depicting the street in a diagonal and from an elevated view. However, the differences between the two paintings show Ensor’s changes from Impression to a more independent style, that is, in the later work (fig.

65), the outline becomes clearer and at the same time, a more graphic style is developed. Ensor’s vision of urban landscapes, on one hand, uses the deliberate cropping of motifs (figs. 63, 65) as in Caillebotte’s city views; on the other hand, refers to Monet’s Rue Montorgueil in Paris (La rue Montorgueil à Paris) of 1878

(Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 66),196 presenting the atmosphere of a festival with a pressing crowd and wavering flag (fig. 65).

194 Rodolphe Rapetti, “Paris Seen from a Window,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 156. 195 Ibid. 196 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, oil on canvas, 81 x 50 cm, Inv. RF 1982 71, signature bottom right: “Claude Monet”; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&nnumid=10896. 60

To conclude, Ensor, whose representative art works are often categorized as

Expressionism or Symbolism, during his early career in the 1880s, painted a few rooftop scenes analogous to those by French Impressionists, such as Caillebotte.

Depicted the city from the level of the rooftops, Ensor’s paintings (i.e. Brussels Town

Hall and Music in the rue de Flandre) appears to resemble the perspective employed in several views of Paris by Caillebotte (i.e. Rue Halévy).

7. Caillebotte and the Norwegian Painters

7.1 Christian Krohg

Having visited the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition held in Paris during March 1882, the Norwegian Naturalist painter, Christian Krohg, closely studied the œuvre by the

French Impressionists.197 Krohg’s curiosity about the innovative French painting, especially about Caillebotte’s works, can be observed especially in two of his canvases executed in 1882 during his stay in France.198 One of the two is a portrait of

Karl Nordström by a window (fig. 13). The composition of this painting, as I will demonstrate, is distinctly based on Caillebotte’s Man on a Balcony, Boulevard

Haussman (fig. 12),199 listed as no. 2 in the primary 1882 exhibition catalog.

According to Nordström’s diary, Krohg executed his portrait in Grez-sur-Loing near

Fontainebleau, an artists’ colony favored by the Scandinavians, after Krohg and him visited the 1882 Impressionist Exhibition in Paris. Nordström’s remarks about the portrait are as follows:

“We had studied the Impressionists at an exhibition in Paris and we were filled with new ideas. Krohg saw me one day at the open window wearing my blue suit silhouetted against the garden. He asked me eagerly to stand

197 Reinhold Heller, Munch: his life and work, Chicago 1984, pp. 23–24. 198 Kirk Varnedoe, “Christian Krohg and Edvard Munch,” in: Arts Magazine 53, no. 8, 1979, p. 88. 199 Ibid. 61

still in my pose, fetched a canvas, and in a few seconds the work was in full action.”200

The “new ideas” is most probably referred to Caillebotte’s Man on a Balcony showed at the 1882 Impressionist Exhibition, as the composition in Krohg’s Portrait of the

Swedish Painter Karl Nordström is very similar to Caillebotte’s painting. Therefore, it is suggested that Caillebotte’s painting is the most possible source of Krohg’s portrait of the Swedish painter. The Norwegian painter closely follows Caillebotte’s composition, albeit with the sides reversed. Wearing a dark suit, the protagonist in

Krohg’s painting stands out against an open window and looks down at a garden.

Both Caillebotte and Krohg contrast a dark figure against a bright background. As

Caillebotte has done before, Krohg meticulously depicts the reflection of the figure on the windowpane. He also adopts Caillebotte’s method of cropping the motifs. For instance, Nordström’s figure is partially cut by the lower edge of the painting, thus bringing the viewer closer to the pictorial space. Albeit the evident proximity to

Caillebotte’s composition, Krohg concedes more spatial depth to the balcony in the foreground by approaching the figure in a more diagonal view and leaving its face in profil perdu. As a result, half of Nordström’s face is characterized with a prominent chin and bearded cheek. In addition, it is worth noting that the identity of the man is not the main focus of Caillebotte’s Man on a Balcony. What has been emphasized is the viewpoint of Boulevard Haussmann seen from above and framed by the balcony with an awning and iron grills. The viewer’s position is almost directly behind the protagonist in order to have a better look. Caillebotte lets the straight Boulevard

Haussman forcefully recede into the distance and the buildings on the right side

200 An English translation of Karl Nordström’s 1882 remarks about his portrait is as follows: “We had studied the Impressionists at an exhibition in Paris and we were filled with new ideas. Krohg saw me one day at the open window wearing my blue suit silhouetted against the garden. He asked me eagerly to stand still in my pose, fetched a canvas, and in a few seconds the work was in full action.” Quoted after Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 215, plate 42, note 1; Varnedoe’s quotation is after Oscar Thue, Christian Kroghs portretter, Oslo, 1971, p. 25. 62 markedly diminish. By contrast, the background in Krohg’s painting shows the well-kept garden behind the painter’s house which extends to the banks of the river

Loing. In brief, Krohg connects Caillebotte’s city view from a window with a vision of the countryside, and makes a portrait of Nordström standing on a balcony, a composition referring to Caillebotte’s. If Caillebotte’s scene of Paris is a “viewpoint from the windows and balconies that framed people’s communication with the world outside their apartment,”201 Krohg’s view of the garden follows the same paradigm and at the same time has the function of a portrait painting.

The second painting produced by Krohg in France is entitled Sunday Morning, a large work which was cut up due to the concerns of transportation in 1882.202 One of the surviving fragments, Village Street at Grez (Bergen, Rasmus Meyers Samlinger; fig. 67),203 recalls Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day of 1877 (fig. 3).204 Krohg’s painting depicts village people walking up and down a curved street extending between two rows of low-rise houses. It appears to be a rainy day as all have umbrellas except the lady on the right who covers her head with a scarf. The man in the foreground, opening his umbrella, suggests a momentary capture of the scene. All village people are moving forward to the distant end of the street apart from one woman walking towards the viewers. Many features in Krohg’s composition echo

Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day: the illustration of the street in a plunging perspective, an asymmetrical composition composed of large empty spaces of the road and the sky, drastic diminishing of the figures’ sizes, the placement of warm

201 Belinda Thomson, Impressionism: origins, practice, reception, New York 2000, p. 196. 202 Kirk Varnedoe indicated that Sunday Morning was too large so it was cut down into several fragments, in order to be transported back to Norway. Kirk Varnedoe , “Christian Krohg and Edvard Munch,” in: Arts Magazine 53, no. 8, 1979, p. 88. The fact that Sunday Morning was cut is stated in a remark written in Norwegian by Erik Werenskiold (1855–1938) in 1925. Oscar Thue, Christian Krohg, Oslo 1997, p. 75. 203 Bergen, Rasmus Meyers Samlinger, oil on canvas, 102 x 70 cm; Oscar Thue, Christian Krohg, Oslo 1997, p. 326, nr. 43. David Loshak, “Space, Time and Edvard Munch,” in: The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1033, 1989, p. 274. 204 Kirk Varnedoe, “Christian Krohg and Edvard Munch,” in: Arts Magazine 53, no. 8, 1979, p. 88. 63 earth y colors (such as the colors of the houses’ walls) alongside with cool ones.

Another Caillebotte’s painting of street scene, Rising Road (Chemin montant) of 1881

(private collection; fig. 68)205 displayed in the seventh Impressionist Exhibition of

1882,206 may have also inspired Krohg as he documented a visit to the exhibition.207

Listed as no. 3 in the 1882 catalog, Rising Road depicts a couple walking along a country road with a house appearing at the left behind a hedge and a brick doorway.

In terms of the climbing perspective articulated by the clear diagonal line of the house’s lower wall, Rising Road is reminiscent of Caillebotte’s other street scenes painted in the 1870s, but is painted in sketchy Impressionist manner like Pissarro.

Painted in the same year (1882) as the seventh Impressionist Exhibition, the surviving fragment of Krohg’s Sunday Morning underlines the depth of the pictorial space by highlighting the sharp slanting lines, a similar feature in Caillebotte’s Rising Road.

After being influenced by impressionist art during his stay in Paris, Krohg was back to

Norway during the second half of 1882 and became Edvard Munch’s mentor.208

To sum up, as a Naturalist painter, Krohg pay attention on the subjects of rural life instead of city life. In Portrait of the Swedish Painter Karl Nordström (fig. 13) and Village Street at Grez (fig. 67), Krohg does not take the urban scenery from

Caillebotte’s works (Paris Street; Rainy Day and Man on a Balcony), instead; he chooses to depict a suburban area located south of Paris (Grez-sur-Loing). What

Krohg learns and takes from Caillebotte’s works are mainly the composition (Portrait

205 Private collection, 1881, oil on canvas, 99.6 x 125.2 cm, signature and date bottom left: “G. Caillebotte 1881”; Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 258, cat. 98. 206 Before the second public display of Chemin montant in the retrospective Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist in 1994 and 1995, this painting has discreetly remained in a French private collection. Art historians only knew of its existence from the catalog of the 1882 Impressionist Exhibition and some contemporary comments, especially a caricature of Chemin montant by Draner (fig. 6) with the caption “Chemin montant par les… .” Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles, 1994/95, New York 1995, p. 258. 207 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 216, note 1 of plate 42. 208 Ulrich Bischoff, Edvard Munch, 1863–1944, Cologne 1988, p. 94. 64 of the Swedish Painter Karl Nordström) and the plunging perspective (Village Street at Grez).

