Daily Dose of Art: Gustave Caillebotte ~ Rue de Paris, Wet Weather 1877, oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago ( With JessiePants, Karen Ann, Jo Fa, Pippi, Fifi, Deb and Kayla Li.) Caillebotte is an artist whom the social historians would have had to invent had he not already existed. This, his most famous work, represents what a sociologist would consider the correct subject matter for artists: the real, contemporary world in all its drabness. The Impressionists made token reference to this, but it was Caillebotte who encapsulated the world of 19th century Paris in this celebration of a wet street on a dull day. Without great visual excitement, it is a picture of spellbinding beauty. Such is Caillebottes own fascination with what he sees that this painting has held viewers spellbound since its creation. It manages to convey a slice of life that despite, or maybe because of, the lack of incident, makes us feel we have a measure of the pulse late 19th-century Parisian life. Caillebotte convinces us that this is what is was like on that particular afternoon in 1877, at a certain time of day, on a certain street in Paris, when the light was cool, the streets were quiet and the rain fell in a fine drizzle. Seen in person, there was a moment when I had myself convinced that it was a photograph.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:23:54 +0000