Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte ( Paris , August 19 1848 - Petit Gennevilliers , February 21 1894 ) was a French painter and patron . He favored the work of the Impressionists financial and entered later, after many naturalistic work have also joined the movement.

Caillebotte painted portraits and indoor scenes, but also cityscapes, landscapes and still lifes.

Content

 * 1 Life
 * 1.1 Youth
 * 1.2 Artistic career
 * 1.3 Later years
 * 2 Works (selection)

Youth
Caillebotte was born in a Parisian family from the upper classes. His father, Martial Caillebotte had inherited the family business in military textiles and also worked as a judge at the Tribunal de Commerce of the department Seine . He had been twice widowed before he Caillebottes mother, Céleste Daufresne, married. She got two more sons after Gustave him. From 1860 the family spent many summers in Yerres, about 12 kilometers south of Paris, where they owned a large house. Around this time Gustave Caillebotte probably began drawing and painting.

Caillebotte graduated in 1868 from the rights. He was also an engineer. He fought in the Franco-Prussian War, and served in the Garde Nationale Mobile de la Seine.

Artistic career [ edit ]
The Floor Scrapers (1875)

Gustave Caillebotte, ca. 1878

After the war Caillebotte painting classes at the studio of Léon Bonnat . He developed in a relatively short time a consummate style and had his first studio in the house of his parents. In 1873 he was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but there would be little time spent.

Around 1874 ended Caillebotte friendship with several artists working outside the official Académie des Beaux-Arts worked, including Edgar Degas and Giuseppe De Nittis .The Impressionists had turned away from the academic art and the artists who exhibited at the annual Salons .

In 1874 he inherited a considerable fortune and the house Yerres his father, and when his mother died in 1878, the family fortune was divided among the two remaining sons - Caillebottes brother René had died in 1876 at age 25. This wealth enabled him as a patron to work for his painter friends. He helped in the creation of the first Impressionist exhibition and gathered itself many works of painters in this movement.

Caillebotte exhibited at the second exhibition of the Impressionists with eight paintings, including The Floor Scrapers (Parquet Planers, 1875), now one of his most famous works. The subject of this painting, workers scraping a wooden floor, was considered by some critics as vulgar. This is probably why it was refused by the Salon of 1875. The painting is now in the Musée d'Orsay .

Caillebotte painted in a realistic style that was influenced by impressionism. He painted domestic and familial scenes, interiors and portraits. To see many of his paintings are his relatives. He also painted landscapes and cityscapes of the Yerres Hausmanniaanse Paris. His still lifes are mainly food as a subject. His work seems to have been influenced by the photography ; especially its use of perspective effects is remarkable.

From 1875 Caillebotte began collecting paintings by his friends. He bought work by Auguste Renoir could (including Bal du Moulin de la Galette ), Claude Monet , Paul Cézanne , Edgar Degas , Edouard Manet and Camille Pissarro .

In 1877 he exhibited six paintings on the third Impressionist exhibition, which he supported the organization again. At the fourth exhibition took 19 paintings and pastels six part.

Later years [ edit ]
Gustave Caillebotte: Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877)

Caillebotte bought in 1881 a house in Petit- Gennevilliers, on the banks of the Seine at Argenteuil , and moved permanently back in 1888. He devoted his life to gardening and building yachts . There are 21 yachts built to his designs. He has won several regattas . He was also a philatelist . In 1888 he was also elected to the city council. Although he never married, he seems to have had a long and serious relationship with Charlotte Berthier, who was eleven years younger and came from the lower class. He left her a substantial annuity. In the 1890s, he stopped painting large canvases.

Caillebotte died at the age of 45 to pulmonary edema . He is buried in Paris Pere Lachaise . He has his work and his collection by will bequeathed to the French government, who accepted, however, only half of the donation. Much of his work hangs in museums in Paris Musee d'Orsay and the Louvre .