7.2 Edvard Munch

Receiving the state scholarship for studies abroad, the Norwegian painter Edvard

Munch sojourned several times in Paris from fall 1889 to spring 1891.209 In order to meet the requirements of the fellowship which postulated that he had to study with a respected instructor, Munch entered the atelier of the celebrated Realist painter Léon

Bonnat, Caillebotte’s teacher some twenty years before.210 However, being dissatisfied with Bonnat’s academic training, he then turned to explore the contemporary art scene in Paris.211 Consequently, some of Munch’s paintings produced during 1889 and 1892 are influenced by French Impressionism and can be used to demonstrate his connection with Caillebotte’s art. The most convincing example, as suggested by Reinhold Heller, is Rue Lafayette (fig. 5) of 1891, a painting strongly dependent on Caillebotte’s A Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann of 1880

(France, private collection; fig. 6).212 Completed during Munch’s stay in Paris in spring 1891, Rue Lafayette shows a view from his hotel room at 49, Rue Lafayette.213

According to his journal of the time, a particular model was used for the composition of Rue Lafayette:

“With my first stay in Paris I made a couple of experiments with

209 Ibid. 210 Elizabeth Prelinger et al., After the Scream: the late paintings of Edvard Munch, exhibition catalog, Atlanta 2002, New Haven 2001, p. 20. 211 Ibid. 212 France, private collection, oil on canvas, 69 x 62 cm, stamp on bottom right: “G. Caillebotte”; Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 131, no. 146. Varnedoe indicated this reference was from Reinhold Heller, Edvard Munch: The Scream, New York, 1972, pp. 62, 64. Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976, p. 150, note 2. 213 Rodolphe Rapetti, and Arne Eggum, Munch et la France, exhibition catalog, Paris–Oslo 1991/92, Paris 1991, p. 66. 65

cultivated pointillism – just color points – Karl Johan Bergen’s gallery – That was a short return to my impressionism – The picture from rue La Fayette was really only in a motif from French painting but I was in Paris after all.”214

Although he did not concretely refer to Caillebotte, the visual evidence between the two paintings can prove that Munch’s Rue Lafayette is almost a direct copy of

Caillebotte’s A Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann. During Munch’s sojourn in Paris, A

Balcony remained in Caillebotte’s own collection and was not exhibited in public.215

Therefore, the young Norwegian painter could have only seen it through a personal contact with Caillebotte. Even though concrete evidence clarifying Munch’s acquaintance with the French painter has not been found yet, it is possible that he could have come to know Caillebotte through one of the Scandinavian artists, such as

Christian Krohg who went to Paris years before Munch and had knowledge of

Caillebotte’s work.216

Compared to Caillebotte’s A Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (fig. 6), Munch’s perspective in Rue Lafayette (fig. 5) is much higher and more exaggerated. More emphasis is placed on the diagonals of the balcony railing and the building’s roof lines by reducing at the same time the architectural details. The balcony railing and the roof lines converge at the vanishing point in the upper right, depriving some spaces of the sky. As a result, a tense sensation of depth, which differs distinctively from

Caillebotte’s relatively peaceful disposition, is achieved. Munch used this compositional method recurrently in the 1890s.217

Completed four years prior to A Balcony, Caillebotte’s painting Pont de l’Europe of 1876 (fig. 2) is represented with the distinctive perspective which

214 Edvard Munch, J. Gill Holland (ed.), The private journals of Edvard Munch: we are flames which pour out of the earth, Madison 2005, p. 184. 215 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 215, plate 41, note 2. 216 Reinhold Heller, Munch: his life and work, Chicago 1984, p. 230, note 56. 217 Ibid, p. 73. 66 emphasizes the diagonal lines. The remarkable recession on the radically skewed bridge of Pont de l’Europe may have inspired Munch’s Despair of 1892 (fig. 10) and

The Scream of 1893 (fig. 11), two legendary images of disturbed space in the late nineteenth century.218 The massive iron trusses from Pont de l’Europe can be made analogous to the bridge balustrades in Despair and The Scream; all of them are depicted in a rapid, oblique recession. In comparison, Munch depicts the bridge from a much higher viewpoint and a more tilted angle; thus, the bridge is risen up and largely cropped, the lines of the bridge balustrades converging with two figures in the left middle ground, almost cut off by the picture frame. The parallels between Pont de l’Europe, A Balcony and Munch’s Despair and The Scream can also be observed in the existence of a foreground figure leaning on the bridge balustrade. However, the foreground figure in Despair is much more enlarged and cropped at the level of its shoulders, which emphasizes the effect of visual closeness to the viewer. In Pont de l’Europe, Caillebotte’s foreground figure is portrayed in profile, gazing into the distance with his hands cupping his chin, seeming lost in thought. Following

Caillebotte, Munch depicts his foreground figure of Despair in profile; however, the figure appears more enigmatic as the viewer cannot see his facial expression. The protagonist’s hidden face hung over by the red sky with flaming clouds highlights a sense of despair, as indicated by the painting’s title. One year later, the man in

‘despair’ became the iconic figure of The Scream. The foreground figure in The

Scream turns its body to the viewer, with its head held by both hands and its mouth wide open in a mute scream. Anxiety and disturbance in The Scream is increased through the undulating lines used to illustrate the surrounding landscape. A theme in

The Pont de l’Europe – where two figures strolling towards the viewers from the left

218 Kirk Varnedoe with Peter Galassi, “Caillebotte’s Space,” in: Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 25. 67 background at a vanishing point where the iron bridge runs diagonally across the picture – can also be seen in Despair and The Scream. The rapid diminution of size of different figures in a painting in order to create perspective, a method very often practiced by Caillebotte, is also applied by this Norwegian artist. Although Despair and The Scream show themes and perspective manipulation corresponding to those in

The Pont de l’Europe, Munch and Caillebotte’s fundamental differences in style are still huge. In contrast to Caillebotte’s realistic approach, Munch uses expressive colors and brushstrokes. If Caillebotte’s Pont de l’Europe represents the photographic capture of city strollers in a sunny day of modern Paris, Munch’s The Scream is an emotional, psychological interpretation of an artist’s personal sentiments and experience. In his diary, Munch described the occasion on which he conceived this image:

“One evening I was walking out on a hilly path near Kristiania – with two comrades. It was a time when life had ripped my soul open. The sun was going down – had dipped in flames below the horizon. It was like a flaming sword of blood slicing through the concave of heaven. The sky was like blood – sliced with strips of fire – the hills turned deep blue the fjord – cut in cold blue, yellow, and red colors – The exploding bloody red – on the path and hand railing – my friends turned glaring yellow white – I felt a great scream – and I heard, yes, a great scream – the colors in nature – broke the lines of nature – the lines and colors vibrated with motion – these oscillations of life brought not only my eye into oscillations, it brought also my ears into oscillations – so I actually heard a scream – I painted the picture Scream then.”219

Munch’s description of the scene which he experiences on a hilly path is very subjective and emotional. These remarks, such as “the exploding bloody red – on the path and hand railing – my friends turned glaring yellow white”, show how Munch expresses himself through the usage of strong and fantastic colors.

219 Edvard Munch, edited and translated by Holland, J. Gill, The private journals of Edvard Munch: we are flames which pour out of the earth, Madison 2005, p. 64–65. 68

It is almost as if Munch merges his own feelings with an apperception of the natural scene when he described the loud scream he heard and how the lines and colors echoed his motion. The strong link between emotion and the colors is not simply demonstrated in Munch’s everyday expressions, but more importantly in his paintings. Colors in Munch’s works are often not faithfully rendered, but exaggerated, with the painter’s own imaginations. Contrarily, Caillebott follows a more realistic approach. In Pont de l’Europe, the depiction of the steam coming from the trains is so realistic that it seems as if we could really hear a train whistle.

In nineteenth century, Karl Johan was an important new boulevard in Christiania.

As shown in a contemporary postcard (private collection, fig. 69),220 it had three separate areas: “a sidewalk, a paved street for vehicles, and another treelined path for pedestrians, majestically led up to the Royal Palace.”221 During 1889–1891, Munch devoted himself to painting a series of Karl Johan Street such as Music on Karl Johan

Street and Rainy Day on Karl Johan Street (figs. 7–9). Rendered in sketchy manner and rough brushstrokes, the series of Karl Johan Street recalls the street views painted in French Impressionist style, such as The Boulevards under Snow (Les Boulevards exterieurs, effet de neige) by Pissarro (Paris, Musée Marmottan; fig. 70).222 Besides, some of their compositional features seem to be indebted to Caillebotte’s Paris Street;

Rainy Day (fig. 3). The street in Music on Karl Johan Street of 1889 (fig. 7) is painted from a street-level in a sweeping perspective. The scale of the looming figures is in sharp contrast with the military band in the distance. Those radically diminished figures unevenly distributed on the wide expanse of the road create an unsettling

220 Private collection, postcard of Karl Johans Street, Christiania (Oslo), c. 1900; Arne Eggum, Munch and photography, translated from Norwegian by Birgit Holm, New Haven 1989, p. 29. 221 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 80. 222 Paris, Musée Marmottan, oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm; the official website of Musée Marmottan at http://www.marmottan.fr/fr/Les_impressionnistes-musee-2519 (accessed August 20, 2015). 69 atmosphere and a sense of emptiness comparable to the effect of the empty space in

Paris Street; Rainy Day.223 Munch also appears to have followed Caillebotte’s approach of cropping the motifs. In the sketch for Spring Day on Karl Johan Street

(fig. 8), the figure at the right foreground is cut by the frame with only his head and left shoulder visible. In the finished canvas (fig. 7), the effect of a cropping motif is further intensified: a sharply-cut profile of a boy standing against a red parasol at the lower right of the canvas intrudes into the scene and thus creates a pushing-forward effect.224 Munch seems fascinated with the city street, as he depicts the street scene not only in a sunny (fig. 7) or a rainy day (fig. 9), but also its nocturnal condition which can be seen in the famous Evening on Karl Johan Street of 1892 (Bergen,

Rasmus Meyers Samlinger; fig. 71).225 This picture was actually derived from his own experience of a Paris street in 1889 as he remarked in his diary:

“I was outside again on the blue Boulevard des Italiens – with its bright electric lamps and yellow gaslights and the ghostly faces of a thousand strangers glowing under the electric light.”226

In this evening scene on Karl Johan Street, a crowd fills the left foreground of the canvas. With pale faces and absent-minded gazes, the zombie-like pedestrians walk directly toward the spectators and give the viewers the feeling of an impending attack.

