“Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877” by Gustave Caillebotte
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Caillebotte has captured an impression of an intersection.
🇫🇷 An intersection of five streets in 8th Arrondissement in Paris.
☔ An intersection of rain on the verge of finishing, and day on the verge of twilight.
🎩 An intersection of upper-class Parisians strolling with umbrellas, and the working men and women hurrying through, their work interrupted by the rain.
🏳️ An intersection of the old Paris (that of tiny streets and revolutionary spirit) and the new Paris of wide-open boulevards (all the better to control the revolutionaries).
Making an Impression
While technically he was a friend and early patron of the Impressionists, as a painter, Gustave Caillebotte is difficult to pin down to a particular style. He started showing with the Impressionists after being rejected from the Salon, and yet when this painting premiered at the Third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877, one reviewer has noted:
Monsieur Caillebotte is an Impressionist in name only. He knows how to draw and paint, more seriously than his colleagues. — La petite république française
As a trust-fund kid — living off his father’s millions — he studies law, before turning to art (and stamp collecting).
Without needing to sell in order to get by, Gustave used his freedom to experiment with style and subject matter. He often supported his Impressionist friends by buying up their unsold work, gathering one of the largest collections of Impressionist art in the process.
Paris At Crossroads
“Paris Street, Rainy Day” shows Paris some 5–6 years after the events of the Bloody Week, when the French Army returned and reconquered the city, which was being occupied by the radical socialist and revolutionary government of the Paris Commune. The ensuing street fighting destroyed many neighborhoods, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.
All this was happening right in the middle of the biggest public works construction project in the history of the city, where over dozens of years Georges-Eugène Haussmann (and later his followers) tore down large swaths of historic Paris center and rebuilt it into the city we know today.
Where before, the city was filled with small, dark streets and alleys — overcrowded and overflowing with decease, crime and raw shit — the new Paris was full of open boulevards, parks and modern sewage systems.
This also made the city much more walkable for the middle/upper-class citizens who moved into the newly gentrified neighborhoods.
This is the scene we are looking at in the nearly life-sized “Paris Street, Rainy Day”.
In fact, that’s kind of what this intersection looks like even today. Here it is on Google Maps!
Random Notes
The oblivious couple looking to their right, is about to run into the man on their left as he’s leaning away to avoid them. They don’t even need cell phones to distract them.
The reflections in the water between the stones… and that of the lamp post, on the smoother sidewalk.
A man awkwardly jumping over the puddle behind the carriage.
Way in the distance, a painter — wearing all white — is scurrying away with his ladder.
“In 1852, Samuel Fox was said to have used left-over stocks of steel stays (from corsets) made from spun steel to construct the metal ribs on his Paragon umbrella, which gave us the characteristic u-shape that we are so used to.” — Patricia Lovett
A commemorative (they turned 150 last year) Fox Umbrella can be bought on their site for £477.00 (limited edition of 150)
During Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris, he also constructed a vast underground labyrinth that delivered gas to the gas lamps (such as one in the foreground), which filled the city; earning it a nickname City of Light.
Family
If the framing and the arrangement of “Paris Street, Rainy Day” reminds your more of a modern photograph than a classic painting, that is no mere coincidence.
Gustave’s brother Martial Caillebotte, another trust-fund dandy, was a photographer.
Here is the photo of Gustave that he took, and doesn’t the setting, the perspective and even the human subject look familiar.
Which makes me think that Paris Street, Rainy Day is really missing a doggie.
Incidentally, while the two brothers were really close when they lived together, things became strained after Martial got married and the in-laws refused to have anything to do with Gustave. The reason for the hate, while unknown to us, has led to aaaaaall sorts of speculations. Who knew that all it took was painting a few male nudes, for the gossip to start.
Where to Find It?
“Paris Street, Rainy Day” was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964, where it usually resides in Gallery 201.
And it’s currently on display in Alte Nationalgalerie until October 8, 2019 as part of the Gustave Caillebotte: Painter and Patron of Impressionism exhibition.
