Overview

Gustave Caillebotte was more than a painter: he collected postage stamps, designed and raced yachts, cultivated rare orchids, collected Impressionist masterpieces, and organised Impressionist exhibitions. Gustave Caillebotte as Worker, Collector, Painter presents the first comprehensive account of Caillebotte's passions and achievements, and reveals for the first time their profound impact upon his art. Where previous studies have examined Caillebotte’s interest in working men, this book develops earlier approaches by excavating Caillebotte’s work on in its own terms, to understand what it meant to him. Caillebotte was born to an haute bourgeois milieu in which he was never entirely comfortable and so he refused the life of idle luxury that his inherited wealth afforded him. Instead, he actively sought out opportunities to work hard, and laboriously studied others hard at work. Working at a moment in which definitions of work and class were being reshaped to suit the needs of a new and fragile Republic, Caillebotte profited from their malleability to fabricate a new sense of self and make his own place in the world. Understanding Gustave Caillebotte as a worker, collector, and painter sheds new light on this idiosyncratic and innovative Impressionist. The Caillebotte that emerges is thus more nuanced, complex, and fascinating than previous scholarship has suggested, offering readers a new reading of the artist's labor, art, and material practice in its broadest sense. As a result, the book stands as an important contribution to 19th-century art history, impressionist studies, and French social history.

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9781501388101

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Reviews

Raybone’s perspective on the artist is highly original, as is clear from the outset when he stages a brilliant coup de théâtre by quoting references in the British press in 1890 to his collection as ‘magnificent’ and ‘an unparalleled achievement’, before revealing that these eulogies were of his stamp collection. * Evening Standard * Raybone explores the vital question of 'what it meant to work and be a worker' for an artist in the last quarter of the 19th century. * H-France Review, Alexandra Wettlaufer, University of Texas at Austin, USA * This study reassesses Gustave Caillebotte's career in its entirety, bringing into play notably his intensive pursuit of philately and his ambitious garden designs. Hardly noticed in previous accounts, these two concerns are brilliantly anatomized and shown to be integral aspects of the artist's creative life. * Stephen Bann, Emeritus Professor of History of Art, University of Bristol, UK * Raybone’s excellent, well-researched book on Gustave Caillebotte offers us gripping new readings of the artist’s labour in its broadest sense, incorporating not only novel analyses of his art and material practice as a painter, but integrating this aspect of his life more effectively than ever before with his other ‘work’– as an art collector, pre-eminent philatelist, racing yacht designer and master-sailor, innovative gardener and orchid-breeder. Caillebotte emerges from Raybone’s important, thought-provoking study as a more complex and complete personality, and in ways that simultaneously provide us with fresh insights into Impressionism and French society in the period. * Anthea Callen, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia *

Raybone's perspective on the artist is highly original, as is clear from the outset when he stages a brilliant coup de theatre by quoting references in the British press in 1890 to his collection as 'magnificent' and 'an unparalleled achievement', before revealing that these eulogies were of his stamp collection. * Evening Standard * This study reassesses Gustave Caillebotte's career in its entirety, bringing into play notably his intensive pursuit of philately and his ambitious garden designs. Hardly noticed in previous accounts, these two concerns are brilliantly anatomized and shown to be integral aspects of the artist's creative life. * Stephen Bann, Emeritus Professor of History of Art, University of Bristol, UK * Raybone's excellent, well-researched book on Gustave Caillebotte offers us gripping new readings of the artist's labour in its broadest sense, incorporating not only novel analyses of his art and material practice as a painter, but integrating this aspect of his life more effectively than ever before with his other 'work'- as an art collector, pre-eminent philatelist, racing yacht designer and master-sailor, innovative gardener and orchid-breeder. Caillebotte emerges from Raybone's important, thought-provoking study as a more complex and complete personality, and in ways that simultaneously provide us with fresh insights into Impressionism and French society in the period. * Anthea Callen, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia *

Author Information

Samuel Raybone is Lecturer in Art History at Aberystwyth University, UK.

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