Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894)
Le Pont de l’Europe, esquisse (Pont de l’Europe, Sketch)
c.1876
Oil on canvas, 33 cm x 45.7 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes
The work of the impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, who participated that year in the second impressionist exhibition in Paris, demonstrates documentary precision. The Pont de l’Europe, built between 1865 and 1868, opens onto the new Gare Saint-Lazare district, completely remodeled by the new railway network. The x-shaped metal construction of the bridge is made of a bundle of diagonals which open towards the distance, that of the Haussmannian boulevards. The sketch of the character, who observes the railway tracks, gives humanity to this new modern space. Caillebotte pictorially designs the new spaces of the modern city, made up of the new perspectives that photography, writing through light, is raising in the capitals of the world. (MBAR)
Compare:
Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894)
Étude pour “Le Pont de l’Europe”
1876
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo
Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894)
Le Pont de l’Europe
1876
Musée du Petit Palais, Genève
Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894)
Le pont de l’Europe
c.1876
Private collection
Caillebotte, Gustave (1848-1894)
Pont de l’Europe
1876–1877
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth