Isolation in the life of Caillebotte

The boom of industrialization in the late nineteenth century caused impressionist artists to celebrate the new modern life. Gustave Caillebotte, on the other hand, critiqued modernity by emphasizing the isolation that coincided with it. He felt that because of new technology and the high demand of mass produced items, interaction between people was lost and a reliance on machinery took over. Caillebotte stood out from other impressionist artists because he explored the idea of isolationism by utilizing modern gender roles in relation to the unusual interior and exterior space that he puts them in.   

                In most of Caillebotte’s work, he incorporates some kind of barrier or window to the outside world, which demonstrates tension between domestic space and the outside world in modern life, thus establishing a sense of isolation in the viewer. For example, in his work Young Man at His Window, painted in 1875 depicts a finely dressed, modern man standing at an open window. The interior space is much darker and melancholic than the outside space where the sky is lit up by the shining sun and towering buildings loom in his view. The viewer gets the sense of longing and tension because this man is trapped in this internal space. Tension between gender roles is also present in this piece. In the background, a woman walking down the street catches the man’s stare. Perhaps this is a sign of sexual tension or the question of what constitutes masculinity. Up until this point in time, women were mostly seen in domestic spaces, while the men were out and about making the money. Caillebotte incorporates this switch in gender roles to represent what is happening in modern society.              

                Another painting that delved into the idea of gender roles is Luncheon painted in 1876, just two years after his father’s death. Caillebotte’s family history may be the primary source for his central theme of isolation in painting. In fact, during only a span of four years, he lost his father, his brother, and his mother.  Moreover, Luncheon shows a scene of his mother and brother eating at the family table while a servant brings their food. Caillebotte depicted his mother with an authoritative presence in this painting because of the death of his father. Both mother and son seem occupied with their meal and separate from each other. One other theme that Caillebotte seems to use as the underlying composition for all of his paintings is illusionism and a rapid receding space. For example, in Luncheon, the table is at such a steep perspective that the viewer gets the sense of isolation because there is so much space between the two figures. This is a domestic scene, yet there are men painted within the interior space. Caillebotte was promoting the fact that domestic space can be masculine too. This is also evident in his Floor Scraper painting of 1875. The painting shows three men working in a domestic space. The lighting is dim, and the workers’ faces are kept in the shadows. The feeling of isolation is triggered by the men’s scraping motions moving away from the viewer while their shadows creep into the foreground, creating a somber mood. Similar to Luncheon, each figure is given their own space with hardly any interaction. The verticle lines receding into the background not only give a greater sense of depth and interior space, but it leads the viewer’s eye to the open window on the back wall. The decorative metal on the balcony acts as a barrier, blocking them from the outside world.       

Formal Analysis of Degas

Impressionism is perhaps one of the most fascinating art movements discussed in this series of courses. Artists during this time struggled to compete with new technology such as the camera because of its ability to capture a real, unpredictable moment in time. Thus the birth of impressionism, where art became a moment of modern life captured in a painting; unblended brush strokes are evidence of a fast paced and painterly approach while color was used to enhance a certain mood.  One artist that I have grown to appreciate is Edgar Degas. His painting The Rehearsal on Stage, completed in 1874, uses social commentary to evoke a sense of physical, sexual, and moral tension in depicting modern life.

                Firstly, The Rehearsal on Stage exhibits physical tension by the way that Degas painted the dancers. He has put some of them in strenuous and unnatural poses. For example, the dancer in the center foreground is uncomfortably leaning forward with her legs stretched in front of her. The dancers in the background are on the tips of their toes trying to maintain balance, while the girls on the side look tired and bored. . This painting demonstrates the long and gruesome hours that the young dancers experienced during practice.

                Degas also portrays sexual tension in this painting with his use of imagery. These are young women, dancing in more provocative, revealing dresses.  One important aspect of this painting is the two men sitting in the background on the right side. The men sitting there suggest that they have come to the rehearsal and paid to watch the girls dance. Because of Degas’s impressionistic approach to painting, we cannot make out the detail of the men’s faces; however it is obvious that they are simply there to watch. The men don’t seem to be carrying a conversation as if they are waiting for the rehearsal to end; rather they are relaxed, slumped in their chairs, enjoying the private show. Dancers during this time were typically of the lower class, but the strange thing is that the men watching are wearing suits so they must have been wealthy, not to mention that we are assuming that they paid to be there. In light of this, seeing this painting makes me feel as though it was easier to be taken advantage of, especially being a lower class woman, or perhaps that it was okay for the men to watch because these women were of a lesser rank. This can be interpreted as sexual tension. It almost seems as though the social commentary was showing how exhausted lower class women are of being degraded and simply seen as items of sex, which bring up the question of morality and the moral tension in this scene.      

