The Art of Paris Review Series: Gustave Caillebotte

Les Raboteurs de Parquet

“The Floor Scrapers”

Gustave Caillebotte (1848 - 1894) is widely known for his monetary and artistic contributions to the Impressionist movement. Though many of his works now reside in French museums – such as the image to the left, located in the Musée d'Orsay – his fame truly came about in the wake of his death.

The Floor Scrapers uses a mixture of ethereal light and shadow to show the grueling nature of the task at hand. The background suggests a lavish, mid-19th-century apartment in the making, and yet the workers are a foil to the environment. They are bony, muscular, and strained by their task. It is their difficult labor that props up the wealthy world.

This work was rejected from the Salon of 1875 for its controversially homoerotic nature. Caillebotte wanted to push the ticket yet met stiff resistance from the wealthy and traditional; naturally, the Impressionist school was ready for application with open arms. In Caillebotte’s view, the work was far from controversial. The Floor Scrapers attempts to capture the simple camaraderie of laborers in Paris, who through their shared troubles find solace and unmatched friendship.

In my view, the work lacks an element of struggle, which so frequently populated paintings depicting the working class. This wealthy apartment is a bubble in which laborers are pictured as put together and in many ways content with their position. This work comes from a time in which the middle class possessed some 15% of French wealth: a level of inequality which is not properly appreciated by the image.

The Art of Paris Review Series: Auguste Rodin

Les Bourgeois de Calais

“The Burghers of Calais”

Auguste Rodin (1840 – 1917) was a prominent French sculptor of innovative practices, which paved the way for modern sculpture. He believed that art should be true to nature, a philosophy that shaped attitudes towards models and materials. Rodin had a fascination with human body parts and often sculpted oversized versions of features such as hands and feet that he then used in larger works.

For example, Les Burghers of Calais is a touching monument in which the hands and the feet of the brave men are noticeably large. This sculpture remembers “the collective sacrifice of six notables who went to hand over the keys of the city to the victorious King of England at the end of the siege of 1346-1347 during the Hundred Years’ War.” Rodin masterfully captures the emotions of the men and places them around one another so that the audience may interact with the piece from all viewpoints.

The Art of Paris Review Series: Edouard Manet

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

“The Luncheon on the Grass”

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863), sometimes referred to as Le Bain, its original name, is a piece of French artwork by Edouard Manet (1832-1883). This work blends the lines between the movements of realism and impressionism, as Manet so frequently and thoughtfully achieved a balance during his career. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe translates to The Luncheon on the Grass in English. Do not let the title fool you; while this piece has an aspect of the still life movement and is grounded in realism, there is an important twist that brings this work into the realm of impressionism.

Edouard Manet was born in Paris on January 23rd, 1832. His parents were both well-respected and were well-entrenched in the aristocratic class. His father, a judge, and his mother, a relative of the Swedish prince, intended for Manet to take up a career in either politics or law. Their network would aid in his development, yet Manet refused their plan. Art was his calling. After failing naval academy tests multiple times, his parents financed his study of art with Thomas Couture. Six years later, Manet would open his first studio; this was the site of many of his early realist artworks, including The Absinthe Drinker (1859) and Concert in the Tuileries Gardens (1862).

His most famous and arguably his most controversial piece, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863), came the following year. This work was critical for two reasons: it demonstrated Manet’s general shift from realism to impressionism, and it exposed the weakness of the Salon’s judgement in the selection process. By 1863, the Comte de Nieuwerkerke – also known as Alfred-Emilien O-Hara – had led a variety of sweeping reforms in the Salon. His reforms included the rejection of realist artwork, shunning scenes of the poor and of prostitution. His all-elite approval board of the Salon of 1863 helped further this process, limiting the quantity of works to three per artist and only selecting those that agreed with the board’s idea of reality.

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) was everything the approval board despised. There are excessive elements of realism, such as the fully-nude female character in the center of the piece. Two men sit nearby, both of which are dressed formally for a day in the park. A second women is further behind the trio, knee-deep in the water of a nearby pond. The group seems casual and familiar with each other, in line with the surrounding context. The park surrounding the four main characters is lush with greenery and forestry. On the left and right sides of the characters there are a number of dark brown trunks, likely evergreens, which support a variety of tiny brown leaves. The shadows underneath are comparable to the clothing on the two men. It is likely that the shadowy nature and its adjacency to the men’s clothing is symbolic of a sense of belonging with nature. This healthy relationship between man and nature is a theme that clashes with reality. At the time, Paris had been expanding in all directions for generations. Manet may have been chasing a feeling of goodwill between nature and man in this painting. This could be viewed as a step away from realism. The woman in the pond and the nude woman in the foreground also support this idea. Their interactions with nature are fearless; they treat their clothing as though the dirt underfoot could not possibly damage its quality. An area of the painting in the upper middle uses layers of depth to draw the appreciator’s interest deep into a foreign field. This field is coated in yellow and gold wheat or tall grass. This, along with the sparse arrangement of the trees, shows the audience that the park is far away from Paris. This is the countryside, where nature is raw and far more powerful. It is unaltered by man. Besides the main characters, there is not a single sense that man had been in this place before. Manet is thoughtful and intentional in his choices. The chosen environment gives the audience a greater sense of serenity than any city park would have. By no means are these the gardens at Versailles – this is nature in a purer form.

French politics in the mid to late 1800s were still reflective of a grandiose, proud French culture and society. Though Napoleon was ultimately unsuccessful, he had left a legacy of military and political dominance in his wake; as such, many French politicians were inspired by Napoleon. At the time of the painting’s creation, Napoleon III ruled over France. His government was greatly appreciative of the influence of French art. In accordance, Napoleon III was an ample supporter of the biennial Salon. Though there was significant support from the government, the direction of the Salon was driven by the Comte de Nieuwerkerke. Manet was so deeply engrained in French art culture that by the time the Salon of 1863 responded to Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) with disdain, artists of all classes were calling for an impressionist split-off. When Courbet, Manet, Pissarro, and their alliance petitioned Napoleon III for support, he indeed offered the rejects a sum of money for an additional exhibition. This was the birth of the Salon des Refuses. Yes, The Luncheon on the Grass did not come before the Salon des Refuses; it was not created in rejection of the Salon of 1863.

The nude woman is a statement on Manet’s part. In French artwork, nudity had traditionally suggested the character was a deist figure, perhaps drawn from a story of Greek mythology. In Manet’s piece, the woman is simply a peer to her friends. One man stares away, adjacent to the nude woman’s view. The other man is speaking to the man who stares, yet the recipient seems disinterested from the conversation. In summary, there is not a single aspect of the work which suggests deism on part of the nude woman. Her significance symbolizes the movement of French artists from realism to impressionism. Manet used this work to separate himself from the norms that had dominated society and the Salon since its inception.

To many observers, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe is simply an image of four people enjoying a lush park in summer. However, upon reflection, the nude woman’s stare is powerful: it breaks the fourth plane, staring down the Salon of 1863- a stare that brutally fractured the art community in Paris that year.