GLR March-April 2023

ESSAY

Straightwashing Gustave Caillebotte J IM V AN B USKIRK

P AINTER GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE remains the dark horse among French Impressionists, even as his contributions are increasingly being recognized by art critics and the general public. In addition to the critical attention he’s received, a quick Internet search turns up Caillebotte’s artwork reproduced on a wide variety of objects: jigsaw puz zles, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, books, prints, posters, shower curtains, socks, neckties, pajamas, T-shirts, backpacks, canvas totes, umbrellas, baseball caps, pillows, acrylic blocks, light switch covers, golf head covers, ceramic ornaments, busi ness cards, throw blankets, mouse pads, wrapping paper, and more. Commenting 25 years ago on a major traveling exhibition of Caillebotte’s work from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I was struck by the lengths to which the authors of the catalog essays

Paris (Rutgers University Press). Despite that, I think what I wrote all those years ago still largely applies. Included here are selected works by Caillebotte; you be the judge. G USTAVE CAILLEBOTTE may not be the most famous of the French Impressionist painters, but he deserves to be taken seriously. Born in 1848 and trained as a lawyer, he was also a naval architect, a sailor, a philatelist, a horticulturist—and a millionaire. In addition to being known as a generous benefactor to his fellow painters, he was an important art buyer whose collection of works by Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Sisley he left to France upon his death. The bequest was initially rejected, but with some reluctance it was finally accepted, and today it

forms the core collection of the Musée d’Orsay. Caillebotte never married and lived with his mother except for the last six years of his life. He died suddenly of a stroke in 1894 at the age of 45 and left a bequest to Charlotte Berthier, said to be his mistress. Until relatively recently, his philanthropy and largesse have tended to over shadow his own paintings. In 1986, The National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco organized The New Painting: Im pressionism 1874–1886 , which celebrated and re-created the eight group shows known as the Impres sionist Exhibitions. Caillebotte was represented by over a dozen can vases, and it is possible to view

Gustave Caillebotte. The Floor Scrapers , 1875. Musée D’Orsay, Paris.

them in their historical context. Amid the still lifes, landscapes, and interiors of the other Impressionist painters, images of women predominate. But something was different in Caille botte’s work, which also included these other genres: it was his view of men. In 1994, to commemorate the centennial of his death, the Musée D’Orsay in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago or ganized Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist . The exhibi tion and its catalogue promised “new information and insight regarding one of the most engaging painters and proselytizers of the Impressionist movement.” I eagerly anticipated the exhibit in its installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The catalog essay offers a message of regret:

went to avoid noticing the obvious: that many of his paintings contain homoerotic imagery that flew in the face of social and artistic norms of 1870s and ’80s France. Since then, a trickle of scholarship has acknowledged that some of his work has a decidedly “queer” aspect, such as Norma Broude’s 2002 essay, “Outing Impressionism: Homosexuality and Homosocial Bonding in the work of Caillebotte and Bazille,” in Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Jim Van Buskirk was the founding Program Manager of the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library (1992 2007). This essay, including a dozen images, was originally published in 1998 in the now defunct Queer Arts Resource .

The G & LR

26