                One characteristic that makes Degas’s work so interesting is that he was an impressionist, but he sometimes broke away from the style and incorporated more realism. For example, in The Rehearsal on Stage represents impressionism with his use of cropping. The dancer on the left closest to the viewer is cut in half; similar to how a photograph would look. On the other hand, he does not have a fascination with color and light like other impressionist artists. Instead he uses neutral colors and keeps a wide range of values without having one direct light source. Other impressionists painted exactly what was in front of them, which is what made them unique. However, Degas did not attend an actual rehearsal for this painting, but he used models instead. This isn’t a quick representation of life in front of him, however it is contrived. He exhibits a fluid, textured surface of brush strokes while still keeping a flat-like quality in his work.  A couple of elements in this painting in particular are the steepness of the floor and the bass clef in the foreground. In 1853, Japan made itself available in Western trade and diplomacy where art objects and prints became popular in France during the late nineteenth century. Degas was heavily influenced by Japanese wood block prints at this time. His work shares some of the same elements of Japanese wood block prints such as steep receding perspectives, flatness, blocks of color and geometric shapes. In The Rehearsal on Stage, Degas uses outline to shape some of the dancers; for instance the dancer’s legs in the middle ground are outlined and also the dresses of the dancers in the foreground are outlined which produces a flat effect. The bass clefs also reflect the blocks of color seen in the Japanese prints because they are immediately in the foreground and impossible to ignore which also gives the piece a flatness because of the solid dark color.   

                Overall, I love the way Degas incorporated different artistic styles into this painting to achieve a snapshot like scene of modern life in the late nineteenth century.  

Gustave Courbet: Political and Artistic Radicalism

In the nineteenth century, the oppression of the lower class by the bourgeois caused a great deal of political and artistic radicalism. Thus, began the socialist revolution in 1848. One of the avant-guarde painters of this century whose subject matter was based on this oppression of the poor was Gustave Courbet.

          For example, Courbet’s painting The Stone Breakers, completed just one year after Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” in 1848, demonstrates the conditions and lifestyle of the proletariats, or lower working class. This painting shows a young boy struggling to carry a heavy basket of rocks as the gentleman to the right is in an uncomfortable back breaking position hammering away at rocks. It is apparent that the man on the left is older because of the wrinkles on his hands and the highlighted wrinkles on his cheeks where the sun hits his face. This man is trying to survive while working, and he is working in order to survive. Coubet exposes political radicalism by glorifying the working class and recognizing its oppressed state.

          Like few other artists, Courbet wanted to paint exactly what he saw in front of him; this led to a movement called realism, which was the painting of modern life. The rise of realism was inspired by the invention of the camera. Artists were suddenly challenged to keep up with new technology in order to produce images similar to what could be captured by a camera. Some artists intentionally cropped their compositions as if cutting off a section that the camera couldn’t see. However, artists still rejected the standards of the Academy simply because their subject matter was not of mythological or religious narratives; rather they painted what was directly in front of them. This is artistic radicalism. The Stone Breakers is a rather large painting, about five feet by eight and a half feet. Looking at this painting as a bourgeois member would be extremely intimidating and quite offensive. Firstly, it was untraditional for large scale works to be dedicated to “lowly” subject matter. Not to mention that these figures take up most of the painting. The wealthy must have been appalled to see this. Another aspect of artistic radicalism is expressed by Courbet with his rough paint application; he did not leave a smooth glossy finished surface like artists of the Academy would have done. Also, his figures are pushed to the foreground, forcing the viewer to acknowledge them and recognize what they do on an average day. This was happening right in front of him, and that is the very point Courbet was trying to make. The faces and the gazes of the figures are not visible, which gives them an anonymous identity, representing the oppressed class as a whole. Although their faces are not attracting attention, the simplicity and darkness of the background brings the figures into focus that much more. Courbet expresses some disinterest in creating depth and the illusion of perspective with this piece, which is also a sign of artistic radicalism.