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Lot Essay
Under the rule of Napoleon III, Georges-Eugene Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, was put in charge of modernizing Paris, to make it “a capital worthy of France” (G. Haussmann quoted in M. Marrinan, Gustave Caillebotte: Painting the Paris of Naturalism, 1872-1887, Los Angeles, 2016, p. 37). This incredible undertaking saw the creation of broad boulevards, elegant parks, and grand apartment buildings, resulting in the entire reimagining of the city’s physical identity. These locales were quickly populated by the bourgeoisie, becoming points of fascination for artists of the era intent upon depicting modern life. Captivated by the transformations effected by “Haussmannization,” works such as Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann by Gustave Caillebotte revel in the splendor of the changing built environment.
For the Impressionists, the street life of the new city became an important and groundbreaking subject, explored, for example, in Claude Monet’s Boulevard des Capucines (Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Les Grands Boulevards (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Caillebotte’s Rue de Paris, temps de pluie (Berhaut, no. 57; The Art Institute of Chicago), set near the Gare Saint-Lazare, depicts noticeable infrastructural changes—such as a complicated, multi-road intersection—as well as the latest fashions, worn by a couple as they take a stroll. In Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann, the artist again made modernity his subject, this time casting his eye towards the wide, tree-lined boulevard Haussmann. By selecting to paint this avenue—named for the architect of the new Parisian cityscape—Caillebotte paid homage to the extraordinary changes that had swept through his city.
By the time the present work was painted, Caillebotte and his brother Martial were living in an apartment near to Charles Garnier’s nouvel Opéra de Paris, which had been constructed as part of Haussmann’s grand renovation, and Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann presents a view from their balcony. The day is warm, the trees a vivid green, and Caillebotte’s rapid, gestural brushwork suggests that he wanted to capture this precise moment in time. The wide street below is bordered by the new, cream-colored buildings that filled the quartier, and light glints off their mansard roofs. Touches of blue and beige evoke the few people milling about, but on the whole, the road is quiet, tranquil.
For Caillebotte, the apartment’s window and attached elaborate iron balcony offered a means to observe the goings-on of the city from a distance. Traditionally, such painterly portals operated allegorically, a nod to art’s purpose as a window onto the world, but during the nineteenth century, the window’s symbolic value shifted as it became a subject unto itself. The act of perceiving interested Caillebotte throughout his career. As Michael Fried noted, “Caillebotte’s paintings posit a complex, often seemingly conflictual relation to the beholder” (“Caillebotte’s Impressionism” in N. Broude, ed., Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, London, 2020, p. 83). In his 1876 painting Jeune homme à la fenêtre (Berhaut, no. 32; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), Caillebotte’s titular subject stands at an open window contemplating the streets of Paris’ eighth arrondissement, where rue de Lisbonne and rue de Miromesnil intersect below his family’s former home. Caillebotte’s use of the compositional device of the Rückenfigur, or figure from the back, invites the viewer to join in this moment of meditative reflection. Although painted only a few years later, Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann envisages a new mode of spectatorship: here, the viewer truly becomes the Rückenfigur, taking his place at the balcony to occupy an interstitial space, between inside and outdoors, observer and participant.
The particular and novel vantagepoint employed in the present work suggests the influence of photography, which, by this juncture, had wholly permeated French visual culture. Since their first exhibition, Caillebotte’s paintings were likened to photographs, and while there is no evidence that he himself was a camera enthusiast, his brother Martial was. Sarah Kennel has argued that Caillebotte likely was interested in photography because the medium could teach him “to see and represent space in a way that satisfied the demands of realism and yet allowed for a highly individualized expression” (S. Kennel, “Photography and the Painter’s Eye” in Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, exh. cat,. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2015, p. 112). Such strategies are evident in the close cropping, elevated perspective, and framing device produced by the unseen window in Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann.
Following the Second Impressionist Exhibition, the art critic Louis Emile Edmond Duranty wrote that “it is through the window that we communicate with the outside world; the window is yet another frame that constantly accompanies us during the time we spend at home, and that time is considerable. The window frame, depending on whether we are far from or close to it, sitting or standing, cuts up the spectacle of the world in the most unexpected and changeable manner…” (“La Nouvelle Peinture: à propos du groupe d'artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel,” 1876; in R. Berson, ed., The New Painting, Impressionism 1874-1886: Documentation, vol. I, reviews, exh. cat., Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1996, p. 78). Duranty, who championed a realist depiction of life, was responding to Caillebotte’s Jeune homme à la fenêtre when he wrote this line, but it is equally applicable to Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann. Just beyond the window lay all that Paris had to offer and what Caillebotte was determined to paint, naturally and without artifice. In an effort to render both an intensity of expression and a social awareness, Caillebotte sought to show the reality of life—his life—and the window provided him a perfect means to conceive of such happenings.
