The House Painters

Gustave Caillebotte continued his interest in the working lives of the normal citizens of Paris with this depiction of house painters, which fits closely with his two more famous paintings of floor scrapers.

This scene features a handful of local painters and decorators visiting a venue to spruce up its signage. Perhaps this was a small restaurant in need of a lick of paint. The perspective used by Caillebotte is typical of his work in Paris and adds some interest to an otherwise bland left hand side of the painting. All major detail is on the other side. The row of houses as well as the path on which they stand follows the same route along the artist's life of perspective. In the background we can see the other side of the boulevard cut in from the left, allowing us to understand more about the height of these buildings.

Further research has concluded that this venue was actually a small wine store and the painting itself has been dated at 1877. There is also a narrow palette of colours in this painting which can be found in some of his other urban based work, contrasting with the beautiful colours found in some of his more rural depictions.

This artwork gives an impression of relative quiet on this empty street, perhaps they were working during a relaxed Sunday afternoon or that the street itself was not particularly prominent. Some have suggested that the house painters represent the new impressionist artists who are helping to create a new Paris, along with all of the recent architecture that had been added to the city at around that time.