Paris: A Rainy Day

Paris Street; Rainy Day (or Paris: A Rainy Day) is a large (212.2cm x 276cm) 1877 oil painting by the French artist Gustave Caillebotte. The piece depicts the Place de Dublin, an intersection near the Gare Saint-Lazare, a railroad station in north Paris. One of Caillebotte's best known works, it debuted at the Third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877 and is currently owned by the Art Institute of Chicago. Art Institute curator Gloria Groom described the piece as "the great picture of urban life in the late 19th century."

Caillebotte's interest in photography is evident from the painting. The figures in the foreground appear slightly "out of focus", those in the mid-distance (the carriage and the pedestrians in the middle of the intersection) have sharp edges, while the features in the background becomes progressively indistinct. The severe cropping of some figures further suggests the influence.

The point-focus of the image highlights the dimensions and draws the viewer's eye to the vantage point at the center of the buildings in the background. The figures appear to have walked into the painting, as though Caillbotte was taking a snapshot of people casually going about their day, hiding the fact that he spent months carefully placing his figures within the pictorial space.

This painting can be seen at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris (September 25, 2012–January 20, 2013), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (February 26–May 27, 2013), and the Art Institute of Chicago (June 26–September 22, 2013).

In his masterpiece, Paris Street; Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte brought an unusual monumentality and compositional control to a typical Impressionist subject, the new boulevards that were changing the Paris cityscape. The result is at once real and contrived, casual and choreographed. With its curiously detached figures, the canvas depicts the anonymity that the boulevards seemed to create. By the time it appeared in the third Impressionist exhibition, held in April 1877, the artist was 29 years old, a man of considerable wealth, and not only the youngest but also the most active member of the Impressionist group. He contributed six of his own canvases to the exhibition; played a leading part in its funding, organization, promotion, and installation; and lent a number of paintings by his colleagues that he owned.

About the Artist: Gustave Caillebotte (1848-94) was born into an upper-crust Parisian family who had made their fortune in textiles. Caillebotte was a lawyer, but after receiving a large inheritance, he decided to pursue painting and horticulture. He enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, of whom he later became a patron. He organized group impressionist shows including one in Paris in 1877, which featured his own Paris Street; Rainy Day.

How the painting got to Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago bought it in 1964 for an undisclosed price. The purchase was brilliant and bold, says Gloria Groom, the Art Institute's curator of 19th-century European painting, because the world had not yet recognized Caillebotte's talent. In 1995, the painting was the signature piece at a French retrospective of Caillebotte. It remains one of the few Caillebottes in any public collection; most of the artist's work is privately owned by his family.

TODO -

• Go to Art Institute of Chicago (may be next summer between June 26 - September 2013.), if I can find a resort in our vacation network near that place.
• Go to North France to find the Place de Dublin, an intersection near the Gare Saint-Lazare, a railroad station in north Paris (may be 2015)
• Start oil painting of this one (may be next month :-))) - how to get the wet feel of rain?)