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Lot Essay
The Comité Caillebotte has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.
Still life painting held a consistent, albeit secondary role in the work of the Impressionists. They featured occasionally in the Impressionist Salons, and Cézanne could be considered the only artist who focused on the genre, making it central to his oeuvre. While the Impressionist's still-lifes seemed to represent a respite from painting images of the burgeoning modern life around them, Caillebotte embraced the genre with a different intent. Between 1879 and 1885 Caillebotte produced a handful of works in oil employing daring compositional formats, of which Gâteaux may be considered one of the finest.
One of the problems associated with still-life painting was the enormous historical weight the genre carried. Throughout centuries past artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin depicted the humble, prosaic elements of the kitchen as a basis for significant works of art. Much as the Californian artist Wayne Thiebaud did one hundred years later for the genre (fig. 1), Caillebotte updated this tradition to the specific cultural conditions of late 19th-century Paris by depicting foods that were produced and sold in mass quantities. Caillebotte's still lifes of this period may be considered not so much as nature morte, but rather as ode to consumption.
Gâteaux alludes to the economic and social changes that were structuring modern Paris. At this time, critical to the development of the city was the rise of the grands magasins. These vast emporiums of consumption helped determine the face of the new boulevards. The shop fronts that lined the grand boulevards thus sought to rival the department stores and began to sumptuously decorate their windows as a new mode of advertising. Developments in the technology of glass production - notably in the introduction of plate-glass - had increased the possibilities of turning the passer-by into a customer. Visual displays became an art, the window dresser an artist who transformed the goods into provocative still-lifes.
Caillebotte's experimentation in this subject produced some of the most inventive compositions within his oeuvre. Gâteaux presents not raw materials, but rather a finished product highlighting the artistry of the pastry chef. By adopting a high viewpoint and framing the subject with cropped edges, Caillebotte presented his subject as they might have been seen by the flâneur passing by the shop window of the neighborhood patisserie. In Gâteaux Caillebotte broke with traditions that not even Monet or Renoir achieved in their own works of the subject.
fig. 1) Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963, National Gallery of Art, Washingtion, D.C.
Still life painting held a consistent, albeit secondary role in the work of the Impressionists. They featured occasionally in the Impressionist Salons, and Cézanne could be considered the only artist who focused on the genre, making it central to his oeuvre. While the Impressionist's still-lifes seemed to represent a respite from painting images of the burgeoning modern life around them, Caillebotte embraced the genre with a different intent. Between 1879 and 1885 Caillebotte produced a handful of works in oil employing daring compositional formats, of which Gâteaux may be considered one of the finest.
One of the problems associated with still-life painting was the enormous historical weight the genre carried. Throughout centuries past artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin depicted the humble, prosaic elements of the kitchen as a basis for significant works of art. Much as the Californian artist Wayne Thiebaud did one hundred years later for the genre (fig. 1), Caillebotte updated this tradition to the specific cultural conditions of late 19th-century Paris by depicting foods that were produced and sold in mass quantities. Caillebotte's still lifes of this period may be considered not so much as nature morte, but rather as ode to consumption.
Gâteaux alludes to the economic and social changes that were structuring modern Paris. At this time, critical to the development of the city was the rise of the grands magasins. These vast emporiums of consumption helped determine the face of the new boulevards. The shop fronts that lined the grand boulevards thus sought to rival the department stores and began to sumptuously decorate their windows as a new mode of advertising. Developments in the technology of glass production - notably in the introduction of plate-glass - had increased the possibilities of turning the passer-by into a customer. Visual displays became an art, the window dresser an artist who transformed the goods into provocative still-lifes.
Caillebotte's experimentation in this subject produced some of the most inventive compositions within his oeuvre. Gâteaux presents not raw materials, but rather a finished product highlighting the artistry of the pastry chef. By adopting a high viewpoint and framing the subject with cropped edges, Caillebotte presented his subject as they might have been seen by the flâneur passing by the shop window of the neighborhood patisserie. In Gâteaux Caillebotte broke with traditions that not even Monet or Renoir achieved in their own works of the subject.
fig. 1) Wayne Thiebaud, Cakes, 1963, National Gallery of Art, Washingtion, D.C.