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A major retrospective of Gustave Caillebotte’s art was finally revealed in 1995 in Paris at the Grand Palais and at the Art Institute in Chicago a century after his death. Closely following the Impressionists from whom he bought many paintings, Gustave Caillebotte was more known as a patron and collector than he was as a painter.

With the title, In the Intimacy of the Brothers, the Musée National des Beaux-arts in Quebec invites us to explore his world. Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) being a painter and photographer, this unpublished exhibition presents more than 45 of his paintings and 145 photographs of his brother Martial Caillebotte (1853-1910). The show invites the spectator to witness the life and history of a family where the chronicle and artistic preoccupations are told by both photography paintings.

 

As we enter, we stand before the greenhouses and the gardens that both the two brothers loved. Like Claude Monet, Gustave makes us breathe the perfumes of Garden nasturtium or simple daisies in some paintings. Displayed in series, the paintings communicate a warm and misty atmosphere of a greenhouse. The art is blooming with exotic flowers just like the ones Gustave cultivated. Its white orchids, its opulent cattleyas, so important for Proust, are flaunting their scent with a sumptuous trace on the bottom of the glass. No doubt because they were more then difficult to photograph in black and white and that the objectives of the cameras at the time did not allow big plans, Martial is interested rather in general views of the garden where his two children played.

The brothers, both artists, align themselves around symbols of bridges and railways, symbols of modernity. Other favorite topics, passionate for navigation, had a pleasure representing sailboats, boatmen and bathers. Over the water, painting scenes of canoeing, sailboats that he designed and built, the regatta, the rowers or the effects of light on the edges of the scene, Gustave touches the major impressionists themes. Highlighting the technical principles of the new painting does this. Completed in 1878, a triptych associated fishermen to the line, bathers frolicking in the waves and enthusiastic rowers. This is a main piece of art for the painter who sees it as a real manifesto of his commitment to the impressionists. He abandoned at that time the scenes of contemporary bourgeois life or the working class life that characterized his previous paintings and that was inspired by the realism. Martial has travelled a lot in France. The photos brought back from his travels constitute a veritable gallery of gems for the country. It shows the Mont Saint Michel, Saint Malo; the bridge of Avignon; Arles Amphitheatre; the Pond de Gard and the Alps. The Parisian monuments are also honored. A little before his time, these historical pictures by Martial are influenced by the painting. In contrast Gustave’s paintings try to dig out from under a certain weight associated with paintings.

In the Intimacy of the Brothers Cailllebotte. Painter and photographer. Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec. Until January 8, 2012.

René Viau