In the preliminary sketch of 1889 (Oslo, Munch Museum; fig. 72),227 the sense of

“attack” is made stronger by an enlarged figure at the right foreground, who is going

223 Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987, p. 215, plate 41, note 2. 224 Thomas M. Messer, Edvard Munch, New York 1985, p. 54. 225 Bergen, Rasmus Meyers Samlinger, oil on canvas, 85 x 121 cm; Thomas M. Messer, Edvard Munch, New York 1985, p. 65, colorplate 9. 226 Edward Munch, “Notes, Saint Cloud 1889,” English translation quoted after Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 72. 227 Oslo, Munch Museum, pencil and black chalk on paper, 37 x 47 cm; Thomas M. Messer, Edvard Munch, New York 1985, p. 64, fig. 69. 70 toward the viewer’s side comparable to the positioning of the couple in Caillebotte

Paris Street; Rainy Day.228

Contrary to Caillebotte who allows broad foreground space for the viewer in

Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3), Munch applies a more confrontational view in

Evening on Karl Johan Street (fig. 71) in which the crowds walk directly toward the viewer creating an effect of oppression. Caillebotte’s city strollers offer the viewer a sense of comfort and leisure, while Munch’s looming flocks suggest a sense of uneasiness and anxiety.

To conclude, Munch, who is best known for his representations of human’s anxiety, hopelessness and fear, employed Caillebotte’s visual means, such as the plunging perspective (i.e. Rue Lafayette, Pont de l’Europe) and the cropping of the motifs (Paris Street; Rainy Day), and creates his own pictorial space full of anxiety and tension (i.e. The Scream, Evening on Karl Johan Street).

8. Caillebotte and the Italian Artists

8.1 Italian Artists in Nineteenth-Century Paris

Born and developed in Paris, the artistic movement of Impressionism was extremely influential in the 1870s and 1880s. In the French capital, Impressionist artists held their group exhibition eight times from 1874 to 1886. These independent shows attracted much attention from the critics and helped the French Impressionist artists become well-known and dominant in the 1870s and 1880s in Europe. Among other

European artists, native Italian artists were attracted by the artistic environments in the

French capital from the 1860s to the late 1870s. The Florentine painter and writer

Telemaco Signorini (1835–1901), for example, made his first trip to Paris in 1861.

228 Sharon L. Hirsh, Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004, p. 65. 71

S ome Italian painters even moved to Paris – Giuseppe De Nittis in 1868, Giovanni

Boldini (1842–1931) in 1871, Federico Zandomeneghi (1841–1917) in 1874229 – and established their careers in the French capital. Some of them (i.e. De Nittis,

Zandomeneghi) even exhibited with the Impressionists.230 In addition, they paid visits to the Impressionist Exhibitions and became friends with the leading French artists, such as Degas. Diego Martelli (1839–96), an important Italian art critic, also frequently travelled to Paris in the 1870s and wrote about the Impressionists.231

Moreover, the Universal Expositions attracted several Italian artists to go to Paris. In

1878, Mario de Maria (1852–1924), an artist from Bologna, spent some time in

Paris232 and the Divisionist painter Angelo Morbelli travelled to the French capital in

1889.233

8.2 Angelo Morbelli

The Italian Divisionists who got their name after their particular technique of using the division of colors through personalized brushstrokes became active during the

1890s and early 1900s.234 One of the first generation of the Divisionist painters was

Angelo Morbelli from Alessandria who did many paintings on subjects of laborers and the lives of the poor.

Not only the subject matter but also the artistic approach of Caillebotte’s paintings, especially The Floor Scrapers (fig. 1), evidently made a huge impression on Morbelli. A series of works executed after his trip to Paris in 1889 show evident

229 The biographies from Oxford Art online at http://0-www.oxfordartonline.com.opac.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/subscriber/. 230 Belinda Thomson, Impressionism: origins, practice, reception, New York 2000, p. 20. 231 Norma Broude, The Macchiaioli: Italian painters of the nineteenth century, New Haven 1987, pp. 269-270. 232 Arduino Colasanti, “Mario de Maria,” in: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1931, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Enciclopedia_Italiana)/. 233 Rossella Canuti, “Morbelli, Angelo,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 76, Rome 2012, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/angelo-morbelli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 234 Simonetta Fraquelli, Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891-1910, London 2008, p. 11. 72 analogies to Caillebotte’s works. It is not clear on what occasion Morbelli has seen the painting in Paris. The parallels, however, are so striking that it can be taken for granted that he had the opportunity to closely study Caillebotte’s work during his stay in the French capital. Sold at an auction in 1877 organized by the Impressionists at the

Hôtel Drouot in Paris, The Floor Scrapers was bought back by Caillebotte and kept in his hand until his death in 1894.235 Morbelli, however, could still have the opportunity to get to know Caillebotte’s work; he could have been a guest in

Caillebotte’s studio.

Between 1867 and 1876, Angelo Morbelli had studied at the renowned Brera

Academy in Milan under Giuseppe Bertini (1825–98), Raffaele Casnedi (1822–92) and Luigi Riccardi (1808–77). Early in his career, he won prizes for his works.236 As an enthusiastic reader, Morbelli was equally inspired by the works of Italian Realists such as Giovanni Verga (1840–1922) and Luigi Capuana (1839–1915) as well as by contemporary French literature such as the works of Émile Zola, Gustave Flaubert

(1821–80), Guy de Maupassant (1850–93) and Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850).237

His extensive reading and his life-long friendship with the painter Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1868–1907) influenced him with socialist views which can be seen in his attention to the underprivileged sections of the population portrayed in his paintings.238

Starting from 1883, Morbelli painted a cycle of more than six canvases which he called The Poem of Old Age (figs. 4, 14–18).239 All these works were painted at

235 Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 76. 236 Rossella Canuti, “Morbelli, Angelo,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 76, Rome 2012, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/angelo-morbelli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 237 Ibid. 238 Ibid. 239 Lara Pucci, “Notes on Artists and Paintings,” in: Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891-1910, London 2008, p. 150. 73 the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, the famous home for the elderly and the poor in Milan.240

The series of The poem of Old Age include: Last Days! of 1883 (fig. 14), Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan of 1892 (fig. 4), I remember when I was a girl (Mi riccordo quand’ero fanciulla) of 1903 (Tortona, private collection; fig. 15),241

Christmas of the Left Behind (Il Natale dei rimasti) of 1903 (Venice, Ca’ Pesaro,

Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna; fig. 16),242 A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo

Trivulzio (Un Natale! al Pio Albergo Trivulzio) of 1909 (Turin, Galleria Civica D’Arte

Moderna e Contemporanea; fig. 17),243 and The Refectory of the Old People (Il refettorio dei vecchioni) of 1919 (private collection; fig. 18).244 The recurring theme in these canvases is the desolate situation of the impoverished old people of his time. The men and women at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio are depicted praying, having meals or just sitting on long benches in the immense, scarcely furnished halls of the institution. Morbelli’s pessimistic viewpoint is not only expressed by the paintings’ subjects and the way they are depicted, but also by the carefully chosen titles which are often full of sarcasm. This can be seen in Last Days! and A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio when exclamation marks are used in the titles to emphasise further Morbelli’s social criticism. Although the six paintings differ in their content as well as in their composition, every canvas shares a common feeling of melancholy and loneliness. A gloomy atmosphere surrounds the elderly in need who assemble at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio; the painter focuses on infirmity and

240 He installed a small studio there for some time; ibid. 241 Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Tortona, private collection, 1903, oil on canvas, 71 x 110.5 cm; Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 84. 242 Venice, Ca’ Pesaro, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, oil on canvas, 62 x 110.5 cm; Aurora Scotti Tosini, Angelo Morbelli, Soncino 1991, p. 86. 243 Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, oil on canvas, 99 x 173.5 cm; Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 83. 244 Milan, Civiche Raccolte Storiche, Museo di Milano, oil on canvas, 43 x 55 cm; Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 91. 74 inactiveness from their facial expression and posture, thus making the hopeless situation at the end of their lives tangible to the viewers.

Morbelli’s first painting was Last Days! finished in 1883 (fig. 14); this work not only won him the Premio Fumagalli at the Brera Academy,245 but, more importantly, a gold medal at the Universal Exposition of 1889 which was held from 6 May to 31

October 1889 in Paris.246 Last Days! shows a wide room crowded with uncounted men sitting closely side by side on austere ranks of benches, all wearing uniform dark garments and most of them black caps. Depicted from a diagonal point of view, the dimensions of these figures are gradually diminishing towards the background. The painter, thus, emphasises the large number of people. In a similar way, he stresses the wideness and ascetic character of the room with its vast ochre walls and high beamed ceiling. A round-arched door in the right foreground, a small entrance in the back, and two transom windows are the only openings. A small heater at the rear wall indicates that the immense room must have been rather cold. The bleak atmosphere is also emphasized by the two simple lamps hanging from the ceiling which are certainly not suitable to light the room sufficiently. These physical aspects of the environment indicate a sense of despair and hopelessness. Forcefully, Morbelli makes the viewer feel the gloomy atmosphere of the scenery. Albeit sitting closely next to each other, the men are shown in absolute isolation, immersed in their solitude. The elderly have no interactions with each other. Most of them are sitting with their heads bowed; a few of them are holding their heads with one of their hands; one of them rests his head on the desk for a little doze. Neither delight nor cheerfulness could be seen from the facial expression of these old men; their melancholic presence makes the mood in the room even more mournful and dispirited.

245 Rossella Canuti, “Morbelli, Angelo,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 76, Rome 2012, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/angelo-morbelli_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 246 Ibid. 75

In the second work of the series – Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan

(fig. 4) executed in 1892, the air of solitude and desperation is even more intense. The painting was also exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris, this time in the year

1900.247 After Morbelli’s first visit to Paris in 1889, a radical change is introduced in the subsequent canvas. As both paintings depict the same environment and situation, the difference between the versions of 1883 and 1892, as I will demonstrate, becomes even more evident.

