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| nonprofitrisk.org |
Hello Everyone:
It is a gloomy Monday afternoon and normally and another episode of the social distance blog. However, The Candidate Forum did have want Yours Truly to give you an update on the primary calendar. The state of Wisconsin was originally scheduled to hold its primary on Tuesday, April 7. However, Governor Tony Evers has rescheduled the elections for June 7, 2020, adding to already busy month as 16 other states go to the polls and hold caucus. However, Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled that tomorrow's election must go ahead as scheduled, potentially forcing voters to choose between casting their ballots in person or risking infection. The state National Guard is already on stand-by to man the voting centers because poll workers are refusing to go in. Wisconsin residents can mail in their ballots, if they have not already. The Democratic National Committee has re-scheduled its nominating convention for August and the main event--Election Day is November 3, 2020. As always, if you need more voter information please go to usa.gov, after you read today's post. The Candidate Forum will be back next to talk about the Wisconsin primary, until then Blogger will be here trying not to get crushingly depressed by the news. Onward
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| Gustave Caillebotte (188-94) Self Portrait en.wikipedia.org |
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94) was a French mid-nineteenth century painter who captured Paris during a time of flux. His work combined elements of academic painting and Impressionism to create a synthetic style. His period of significance overlapped that of Pierre-August Renoir and Claude Monet with whom he exhibited his work. Gustave Caillebotte. As a promoter, he provided financial support for Impressionist exhibitions and used his wealth to collect works by other Impressionists such as: Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, and Berthe Morisot. The uniqueness of his work lay in his attempt to combine precision drawing, modeling, and tonal values taught by the Academie with the vivid colors, bold perspectives, natural, and modern subject matter of the Impressionists (britannica.com; Apr. 1, 2020). You are all wondering why Yours Truly wants to bring him up?
The reason why Yours Truly wants to talk about Gustave Caillebotte is, like Edward Hopper, Gustave Caillebotte feels relevant for the moment. His paintings are a response to modernism brought about by the Paris in the post-Baron Hausmann period, its newly widen boulevards, railway stations, grand apartment buildings in the classical mode. The public and leisure spaces were part of everyday life for M. Caillebotte, not stage sets for light and color, typical for his Impressionist contemporaries. Gustave Caillebotte's paintings can be read as an "authentic visual-psychoanalytical depiction of the first modern metropolis--Paris which was considered the nineteenth-century capital, capital of modernity, and capital of the world (Benjamin, 2002; 3-26; themedium.com; Jan. 18, 2020; date accessed Apr. 1, 2020). Perhaps the first image to look at is M.Caillebotte's most famous painting Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877).
Paris Street, Rainy Day presents us with scene that could have been captured today. In the foreground is a fashionably dressed couple, sharing an umbrella, looking off the left. Behind them are random people shielded by the umbrellas, in a hurry to get out of the rain. On the right-hand side of the painting, an equally fashionably dressed gentleman also shielded by an umbrella is entering the scene. The precisely delineated cobblestones lead the eye deep into the frame toward a building in the background. The couple in the foreground are completely disengaged from each other. Instead, the gaze off into the unseen distance, attention focused elsewhere. We do not know what has captured their gaze, perhaps something in an unseen shop window. The brave new post-Baron Hausmann city. Gone are the small quaint buildings and picturesque narrow streets, replaced by monumental buildings and wide boulevard that dwarf the people.
The reason why Yours Truly wants to talk about Gustave Caillebotte is, like Edward Hopper, Gustave Caillebotte feels relevant for the moment. His paintings are a response to modernism brought about by the Paris in the post-Baron Hausmann period, its newly widen boulevards, railway stations, grand apartment buildings in the classical mode. The public and leisure spaces were part of everyday life for M. Caillebotte, not stage sets for light and color, typical for his Impressionist contemporaries. Gustave Caillebotte's paintings can be read as an "authentic visual-psychoanalytical depiction of the first modern metropolis--Paris which was considered the nineteenth-century capital, capital of modernity, and capital of the world (Benjamin, 2002; 3-26; themedium.com; Jan. 18, 2020; date accessed Apr. 1, 2020). Perhaps the first image to look at is M.Caillebotte's most famous painting Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877).
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| Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877) en.wikipedia.org |
Paris of 1877 was rapidly modernizing city. Baron Eugene Hausmann's urban renewal project created the Paris we know today, wide tree lined boulevards with neat rows of lovely buildings. Yet, if you look at the random figures in the background, they appear lost among the tall buildings, Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot, a curator at the Jaquemart-Andre Museum describes,
They seem to be quite alone,.... Every person is lost in a very wide world (npr.org; June 3, 2011; date accessed. Apr. 6, 2020).
This Paris is an alien place. The Second Empire of the couple is no more, laid to waste by the Franco-Prussian War, then by Baron Hausmann. Perhaps what catches their attention is a building that replaced the boutique or cafe that they once patronized.
Paris Street, Rainy Day is a document of modern life. His contemporaries, August Renoir, Camille Pissaro, Edouard Manet, and Alfred Sisley, also documented modern life but populated it with happy images of dancers and boaters. The Paris of M. Caillebotte was a sad place. Mr, Garnot explained,
They just wanted to show pleasant persons or fun activities,..., not the kind of loneliness that you find [in Caillebotte] (Ibid).
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| Young Man at his Window (1875) dailyartmagazine.org |
Photography of reality with his not stamped with the original seal of the painter's talent--that's a pitiful thing,... (Ibid).
Although he was impressed by the artist's technical achievement, M. Zola was not excited by his style, adding,
...anti-artistic...because of the exactitude of the copying (Ibid).
In both paintings, Gustave Caillebotte incorporates photographic techniques of cropping and zooming-in (Ibid) to capture the "psychological complexity, boredom, loneliness, and sense of distance" (Ibid) his subjects experienced in mid-19th century Paris. The audience is drawn into the drama of the moment. Unlike the work of 20th-century American painter Edward Hopper, there is no barrier between the urban landscape and the subject. The subject is part of the scene, disoriented by the Paris they no longer recognize. The loneliness and boredom is evident in his depiction of urban labor.
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| The Floor Scrapers (Parquet Planers) 1875 en.wikipedia.org |
Once again, M. Caillebotte incorporates elements of photography to capture three semi-nude men quietly scraping way the floor at his home. Gustave Caillebotte takes a documentary approach to presenting an image of solitary repetitive labor. While it may be tempting to interpreting this painting as a social or political comment on the urban working class, that what is not here. What makes The Floor Scrapers feel modern is its matter-of-fact depiction of urban labor. The work is boring and repetitive. Gustave Caillebotte focuses on the repetitive actions, the tools, the accessories the men use (Ibid). Interestingly, the man on the right appears to look at his co-worker on his left, as if he wants to tell him something or something in the room. The Floor Scrapers is image of three men left alone to work and nothing more.
The paintings of Gustave Caillebotte, like those of Edward Hopper, offer us responses to an urban environment in flux. Mid-nineteenth century Paris was brand new world. It was a man-made creation following conflict. It should gives us pause to consider what our cities will look like when everyone feels safe enough to go out again. Right now, our cities feel like the New York City of Edward Hopper, a strange place clouded by dread. Gustave Caillebotte's Paris is place that is no longer recognizable to its citizens. It is a strange and disorienting place. Will we experience that same disorientation when it is safe to go out again?
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