For the Impressionists, the street life of the new city became an important and groundbreaking subject, explored, for example, in Claude Monet’s Boulevard des Capucines (Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Les Grands Boulevards (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Caillebotte’s Rue de Paris, temps de pluie (Berhaut, no. 57; The Art Institute of Chicago), set near the Gare Saint-Lazare, depicts noticeable infrastructural changes—such as a complicated, multi-road intersection—as well as the latest fashions, worn by a couple as they take a stroll. In Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann, the artist again made modernity his subject, this time casting his eye towards the wide, tree-lined boulevard Haussmann. By selecting to paint this avenue—named for the architect of the new Parisian cityscape—Caillebotte paid homage to the extraordinary changes that had swept through his city.
By the time the present work was painted, Caillebotte and his brother Martial were living in an apartment near to Charles Garnier’s nouvel Opéra de Paris, which had been constructed as part of Haussmann’s grand renovation, and Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann presents a view from their balcony. The day is warm, the trees a vivid green, and Caillebotte’s rapid, gestural brushwork suggests that he wanted to capture this precise moment in time. The wide street below is bordered by the new, cream-colored buildings that filled the quartier, and light glints off their mansard roofs. Touches of blue and beige evoke the few people milling about, but on the whole, the road is quiet, tranquil.
For Caillebotte, the apartment’s window and attached elaborate iron balcony offered a means to observe the goings-on of the city from a distance. Traditionally, such painterly portals operated allegorically, a nod to art’s purpose as a window onto the world, but during the nineteenth century, the window’s symbolic value shifted as it became a subject unto itself. The act of perceiving interested Caillebotte throughout his career. As Michael Fried noted, “Caillebotte’s paintings posit a complex, often seemingly conflictual relation to the beholder” (“Caillebotte’s Impressionism” in N. Broude, ed., Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris, London, 2020, p. 83). In his 1876 painting Jeune homme à la fenêtre (Berhaut, no. 32; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), Caillebotte’s titular subject stands at an open window contemplating the streets of Paris’ eighth arrondissement, where rue de Lisbonne and rue de Miromesnil intersect below his family’s former home. Caillebotte’s use of the compositional device of the Rückenfigur, or figure from the back, invites the viewer to join in this moment of meditative reflection. Although painted only a few years later, Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann envisages a new mode of spectatorship: here, the viewer truly becomes the Rückenfigur, taking his place at the balcony to occupy an interstitial space, between inside and outdoors, observer and participant.
The particular and novel vantagepoint employed in the present work suggests the influence of photography, which, by this juncture, had wholly permeated French visual culture. Since their first exhibition, Caillebotte’s paintings were likened to photographs, and while there is no evidence that he himself was a camera enthusiast, his brother Martial was. Sarah Kennel has argued that Caillebotte likely was interested in photography because the medium could teach him “to see and represent space in a way that satisfied the demands of realism and yet allowed for a highly individualized expression” (S. Kennel, “Photography and the Painter’s Eye” in Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye, exh. cat,. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2015, p. 112). Such strategies are evident in the close cropping, elevated perspective, and framing device produced by the unseen window in Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann.
Following the Second Impressionist Exhibition, the art critic Louis Emile Edmond Duranty wrote that “it is through the window that we communicate with the outside world; the window is yet another frame that constantly accompanies us during the time we spend at home, and that time is considerable. The window frame, depending on whether we are far from or close to it, sitting or standing, cuts up the spectacle of the world in the most unexpected and changeable manner…” (“La Nouvelle Peinture: à propos du groupe d'artistes qui expose dans les galeries Durand-Ruel,” 1876; in R. Berson, ed., The New Painting, Impressionism 1874-1886: Documentation, vol. I, reviews, exh. cat., Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1996, p. 78). Duranty, who championed a realist depiction of life, was responding to Caillebotte’s Jeune homme à la fenêtre when he wrote this line, but it is equally applicable to Un balcon, Boulevard Haussmann. Just beyond the window lay all that Paris had to offer and what Caillebotte was determined to paint, naturally and without artifice. In an effort to render both an intensity of expression and a social awareness, Caillebotte sought to show the reality of life—his life—and the window provided him a perfect means to conceive of such happenings.