Different from the first version of 1883, the hall in Feast Day at the Hospice

Trivulzio (fig. 4) is now nearly empty. Only three old men and one partially appearing figure at the left border of the painting are present during the feast days. This time

Morbelli has made the composition clearer and simpler, putting more emphasis on the single figures and the patterns of the furnishing in the room such as the benches and the windows. In the series of The Poem of Old Age, Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio is the first work where the artist applies the method of making repetitive patterns in the scene. Patterns in Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio are mainly composed of firm and parallel lines, which outline the surfaces of the bench tables, and thus help to stress the effect of perspective. Surprisingly, the way of applying parallel lines in

Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio is very similar to the arrangement of floor strips in

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1). Caillebotte’s floor strips are comparable to the lines of empty benches in Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio, as both of them put the accent on the perspective. The parallel arrangement of the benches also helps to lead the viewer’s eye toward the off-center vanishing point on the left background beyond the canvas. With the possibility of having been inspired by Caillebotte’s Floor

Scrapers, Morbelli was much impressed by the perspective with an off-center

247 William Walton, Victor Champier and André Saglio, Exposition universelle 1900: the chefs-d’œuvre, Philadelphia 1990, p. 20. 76 vanishing point, and he also used parallel lines to accentuate the sharp effect of perspective. What’s more, Morbelli learned the unusual way of cropping images from

Caillebotte’s works. Comparable to the slightly fragmented cutting of one corner of the room in Floor Scrapers, the composition of Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio is applied with the cutting of the ceiling, the edges of the walls and one figure with only his hands and one leg appeared in the picture plane. Morbelli’s Feast Day at the

Hospice Trivulzio and Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers share the approach of applying photographic “zoom-in” effect in the composition.

Evidently, Morbelli appears to be a painter of social criticism.248 The paintings in The Poem of Old Age series show his close attention to the poor and the aged. From the first version of 1883 to the second version of 1892, Morbelli’s attitude of treating the protagonists has slightly changed. The anonymity of the men in the Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio (fig. 4) is much more emphasized as their facial expressions are nearly invisible. The old man in the far right background is dozing with one of his hand holding his head; the one in the far left background is staring at the empty table with his eyes lowered; the one in the foreground is resting his head on the desk for a nap. On the left, the frame of the picture shows legs and hands of a man who has placed his cane, coat and hat on the table in front of him. This man is more likely a temporary visitor who is looking at these three old men sitting alone and pessimistically on the benches. Impressively, Morbelli draws out the symbolic and emotional implications of the loneliness and helplessness of the elderly. By contrast,

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) is devoid of any criticism towards social hierarchy and injustice depicted in Morbelli’s works. It is the vigour and physical movement of the workers that has been highlighted in Floor Scrapers. Unlike

248 Linda Schädler, “Notes on Artists and Paintings,” in: Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891-1910, London 2008, p. 149. 77

Morbelli, Caillebotte appears to have no intention to focus on the social issues of the ordinary people. Considering his own wealthy background, Caillebote’s attitude towards the living conditions of the workers seems to be more naïve and even more indifferent than Morbelli’s attitude.

Parallel features between the Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio (fig. 4) and The

Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) are not only represented in the treatment of perspective and cropping, but are also manifest in the artists’ interest in depicting light effects.

Comparable to Caillebotte’s delicate depiction of the light reflections on the wooden floor and the skin surface of the workers’ backs and arms, Morbelli, in Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio, also puts emphasis on the reflections of light on different surfaces such as the walls, the glass window and the wooden benches. In this aspect, both Morbelli and Caillebotte pay much attention to illustrate the material quality of things. Instead of using the rigid Divisionism points, Morbelli paints Feast Day at the

Hospice Trivulzio with extensive brushstrokes, which is closer to the way Caillebotte uses his brushes in The Floor Scrapers.

As in Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio (fig. 4), loneliness and desperation of the poor old people are further developed in a painting entitled A Christmas! at the

Pio Albergo Trivulzio (fig. 17) executed in 1909. Compared to the Feast Day at the

Hospice Trivulzio of 1892, the atmosphere in A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo

Trivulzio is even more lonesome, as there are only two protagonists present at one corner of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio. A similar composition which appears in the 1892 version (Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio) is also applied in this canvas: an off-center vanishing point is led by the parallel rows of empty benches. In A

Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio as well as Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio,

Morbelli’s handling of perspective is not as plunging as in Caillebotte’s Floor

Scrapers (fig. 1). The degree in which the floor is tilted is smaller in Morbelli’s 78 painting of the elderly at Pio Albergo Trivulzio. Caillebotte uses the floor strips, while

Morbelli chooses the parallel benches as an accent on the perspective which is titled upward. In addition to the use of perspective, Morbelli’s color scheme is to some extent similar to that in Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers. The tones in A Christmas! at the

Pio Albergo Trivulzio and Floor Scrapers are dominated by retrained colors such as brown, beige and ocher. However, both Morbelli and Caillebotte add some light to their works. A wide glistening space in Floor Scrapers is highlighted with umber-based golden colors in numerous places: the reflections on the workers’ bare upper bodies, their faces, their tools, the wooden floor, the bottle on the ground and the backlight from the window. On the other hand, Morbelli lets the room glimmers with a beam of light from an unseen window. Light source in the room in A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio is small and narrow, which only shed light on one row of the benches. The rest of the room remains in shadows. In short, the visual quality in

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers is more glittering than that in Morbelli’s A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio.

Painted in 1887 and 1889, two versions of Milan Central Station (La Stazione

Centrale di Milano; figs. 73, 74)249 are Morbelli’s rare representations of an urban scenery which depict the old Milan Central Station constructed in 1864.250 The two versions are rendered from a nearly identical angle as if they are two “successive snapshots” of the same scene.251 Compared to the first version, the second version’s composition is much more cropped as the locomotive on the right foreground is cropped more by the frame. The second version was painted in 1889, the year when

249 Milan Central Station (Alla Stazione Centrale di Milano), 1887, oil on cavnas, 86 x 132 cm, Ente Autonomo Ferrovie dello Stato, Rome; Milan Central Station in 1889 (La Stazione Centrale di Milano nel 1889), 1889, oil on cavnas, 57.5 x 100 cm, Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan. 250 The current station was inaugurated in 1931, in order to replace the old central station built in 1864. Script Edizioni, Milan, Bologna 2012, p. 8. 251 Aurora Scotti Tosini, Angelo Morbelli, Soncino 1991, p. 62. 79

Morbelli paid a visit to the Universal Exposition in Paris.252 Morbelli could have seen

Impressionist paintings in Paris and learned the way in which the motifs are cropped such as Caillebotte’s characteristic cropping of the figures in Paris Street; Rainy Day

(fig. 3). Furthermore, in Morbelli’s Milan Central Station, the emphasized perspective achieved by the converging lines of the rail tracks is evocative of the striped floor in

Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1).

Italian scholars (i.e. Aurora Scotti Tosini) often compare Morbelli’s Milan

Central Station with Claude Monet’s series of Gare Saint-Lazare (figs. 45, 75) in terms of their similar compositions and illustrations of the smoky vapor.253 In fact,

Morbelli places more emphasis on the atmospheric light and renders it in a smoothly painted surface,254 whereas Monet appears fascinated with the “changing effects of the cloud of steam”255 and interprets steams with rough brushstrokes. In my opinion,

Morbelli’s more smoothly finished surfaces are closer to Caillebotte’s works between

1875 and 1877. It is the stress on clear vanishing lines, especially evident in the railroad tracks and platform’s borders leading into the pictures’ depths in Milan

Central Station, which demonstrates the extent to which Morbelli has been influenced by Caillebotte’s compositional style.

In short, the major similarities between the Divisionist painter Morbelli’s works discussed above and Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1) are their compositions (i.e. empty space) and the artistic qualities (i.e. smoothly painted surfaces, depictions of light effects).

252 Linda Schädler, “Notes on Artists and Paintings,” in: Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891-1910, London 2008, p. 149. 253 Aurora Scotti Tosini, Angelo Morbelli, Soncino 1991, p. 62. 254 Monica Vinardi, “Schede,” in: Aurora Scotti Tosini, et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 138. 255 Notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/la-gare- saint-lazare-7080.html?no_cache=1. 80

8.3 Mario de Maria

Among the Italians who visited Paris, the Bolognese painter Mario de Maria’s affinity with Caillebotte in technique and style is apparent in paintings composed even years after his return to Italy. This is demonstrated not only by a title such as A Boulevard in

Paris, night Effect (Un boulevard a Parigi, effetto notte)256 which evidently resembles

Caillebotte’s title Boulevard Haussmann, Snow Effect, but also by paintings such as

Quai du Louvre in Paris. Moonlight (Quai du Louvre à Paris. Claire de lune; Carpi,

Palazzo Foresti; fig. 76),257 One summer evening in Paris (Veiled moon) [Una sera d’estate a Parigi (Luna velata); private collection; fig. 77]258 and Pont Neuf

(whereabouts unknown)259 in which the street views echo Caillebotte’s city scenes. In fact, De Maria’s title A Boulevard in Paris, night Effect is closely related to the pattern of titles favored by French Impressionists. For example, Claude Monet’s Two Path at

Argenteuil (Chemin de Halage à Argenteuil) of 1875 (New York, Albright-Knox Art

Gallery; fig. 78),260 was originally entitled Chemin d’Epinay, Snow Effect (Le Chemin d’Epinay, effet de neige) in the catalog of 1876 Impressionist Exhibition. Caillebotte, too, has used such titles to suggest the momentary atmospheric quality of the scenes depicted.

256 According to Elena Di Raddo, when De Maria’s painting Quai du Louvre à Paris. Claire de lune was exhibited in 1886 in Rome, the tile of which was Un boulevard a Parigi, effetto note; Elena Di Raddo, “Schede della opere,” in: Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013, p. 142. 257 Carpi, Palazzo Foresti, from Enrichetta Castellani 1909, oil on canvas, 62 x 50 cm, signature bottom right: “Marius de Maria,” written words on the bottom right over the signature reads: “I give this memory of my beloved Paris to my good friend and artist Henriette Castellani (Questo ricordo della mia cara Parigi l’offro alla mia buona amica ed artista Enrichetta Castellani)”; Elena Di Raddo, “Schede della opere,” in: Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013, p. 142. 258 Private collection, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 60.8 cm, signature bottom left: “Marius de Maria”; Elena Di Raddo, “Schede della opere,” in: Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013, p. 142. 259 “Nicoletta Cardano, Mario de Maria,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38, Rome 1990, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 260 New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Gift of Charles Clifton, oil on canvas, 60 x 100 cm, signature bottom right: “Claude Monet”; Ruth Berson, The New painting: impressionism 1874–1886: documentation, volume II: exhibited works, San Francisco 1996, p. 40, II-150. 81

From 1872 to 1878, De Maria studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti) in Bologna under the history and portrait painter Antonio Puccinelli

(1822–97).261 However, he was dissatisfied with the academic training and ignored the teachings from his mentor. Between 1873 and 1878, De Maria undertook several trips to European capitals, such as Vienna, London and Paris. During his journey to

Paris in 1878, he visited the Universal Exposition and probably came to know some

French painters.262 The two paintings completed after he had returned to Bologna,

Quai du Louvre in Paris (fig. 76) and One summer evening in Paris (fig. 77), show his interpretations of the French capital’s urban milieu. The former’s compositional design reveals an interpretation of space similar to Caillebotte’s city views such as the one depicted in Boulevard Haussmann, Snow Effect (private collection; fig. 79)263 even though the two artists view the road from different heights. De Maria approaches the space from street level, while Caillebotte from a balcony. Both of them use a building in the foreground as repoussoir264 which projects into the picture plane from the left: a kiosk in Quai du Louvre in Paris and a corner of a building in Boulevard

Haussmann, Snow Effect; both the kiosk and the building mass are partially cropped by the frame, which creates a close-up effect. As Caillebotte in Boulevard Haussmann,

Snow Effect, De Maria has painted the road in a diagonal scope which is defined by the kiosk in the left foreground, and the probable south façade of Louvre in the right background. The overall tone of De Maria’s canvas is much darker than Caillebotte’s.

