“Partie de bateau”, a painting by Gustave Caillebotte classified as a “national treasure” joins the permanent collection of the Musée d’Orsay from January 30. Paul Perrin, the director of collections, explains why this is an exceptional acquisition for the museum.
Gustave Caillebotte’s impressionist masterpiece Partie de bateau joins the impressionist collection accessible to the public from January 30. Classified as a “National Treasure” by the Ministry of Culture, it was acquired by a patron, the LVMH group, for the Musée d’Orsay. Paul Perrin, the director of the collections, tells us about his emotion on the occasion of the release of the painting from the museum’s reserves, and its installation in the room.
This painting is extraordinary for the Musée d’Orsay, which has many Impressionist treasures. Why is this one particularly moving to hang in your permanent collections today?
Paul Perrin: Gustave Caillebotte is an artist who today is truly recognized as one of the great masters of Impressionist painting, and in fact, the Musée d’Orsay’s collections are not so rich in masterpieces by the painter. Really, this remains one of the museum’s main acquisition axes, to enrich our collection with major works by Caillebotte. This one is part of a group of emblematic works among the most creative, original and important of Caillebotte. A set of works that he painted in the late 1870s that have as their theme boating, leisure, swimming, boating on rivers, in this case probably the Yerres. It is really a subject that Caillebotte will appropriate in a totally new way, radically new, by proposing really strong framings, very immersive. It was said at the time that they were very photographic.
Is the painter’s look influenced by photography?
There is indeed something in this painting that is of the order of the capture of a moment. And then there is also a frankness, almost a brutality in the way he places the viewer in the scene at the heart of the painting, by an immersive effect which is to cut the edges, the legs, the oars, the boat, and to install us in the center of the boat as if we were facing this character and to install him in the heart of the painting facing us without any element between him and us. Gustave Caillebotte treats a new subject in a new way. It is the idea of ignoring tradition, of not looking at the past, and of proposing a framing that corresponds to a way of seeing, to a modern look.
Indeed, we really have the impression of being in the heart of the painting…
Yes, it was something very new at that time, a way of painting that bewildered the visitors who saw this painting in an impressionist exhibition. The critics, too, were very surprised by this kind of framing, which was then taken up by photography and cinema. Photography and cinema used these immersive framings a lot, in close-ups, almost, but which were very new at that time in painting.
How did Caillebotte establish this close relationship with the viewer?
He establishes an extremely close relationship with the viewer, because this figure is really only a few centimeters away from us, and this is something that is not found in the painting of this period, this way of plunging us into the heart of the scene and installing a relationship of immediacy of the subject in the eye of the viewer. Moreover, if you look at the second boat, in the upper right-hand corner, you realize that it is a replica of the one you are in. You project yourself in this situation and imagine that you are in the place of the passenger.
What is the specificity of this painting in the history of painting?
The subject is eminently modern – the leisure activities of the new bourgeois and urban society, it is really typical of Impressionism and Caillebotte was one of those who was most interested in these new subjects in painting. We are at the end of the 1870’s, he painted about ten works on this theme, and this one is among his most remarkable works: it is radical and innovative. It is the moment when he is at the peak of his talent, and in this set, most of the paintings have left France, they are in great foreign collections. This painting is really one of the masterpieces of this series. It was still in France recently and we had the opportunity to significantly enrich the museum’s collections with this work which is truly iconic, and we are very pleased.
Did Gustave Caillebotte start a trend?
Caillebotte is an artist, like the whole impressionist group, who will really open the way to a new painting which will be inspired first of all by the subjects that will become predominant, subjects taken from modern life, that the impressionists install in painting, and then his framing and his colors are special yes. This painting shows how Caillebotte brings the light and color of the outdoors into his painting. He captures a moment, but he also really gives the feeling of being outdoors, bathed in natural light, which is a change from the studio painting that was common at the time. Many artists will take up these processes, whether it is plein air painting or modern subjects, but also the framing.
We have a certain number of artists who at the end of the 19th century will look at Caillebotte’s framings, both his immersive framings but also his somewhat unexpected points of view, as from a balcony looking at Paris for example, or from the roofs, the streets of Paris…
And then, there is always the mystery of the identity of this man?
Totally. It is a painting that gives a very important place to a figure, and normally this kind of painting is rather portraits, that is to say that we recognize the features of someone. But here, Caillebotte does not give us any keys to identify this figure. It is more a scene of modern life than a portrait. We can see that it is someone who has fairly recognizable features, but we do not know, even today, who this man is. We are still looking for his identity… It interests us because you see, he is a man of the city, a city dweller, probably a Parisian who has kept his top hat, his vest, his tie, and who comes to the suburbs for a boat ride. He is someone whose identity would be interesting to know, because he is very emblematic of modernity and of Caillebotte himself, this Parisian who is passionate about frigates, rowing, boating, and all these leisure activities. There are several interpretations. Some say it could be Edouard Manet, others wonder if it could be a self-portrait of Caillebotte himself, but it’s probably someone from his friendly circle, who has not yet been identified. It is a person who posed for him, but we cannot yet know who it is…