In Quai du Louvre, the colors of the buildings’ façades, the road surface and the kiosk

261 The biography of Mario de Maria from Oxford Art online at http://0-www.oxfordartonline.com.opac.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/subscriber/. 262 Nicoletta Cardano, Mario de Maria,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38, Rome 1990, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 263 Private collection, 1880–1881, oil on canvas, 81 x 66 cm, stamp bottom right: “G. Caillebote”; . Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 143, no. 179. 264 Rodolphe Rapetti, “Paris Seen from a Window,” in: Anne Dayez-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, p. 156, calls this “near element.” 82 are dull and in sharp contrast to the brighter colors of the snow which has accumulated in front of the kiosk and the curls of clouds in the sky. Parallel to

Caillebotte’s rough brushstrokes of the snow on the boulevard, De Maria’s snow and clouds are characterized by thick patches of color. In general, his Quai du Louvre in

Paris is indebted to Caillebotte’s street scenes not only in the compositional scheme but also in the roughly brushed surface following the Impressionist style.

Another portrayal of the French capital by De Maria, One summer evening in

Paris (fig. 77), represents a rather fantastic aspect of the city. The painting shows an early evening when the red-orange light from the setting sun is faintly glimmering through the clouds. A four-story apartment building is depicted in a diagonal view with lit-up French windows and encompassed by some trees. A carriage and a few pedestrians are passing in front of the building. The dark road reflects some light coming from inside a restaurant in the building’s ground floor. At the right side, a colorfully lit-up kiosk stands out against a dark wall of trees. In the background, the silhouette of a tower, presumably the Eiffel Tower, constructed in the years 1887–89, appears between two tall buildings.265 The building lit up by the strong red-orange light gives the whole scene a fantastic atmosphere; a figure silhouetted against the light inside the house on the ground floor further intensifies the mysterious aspect.

In 1882, after his trip to other European cities, De Maria moved to Rome where he developed his own artistic style.266 He is well known for evocative images of night scenes which describe unusual and esoteric aspects of nature.267 For example, his famous Moon on the tables of a tavern (Luna sulle tavole di un’osteria; Rome,

265 During Mario de Maria’s stay in Paris in 1878, the Eiffel Tower did not yet exist; however, since the painting was approximately dated between 1880 and 1890, covering the years in which the tower was constructed (1887–1889), De Maria could know the most representative architecture in Paris and showed it in his painting of the French capital. 266 Nicoletta Cardano, Mario de Maria,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38, Rome 1990, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 267 The biography of Mario de Maria from Oxford Art online at http://0-www.oxfordartonline.com.opac.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/subscriber/. 83

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea; fig. 80)268 of 1884 is a great representation of moonlight, which arouses an uncanny feeling towards the scene. The painting was actually inspired by a tragic event. One night, De Maria went to a tavern in the area of Prati di Castello where a crime had just happened; a man had been murdered.269 After the place was cleared up, the artist captured the atmosphere in a drawing. The following day, he painted the empty tables and benches lit up by moonlight.270 In fact, there is more than one painting by De Maria with the similar moonlight scene. He obviously likes to repeat topics such as those of the empty tables and benches illuminated by moonlight. For instance, Studio (courtyard) [Studio

(cortile); Bologna, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; fig. 81]271 of 1880 is an earlier work with the subject similar to that in Moon on the tables of a tavern.

The perspective in Moon on the tables of a tavern (fig. 80) reinforced by the effect of the alignment of the benches and tables appear to echo Caillebotte’s treatment of perspective in the Floor Scrapers (fig. 1). Although De Maria’s subject and setting are totally different from that of the Floor Scrapers – an open yard in the former’s composition and an apartment’s interior in the latter’s, the two paintings share some similarities in terms of the characterization of the composition’s “visual extremes.”272 The tilted floor in Caillebotte’s composition is comparable to the

268 Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, purchased from the VIII Venice Biennale, oil on canvas, 40 x 31 cm; notice of the work from Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea at http://www.gnam.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/23/gli-artisti-e-le-opere/458/luna-sulle-tavole-di-unosteri a. 269 Flavia Scotton et al., Mario de Maria: nell’atelier del pittore delle lune, exhibition catalog, Venice 1983/84, Milan 1983, p. 15. 270 Short description from Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome at http://www.gnam.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/23/gli-artisti-e-le-opere/458/luna-sulle-tavole-di-unosteri a (accessed December 5, 2014). 271 Bologna, Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, from Milan collection G. Gallina, oil on canvas, 33 x 25.5 cm; Elena Di Raddo, “Schede della opere,” in: Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013, p. 145. 272 Michael Marrinan, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, p. 24. 84 plunging alignment of benches and tables in De Maria’s. As Caillebotte puts much emphasis on the light effects on the floor which fills most of the space in his composition, De Maria employs the majority of the canvas for the depiction of the surfaces of benches and tables, and portrays the effect of moonlight through the presentation of reflections and shadows on these surfaces. However, De Maria’s light seems more artificial, like the spotlight on stage. As a result, a sense of mysterious suspension is intensified by the artificial quality of the moonlight and the vacant tables.

In 1892, De Maria settled in Venice and later used the pseudonym “Marius

Pictor” for the rest of his career.273 Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of Good Weather274

(Rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera; Paris, Musée d’Orsay; fig. 82)275 is one of his paintings taking up the atmosphere of Venice in an evening scene under a red sky.

Referring to an Italian proverb, the title of this painting suggests red sky in the evening is a promise of good weather the next day. According to the inscription at the lower right border, this painting was executed in Venice between 1882–1909.276 The long period of time taken to finish this painting raises some questions. As De Maria stayed in Rome since 1882 and had not settled in Venice until 1892,277 1882 might be too early for De Maria to begin this picture in Venice, if he did not start it during a shorter visit. Maybe, the painter dated his work retrospectively, before he submitted it

273 Nicoletta Cardano, Mario de Maria,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38, Rome 1990, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 274 Mario de Maria’s Rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera has no official English title. The title I applied to the painting refers to a rather free translation of the Italian proverb which in English usually reads: “Red Sky at Night, Shepherd’s Delight.” See the online Collins dictionary at www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-italian. 275 Paris, Musée d’Orsay, oil on canvas, 70 x 69.5 cm, RF 1977 430, JdeP 276, LUX 663, signature bottom left, MP formant un monogramme: “M. Pictor”, date bottom right: “Venezia 1882–1909”; notice de l’œuvre from Musée d’Orsay at http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/notice.html?no_cache=1&zsz=5&lnum=3. 276 Ibid. The painting was dated bottom right: “Venezia 1882–1909” and it was exhibited at the IX International Art Exhibition of Venice in 1910. 277 Nicoletta Cardano, Mario de Maria,” in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 38, Rome 1990, available online at http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mario-de-maria_(Dizionario-Biografico)/. 85 at the exhibition.

De Maria’s Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of Good Weather (fig. 82) depicts an evening scene at a fondamenta,278 most probably located in Venice. The scene might represent the evening procession during the feast of the Candelora (Candlemas) celebrated on 2 February.279 It focuses on women with lighted candles who are following the procession at the moment when they are crossing a bridge over a canal.

A few clerics carrying crosses lead the women. In the composition, red-orange light emitting from the sky in the background to the right is reflected on the sea, the buildings’ façades and the parapet of the bridge. The wet pavement of the fondamenta and an umbrella brought by a woman to the left of the canvas suggest that it just stopped raining. As in the moon light scene discussed previously, the reflections of light on the parapets of the bridge and the plunging lines from the parapets’ edges echo the floors depicted in Caillebotte’s Floor Scrapers (fig. 1). Compared to the uniformly gray tonality in Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3), De Maria applies thicker and richer colors. Rendered with expressive colors and effective manipulation of light and shadows, Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of Good Weather manages to produce the effect of the momentary quality of a perception.

In Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of Good Weather (fig. 82), De Maria leaves aside

Caillebotte’s metropolitan scenery of Paris (i.e. Paris Street; Rainy Day; fig. 3), but learns instead from the French painter’s visual means (i.e. reflections on the wet pavements; passers-by). This reminds us of Krogh’s Village street at Grez (fig. 67), in which Caillebotte’s visual elements, a rainy day scene and plunging perspective of the street (Paris Street; Rainy Day), are employed in a suburban scenery. In a comparative way, De Maria benefitted from Caillebotte’s handling of the motifs, this

278 Fondamenta is a Venetian lane which runs the length of the border of the lagoon. 279 In Italy, the feast of the Candelora (Candlemas) is to celebrate the Purification of the Virgin Mary. 86 time making a Venetian scene with wet pavement, plunging vanishing lines and reflections of the surface of the parapets (fig. 79).

To sum up, although most of De Maria’s works are described as Symbolism, several of his paintings executed in the 1880s after his trip to Paris show some similarities in subjects and compositions with the works by the French Impressionists, especially Caillebotte’s. Different from Caillebotte, who hardly depicts night scenes,

De Maria is fascinated with the depictions of night views, especially the moonlight. In

De Maria’s Moon on the tables of a tavern (fig. 80) and Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of

Good Weather (fig. 82), he takes Caillebotte’s methods, such as the plunging perspective used to emphasize the depth in space, and composes night scenes with the reflections of moonlight.

9. Conclusion: The Response to Caillebotte’s Works in Europe

When exhibited at the Second Impressionist Exhibition in 1876, Caillebotte’s Floor

Scrapers (fig. 1) exercised a particular visual impact on its contemporaries, due to the painter’s monumentalizing of a group of half-naked, heavy-working men restoring the floor of a bourgeois apartment. Caillebotte’s innovation was articulated in a distinctive way to depict the urban proletarians from a higher viewpoint, and paint the floor in an abruptly converging perspective. In a rather short range of time; that is until the early 1880s, a few large-format canvases followed, now representing scenes from the city life in Paris. The well-designed space with looming perspectival depth, sharp diminution of scale and cropping of motifs in The Pont de l’Europe (fig. 2) and

Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 3) are manifestations of Caillebotte’s modern aesthetic.

The artist’s idiom for portraying an urban landscape is so distinctive that it generated some responses among the contemporary painters who had come to Paris and could

87 have known Caillebotte’s work.

Many foreign artists were driven by the art scene in Paris, the capital of art in the late nineteenth century. A large number of them stayed in Paris for a period of time, studying under the history painter Thomas Couture (1815–1879) or the portrait painter

Léon Bonnat. Other foreigners paid visits to important shows such as the Universal

Expositions or the Impressionist Exhibitions.280 For example, the Swedish painter

Karl Nordström, a member of the Scandinavian artists’ colonies in Paris and

Grez-sur-Loing, visited the seventh Impressionist Exhibition (1882) at which

Caillebotte’s works were shown.281 The Swedish painter in his diary revealed a positive response to the show: “We had studied the Impressionists at an exhibition in

Paris and we were filled with new ideas.”282 However, Nordström was not the only artist who was in contact with Caillebotte or other Impressionists in the nineteenth century. Caillebotte exercised a strong influence on other artists, too. After the seventh

Impressionist Exhibition in 1882, Caillebotte did no longer show works in public; most of his paintings were kept in his own property. For those artists who came to

Paris after 1882, the possibility for them to know Caillebotte’s works was to visit him personally or through someone who were in contact with him. Indeed, this could be possible. Known as a generous man who had financed several Impressionist

Exhibitions and often invited friends to his house,283 Caillebotte could have had the

280 John Milner, The studios of Paris: the capital of art in the Late Nineteenth Century, London 1988, p. 109. 281 The biography of Karl Nordström from Oxford Art online at http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/. 282 Ibid, note 207. 283 In a letter from Caillebotte to Pissarro about the preparation of an exhibition, his way of networking on the basis of friendship is confirmed: “Wednesday 1877 My dear Pissarro, Will you come to dinner at my house next Monday? I am returning from London and would like to discuss certain matters with you relative to a possible exhibition. Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Manet will be there. I count absolutely on you. Monday at seven o’clock. All my best, 88 opportunity to invite foreign artists to his studio.

This thesis focused on Caillebotte’s paintings in the years 1875–1877 and tried to give a more complete panorama of the echo of Caillebotte’s style in Europe towards the end of the nineteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the pictures by the here presented six artists from Belgium, Norway and Italy, whether during or after their visits to Paris, show qualities, which are directly or indirectly associated with Caillebotte’s work. First, the artists took visual aspects from

Caillebotte’s unorthodox compositions, that is, his particular perspectival space, his way of cropping motifs and his employing light effects, then digesting these compositional means on their own terms and making images in their environments.

Caillebotte created his work against the background of a bourgeois environment in

Hausmann’s Paris, while the other artists came from rather different circumstances.

While keeping Caillebotte’s methods in mind, in most of the cases they did not locate their sceneries in Paris, but focused instead on the urban milieu of their home countries or the situation in a more rural environment. Second, the artists followed

Caillebottes’s realistic manner in painting the momentary quality of their perception, such as the atmospheric effects of light. It is the visual quality achieved by a smoothly finished surface in Caillebottes’s canvases that impressed other artists.

The influence of Caillebotte’s style on other European artists does exist; however,

G. Caillebotte” An English translation quoted after Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in: Charles S. Moffett et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986, p. 189. Caillebotte’s original French letter was quoted in Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, p. 273, letter no. 5 as follows: “Mercredi, s. D. [1877] Mon cher Pissarro, Voudriez-vous venir lundi prochain dîner à la maison ? Je viens de Londres et voudrais vous dire certaines choses relativement à une exposition possible. Vous vous trouverez chez moi avec Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley et Manet. Je compte absolument sur vous. A lundi, 7 h.Tout à vous. G. Caillebotte.” 89 the rationalization of the visual commonalities between artists from various backgrounds is very complicated and sometimes ambiguous.

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New York 1974/75, New York 1974 Dayez-Distel, Anne et al., Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, exhibition catalog, Paris–Chicago–Los Angeles 1994/95, New York 1995 Daulte, François and Claude Richebé, Monet et ses amis; le legs Michel Monet, la donation Donop de Monchy, Paris 1971 Delevoy, Robert L., Fernand Khnopff, Brussels 1987 Denvir, Bernard (ed.), The impressionists at first hand, London 1987 Di Raddo, Elena et al., Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852– 1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013 Di Raddo, Elena, Mario de Maria: pictor di storie misteriose nella pittura simbolista europeaa, Milan 2013 Eggum, Arne, Munch and photography, translated from Norwegian by Birgit Holm, New Haven 1989 Fauchereau, Serge, Pour ou contre l’impressionnisme, Paris 1994 Fonsmark, Anne-Birgitte, Gustave Caillebotte, Ostfildern 2008 Fraquelli, Simonetta et al., Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters 1891–1910, exhibition catalog, London/Zurich, 2008/09, London 2008 Frascina, Francis, Modernity and modernism: French painting in the nineteenth century, New Haven 1993 Fried, Michael, “Caillebotte’s Impressionism,” in: Representations, no. 66, 1999, pp. 1–51 Forgione, Nancy, “Everyday Life in Motion: The Art of Walking in Late-Nineteenth-Century Paris,” in: The Art Bulletin 87, no. 4, Dec. 2005, pp. 664–687 Foucart, Bruno, “Caillebotte: le militant de l’impressionnisme,” in: Beaux arts magazine 31, 1986, pp. 38–47 Piantoni, Gianna and Anne Pingeot (eds.), Italie 1880–1910: arte alla prova della modernità, Turin 2000 Gerard, Helen, “INNOVATIONS AT VENICE: The XVth International Biennial,” in: The American Magazine of Art 17, no. 10, 1926, pp. 515–524 Greene, Vivien et al., Divisionism, Neo-Impressionism: arcadia & anarchy, exhibition catalog, Berlin/New York, 2007, New York 2007 Groom, Gloria Lynn (ed.), Impressionism, fashion & modernity, Chicago 2012 Hannah, Daniel, “Henry James, Impressionism, and Publicity,” in: Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 61, no. 2, 2007, pp. 28–43 Heller, Reinhold, Munch: his life and work, Chicago 1984 Heller, Reinhold, Edvard Munch: The Scream, New York 1972 Herbert, Robert Louis, Impressionism: art, leisure, and Parisian society, New Haven 1988 Hirsh, Sharon L., Symbolism and modern urban society, Cambridge 2004 92

House , John and Mary Anne Stevens (eds.), Post-impressionism: cross-currents in European painting, London 1979 Huth, Hans, “Impressionism Comes to America,” in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts 29, 1946, pp. 225–252 James, Henry, Parisian sketches, New York 1957 Julius, Muriel, “Gustave Caillebotte–painter of a new Paris,” in: The contemporary Review 268, no. 1565, 1996, pp. 308–311 Kang, Minsoo and Amy Woodson-Boulton (eds), Visions of the industrial age, 1830– 1914: modernity and the anxiety of representation in Europe, Aldershot 2008 Kelder, Diane, The great book of post-impressionism, New York 1986 Laurent, Jeanne, Pierre Vaisse and Jacques Chardeau, “The New Caillebotte Affair,” in: October 31, Winter 1984, pp. 69–90 Lees, Sarah et al., Giovanni Boldini in impressionist Paris, exhibition catalog, Ferrara–Williamstown 2009/10, New Haven 2009 Lemoine, Serge et al., Dans l’intimite des frères Caillebotte: peintre et photographe, exhibition catalog, Paris–Quebec 2011/12, Paris 2011 Lévêque, Jean Jacques, Les années impressionnistes: 1870–1889, Paris 1990 Lévêque, Jean-Jacques, Gustave Caillebotte: l’oublié de l’Impressionnisme, 1848-1894, Paris 1994 Lewis, Mary Tompkins, Critical readings in impressionism and post-impressionism: an anthology, Berkeley 2007 Lightstone, Rosanne, “Gustave Caillebotte’s Oblique Perspective: A New Source for Le Pont de l’Europe,” in: The Burlington Magazine 136, no. 1100, Nov. 1994, pp. 759–762 Lloyd, Christopher, “An Unknown Sketchbook by Gustave Caillebotte,” in: Master Drawings 26, no. 2, 1988, pp. 107–118, 145–169 Lombardi, Laura, From realism to art nouveau, translated from Italian by Angela Arnone, New York 2009 Loshak, David, “Space, Time and Edvard Munch,” in: The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1033, 1989, pp. 273–282 Marrinan, Michael, “Caillebotte as Professional Painter: From Studio to the Public Eye,” in: Norma Broude, Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, New Brunswick 2002, pp. 21–65 Messer, Thomas M., Edvard Munch, New York 1985 Milner, John, The studios of Paris: the capital of art in the Late Nineteenth Century, London 1988 Miracco, Renato et al., De Nittis: impressionista italiano, exhibition catalog, Rome 2004/05, Milan 2005 Moffett, Charles S. et al., The New painting: Impressionism 1874–1886, exhibition catalog, Washington–San Francisco 1986, San Francisco 1986 Morton, Mary and George Shackelford, Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, 93

Chicago 2015 Munch, Edvard, J. Gill Holland (ed.), The private journals of Edvard Munch: we are flames which pour out of the earth, Madison 2005 Nochlin, Linda, Realism, New York 1971 Ollinger-Zinque, Gisèle, et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, exhibition catalog, Brussels 1999/2000, Wommelgem 1999 Patrick Shaw Cable, Questions of work, class, gender and style in the art and life of Gustave Caillebotte, PhD thesis, Cleveland 2000 Prelinger, Elizabeth et al., After the Scream: the late paintings of Edvard Munch, exhibition catalog, Atlanta 2002, New Haven 2001 Rapetti, Rodolphe, Symbolism, translated from French by Deke Dusinberre, Paris 2005 Rapetti, Rodolphe and Arne Eggum, Munch et la France, exhibition catalog, Paris– Oslo 1991/92, Paris 1991 Rewald, John, The history of impressionism, New York 1973 Rewald, John, The study of impressionism, London 1985 Rewald, John, Camille Pissarro, New York 1989 Rosenblum, Robert, “Gustave Caillebotte: The 1970s and the 1870s,” in: Artforum 15, no. 7, 1977, pp. 46–52 Rosenblum, Robert, Paintings in the Musee d’Orsay, New York 1989 Rubin, James Henry, Impressionism and the modern landscape: productivity, technology, and urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh, Berkeley 2008 Sagner, Karin, Gustave Caillebotte: neue Perspektiven des Impressionismus, Munich, 2009 Sagner, Karin et al., Gustave Caillebotte: an impressionist and photography, exhibition catalog, Frankfurt 2012/13, Munich 2012 Scharf, Aaron, Art and photography, London 1968 Scotti Tosini, Aurora, Angelo Morbelli, Soncino 1991 Scotti Tosini, Aurora et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001 Scotton, Flavia et al., Mario de Maria: nell’atelier del pittore delle lune, exhibition catalog, Venice 1983/84, Milan 1983 Shimbata, Yasuhide et al., Gustave Caillebotte: impressionist in modern Paris, exhibition catalog, Tokyo 2013, Tokyo 2013 Smith, Terry, In visible touch: modernism and masculinity, Chicago 1997 Stang, Ragna Thiis, Edvard Munch: the man and his art, translated from Norwegian by Geoffrey Culverwell, New York 1979 Roe, Sue, The private lives of the Impressionists, London 2007 Swinbourne, Anna et al., James Ensor, exhibition catalog, New York 2009, New York 2009 94

Sylvie , Ramond et al., Impressionnisme et naissance du cinématographe, exhibition catalog, Lyon 2005, Lyon 2005 Tonelli, Edith and Katherine Hart (eds.), The Macchiaioli: painters of Italian life, 1850–1900, exhibition catalog, Los Angeles–Cambridge 1986, Los Angeles 1986 Thomson, Belinda, Impressionism: origins, practice, reception, New York 2000 Tucker, Paul Hayes, The Impressionists at Argenteuil, Washington 2000 Thue, Oscar, Christian Krohg, Oslo 1997 Vaisse, Pierre, “Le legs Caillebotte d’après les documents,” in: Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, 1983, pp. 201–208 Varnedoe, Kirk et al., Gustave Caillebotte: a retrospective exhibition, exhibition catalog, Houston–New York 1976/77, Houston 1976 Varnedoe, Kirk, Northern light: Nordic art at the turn of the century, New Haven 1988 Varnedoe, Kirk, “Gustave Caillebotte’s Pont de l’Europe: A New Slant,” in: Art International 18, no. 4, April, 1974, pp. 28–59 Varnedoe, Kirk, “Gustave Caillebotte in context,” in: Arts Magazine 50, no. 9, May 1976, pp. 94–99 Varnedoe, Kirk, “Christian Krohg and Edvard Munch,” in: Arts Magazine 53, no. 8, 1979, pp. 88–95 Varnedoe, Kirk, Gustave Caillebotte, New Haven 1987 Venturi, Lionello, Les archives de l’impressionnisme. Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley et autres. Mémoires de Paul Durand–Ruel. Document, Paris 1939 Walton, William, Victor Champier and André Saglio, Exposition universelle, 1900: the chefs-d’œuvre, Philadelphia 1901 Weisberg, Gabriel Paul et al., The realist tradition: French painting and drawing, 1830–1900, exhibition catalog, Cleveland–New York–Saint Louis–Glasgow 1980/81, Cleveland 1980 Weisberg, Gabriel Paul et al., Illusions of reality: naturalist painting, photography, theatre and cinema, 1875–1918, exhibition catalog, Amsterdam–Helsinki 2010/11, New York 2010 Wittmer, Pierre, Caillebotte and his garden at Yerres, New York 1991 Wood, James N., Impressionism and Post-impressionism in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 2000

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Appendix: Figures

1. Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet), 1875, oil on canvas, 102 x 146.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

2. Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe, 1876, oil on canvas, 125 x 180 cm, Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva

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3. Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris, temps de pluie), 1877, oil on canvas, 212.2 x 276.2 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

4. Angelo Morbelli, Feast Day at the Hospice Trivulzio in Milan (Giorno di festa al Pio Albergo Trivulzio), 1892, oil on canvas, 78 x 122 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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6. Gustave Caillebotte, A Balcony, 5. Edvard Munch, Rue Lafayette, 1891, Boulevard Haussmann, 1880, oil on oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, canvas, 69 x 62 cm, private collection, Nasjonalmuseet,Oslo France

7. Edvard Munch, Music on Karl Johan Street, 1889, oil on canvas, 101.5 x 140.5 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich

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8. Edvard Munch, Sketch for Spring Day on Karl Johan Street, 1889, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 82 cm, Munch Museum, Oslo

9. Edvard Munch, Rainy Day on Karl Johan Street, 1891, oil on canvas, 38 x 53 cm, Munch Museum, Oslo

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11. Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, 10. Edvard Munch, Despair, 1892, oil tempera and crayon on cardboard, on canvas, 92 x 67 cm, Thielska 91 x 73.5 cm, Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo Galleriet, Stockholm

12. Gustave Caillebotte, Man on a 13. Christian Krohg, Portrait of the Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann Swedish Painter Karl Nordström, 1882, (Homme au balcon, boulevard oil on canvas, 61 x 46.5 cm, The Haussmann), 1880, oil on canvas, National Museum of Art, Architecture 117 x 90 cm, private collection, and Design, Oslo Switzerland

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14. Angelo Morbelli, Last Days! (Giorni ultimi!), 1883, oil on canvas, 100 x 157 cm, Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan

15. Angelo Morbelli, I remember when I was a girl (Mi riccordo quand’ero fanciulla), 1903, oil on canvas, 71 x 110.5 cm, private collection, Tortona

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16. Angelo Morbelli, Christmas of the Left Behind (Il Natale dei rimasti), 1903, oil on canvas, 62 x 110.5 cm, Ca’ Pesaro, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice

17. Angelo Morbelli, A Christmas! at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio (Un Natale! al Pio Albergo Trivulzio), 1909, oil on canvas, 99 x 173.5 cm, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin

18. Angelo Morbelli, The Refectory of the Old People (Il refettorio dei vecchioni), 1919, oil on canvas, 43 x 55 cm, Civiche Raccolte Storiche, Museo di Milano, Milan

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19. Fernand Khnopff, Passing Boulevard du Régent (En passant Boulevard du Régent), 1881, gouache and watercolor, 9 x 17.2 cm, private collection

20. Gustave Caillebotte, Young Man Playing the Piano (Jeune homme au piano), 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 116 cm, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo

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21. Gustave Caillebotte, Young Man at His Window (Jeune homme à sa fenêtre), 1875, oil on canvas, 117 x 82 cm, private collection, New York

22. Gustave Caillebotte, Luncheon (Le Déjeuner), 1876, oil on canvas, 52 x 75 cm, private collection, Paris

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23. Gustave Caillebotte, Boulevard Haussmann, Snow (Boulevard Haussmann, effet de neige), c. 1880, oil on canvas, 66 x 81 cm, private collection, Paris

24. Gustave Caillebotte, Sailboats at Argenteuil (Voiliers à Argenteuil), 1888, oil on canvas, 65 x 55.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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25. Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876, oil on canvas, 131 x 175 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

26. Claude Monet, The Saint-Lazare Station, 1877, oil on canvas, 75 x 105 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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27. Edouard Manet, The Balcony (Le 28. Edgar Degas, Ballet (The Star), balcon), 1868–1869, oil on canvas, 1876, pastel, 58.4 x 42 cm, Musée 170 x 124.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris d’Orsay, Paris

29. Gustave Caillebotte, Floor Scrapers (Sketch) [Raboteurs de parquet (esquisse)], 1875, oil on canvas, 29 x 39 cm, private collection, France

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30. Gustave Caillebotte, Floor Scrapers (Variant) [Raboteurs de parquet (variante)], 1876, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, private collection, Paris

31. Gustave Caillebotte, Two Studies of 32. Gustave Caillebotte, Study of a a Young Man Seated, in Profile, Facing Kneeling Floor-Scraper, in Profile, Left, c. 1875–76, graphite on white laid Facing Left, c. 1875–76, graphite on paper, 47.6 x 31.1 cm, private collection gray laid paper, 47.9 x 30.5 cm, private collection

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33. The Place de l’Europe, Paris, 2006, photo

34. The Pont de l’Europe, a bird’s eye view looking toward the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1866, woodcut, from Le Monde illustré, no. 14

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35. Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, c. 1876, oil on canvas, 33 x 45 cm, Musée des beaux-arts, Rennes

36. Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de 37. Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, 1876, oil on canvas, l’Europe, oil sketch, 1876, oil on 56 x 46 cm, private collection canvas, 73 x 60 cm, private collection

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38. Gustave Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe, oil sketch, c. 1876, oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm, private collection

40. Gustave Caillebotte, Study for The Pont 39. Gustave Caillebotte, Study for The de l’Europe: Standing man seen from rear, Pont de l’Europe: Three views of a dog, 48 x 31 cm, private collection 47 x 31.5 cm, private collection

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41. Gustave Caillebotte, Study for The Pont de l’Europe: Architectural and perspective study, pencil and ink, 16 x 19 cm, private collection

42. Gustave Caillebotte, Study of a 43. Gustave Caillebotte, Study of a Man Couple Seen from the Front under an under an Umbrella Facing Right, 1877, Umbrella, 1877, graphite and charcoal graphite and charcoal on buff paper, 45.1 on buff paper, 47 x 30.9 cm, private x 39.2 cm, private collection collection

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44. Gustave Caillebotte, Perspective Study of Streets, 1877, graphite and charcoal on buff paper, 30 x 46 cm, private collection

45. Claude Monet, The Pont de l’Europe, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, oil on canvas, 81 x 64 cm, Musée Marmottan, Paris

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46. Auguste Renoir, Pont Neuf, Paris, 1872, oil on canvas, 75.3 x 93.7 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington

47. Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners (Les glaneuses), 1857, oil on canvas, 83.5 x 110 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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48. Nadar, A True Portrait of Saint Courbet, Painter and Martyr, 1855, caricature

49. Anonymous, Caillebotte as a Floor-Scraper, c. 1882, caricature clipped by Étienne Moreau-Nélaton from an unidentifed source, Musée du Louvre, Paris

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50. Martial Caillebotte, Gustave Caillebotte in His Garden (Gustave Caillebotte dans son jardin), 1892, silver print, 11 x 16 cm, private collection 51. Anonymous, a photo of Gustave Caillebotte, c. 1878, private collection

52. Gustave Caillebotte, Fruit Displayed on a Stand (Fruits à l’étalage), c. 1881–82, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 100.6 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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53. Gustave Caillebotte, sketch for Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, private collection

54. Fernand Khnopff, Listening to Schumann (En écoutant du Schumann), 1883, oil on canvas, 101.5 x 116.5 cm, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels

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56. Gustave Caillebotte, Interior, Woman Reading 55. Gustave Caillebotte, Portrait of (Intérieur, femme lisant), 1880, oil on canvas, 65 x Madame Martial Caillebotte (Portrait 80 cm, private collection de Mme Martial Caillebotte), 1877, oil on canvas, 83 x 72 cm, private collection

57. James Ensor, The Rooftops of Ostend (Les Toits d’Ostende), 1884, oil on canvas, 157 × 209 cm, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

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58. Paul Cézanne, The Roof of Paris (Les Toits de Paris), 1881–82, oil on canvas, 59.7 x 73 cm, Le Musée du Luxembourg, Paris

59. Camille Pissarro, The Roofs of Old Rouen, Gray Weather, 1896, oil on canvas, 72.3 x 91.4 cm, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH

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60. Gustave Caillebotte, Rooftops in the Snow (snow effect), [Vue de toits (effet de neige)], 1878, oil on canvas, 64 x 82 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

62. James Ensor, The Rooftops of Ostend (Les Toits d’Ostende), 61. James Ensor, Boulevard Van 1898, oil on canvas, 48 x 73 cm, private collection, Belgium Iseghem in the Rain (Boulevard Van Iseghem sous la pluie), 1880, oil on cardboard, 23.5 x 16.5 cm, private collection

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64. Gustave Caillebotte, The Rue Halévy Seen from 63. James Ensor, Brussels Town Hall the Sixth Floor (La Rue Halévy vue du sixième (Hôtel de ville de Bruxelles), 1885, oil étage), 1878, oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, private on canvas, 100 x 81 cm, Musée d’Art collection, Dallas Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Liege

65. James Ensor, Music in the rue de Flandre (Musique rue de Flandre), 66. Claude Monet, The Rue Montorgueil 1891, oil on wood, 24 x 19 cm, in Paris. Celebration of June 30, 1878 (La Koninklijk Museum voor Schone rue Montorgueil à Paris. Fête du 30 juin Kunsten, Antwerp 1878), 1878, oil on canvas, 81 x 50 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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68. Gustave Caillebotte, Rising Road (Chemin montant), 1881, oil on canvas, 99.6 x 125.2 cm, private collection 67. Christian Krohg, Village Street at Grez, fragment of Sunday Morning, 1882, oil on canvas, 102 x 70 cm, Rasmus Meyers Samlinger, Bergen

69. Postcard of Karl Johans Street, Christiania (Oslo), c. 1900, private collection

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70. Camille Pissarro, The Boulevards under Snow (Les Boulevards exterieurs, effet de neige), 1879, oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm, Musée Marmottan, Paris

71. Edvard Munch, Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1892, oil on canvas, 85 x 121 cm, Rasmus Meyers 72. Edvard Munch, preliminary Samlinger, Bergen sketch for Evening on Karl Johan Street, 1889, pencil and black chalk on paper, 37 x 47 cm, Munch Museum, Oslo

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73. Angelo Morbelli, Milan Central Station (Alla Stazione Centrale di Milano), 1887, oil on cavnas, 86 x 132 cm, Ente Autonomo Ferrovie dello Stato, Rome

74. Angelo Morbelli, Milan Central Station in 1889 (La Stazione Centrale di Milano nel 1889), 1889, oil on cavnas, 57.5 x 100 cm, Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan

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75. Claude Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train, 1877, oil on canvas, 83 x 101.3 cm, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

76. Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), Quai 77. Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), One du Louvre in Paris. Moonlight (Quai du summer evening in Paris (Veiled moon) Louvre à Paris. Claire de lune), 1884–86, [Una sera d’estate a Parigi (Luna oil on canvas, 62 x 50 cm, Palazzo Foresti, velata)], c. 1880–1890, oil on canvas, Carpi 83.5 x 60.8 cm, private collection

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78. Cladue Monet, Two Path at Argenteuil (Chemin de Halage à Argenteuil), 1875, oil on canvas, 60 x 100 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York

79. Gustave Caillebotte, Boulevard Haussmann, Snow Effect, (Boulevard Haussmann, Effet de Neige), 1880–1881, oil on canvas, 81 x 66 cm, private collection

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81. Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), 80. Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), Studio (courtyard) [Studio (cortile)], Moon on the tables of a tavern (Luna 1880, oil on canvas, 33 x 25.5 cm, Museo sulle tavole di un’osteria), 1884, oil on d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna canvas, 40 x 31 cm, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome

82. Mario de Maria (Marius Pictor), Red Sky at Night, in Hopes of Good Weather (Rosso di sera, bel tempo si spera), c. 1882–1909, oil on canvas, 70 x 69.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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Photographic Credits

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York, www.albrightknox.org/collection/collection-highlights/piece:chemin-de-halage-a -argenteuil/: fig. 78 Anne Dayed-Distel, Gustave Caillebotte: urban impressionist, New York 1995, pp. 45, 46, 259: figs. 31, 32, 68 Arne Eggum, Munch and photography, translated from Norwegian by Birgit Holm, New Haven 1989, p. 29: fig. 69 Art Institute Chicago, www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/20684: fig. 3 Aurora Scotti Tosini et al., Angelo Morbelli: tra realismo e divisionismo, exhibition catalog, Turin 2001, Turin 2001, p. 61: figs. 73, 74 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, www.mfa.org/collections/object/fruit-displayed-on-a-stand-34313: fig. 52 Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, www.bridgestone-museum.gr.jp/en/collection/: fig. 20 Ca’ Pesaro, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, Venice, www.atlantedellarteitaliana.it/artwork-7492.html: fig. 16 Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan, www.gam-milano.com/: fig. 14 Elena Di Raddo, “Schede della opere,” in: Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition catalog, Bologna, 2013/14, Bologna 2013, p. 145: fig. 81 Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/228649: fig. 75 Gabrielle Andries, “Les plaisirs au jardin,” in: Serge Lemoine et al., Dans l’intimite des frères Caillebotte: peintre et photographe, exhibition catalog, Paris–Quebec 2011/12, Paris 2011, p. 162 : fig. 50 Galleria Civica D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, www.google.com/culturalinstitute/collection/galleria-civica-di-arte-moderna-e-c ontemporanea-torino?hl=it: fig. 17 Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, www.gnam.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/23/gli-artisti-e-le-opere/458/luna-sulle-ta vole-di-unosteria: fig. 80 Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque et al., Ensor: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles, Wommelgem 1999, pp. 89, 129, 133, 162, 199: figs. 57, 61, 62, 63, 65 Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, www.kunsthaus.ch/en/the-collection/painting-and-sculptures/nordic-expressionis m/edvard-munch/: fig. 7 Lombardia Beni Culturali, www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/opere-arte/schede/Q1010-00077/?view=ricerca& offset=1: fig. 18

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Marie Berhaut, Gustave Caillebotte: catalogue raisonné des peintures et pastels, Paris 1994, pp. 73, 74, 77. 79, 85, 110, 131, 132, 143: figs. 2, 12, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 64, 79 Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) il pittore delle lune: 1852–1924, exhibition website, Bologna, 2013/14, at www. mariodemaria.com/ii-le-strade-di-parigi: figs. 76, 77 Musée d’Orsay, Paris, www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/overview.html: figs. 1, 4, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 47, 60, 66, 8255 Musée du Luxembourg, www.museeduluxembourg.fr/objet/les-toits-de-paris: fig. 58 Musée Marmottan, Paris, www.marmottan.fr/fr/claude_monet-musee-2517: figs. 45, 70 Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, www.fine-arts-museum.be/fr/la-collection: fig. 54 Munch Museum, Oslo, www.old.munch-museet.no/tegneren/work.aspx?id=2&item=1: figs. 8, 9, 72 Nadar, “A True Portrait of Saint Courbet, Painter and Martyr,” in: Le Journal Pour Rire: Journal d’image, journal comique, critique, satirique et moquer 211, 13 October 1855, p. 3, no. 11937 : fig. 48 National Gallery of Art, Washington, www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.52202.html: fig. 46 Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/collections_and_research/our_collections/edvard_mu nch_in_the_national_museum/: figs. 5, 11 Oscar Thue, Christian Krohg, Oslo 1997, p. 80: fig. 67 Pinacoteca Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Tortona, www.fondazionecrtortona.it/index.php/gli-artisti/angelo-morbelli: fig. 15 Robert L. Delevoy, Fernand Khnopff, Brussels 1987, p. 213: fig. 19 The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, www.kunstsamling.no/no/object.php?coll=NMK-B&invnr=NG.M.01223: fig. 13 Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm, www.thielska-galleriet.se/samlingen/samlingen-2/fortvivlan_1892-2/: fig. 10 Thomas M. Messer, Edvard Munch, New York 1985, p. 65: fig. 71 Toledo Museum of Art, www. classes.toledomuseum.org:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/People$0040570/ 4?t:state:flow=d04aea42-3db8-4aee-b452-c0a4338e0605: fig. 59

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