The Floor Scrapers By Gustave Caillebotte

Les raboteurs de parquet the floor planers this painting is one of the first representations of urban proletariat.
The floor scrapers by gustave caillebotte. The floor scrapers also known as the parquet planers or floor planers is an early depiction of the urban working class at work. French 1848 1894 follow. Caillebotte was not considered by art historians to be among the first rank painters of the impressionist era. He examines this labor intensive scene from an odd angle that makes the parallel floorboards slant sharply reminiscent of the japanese prints that fascinated.
Its subject matter the depiction of labourers preparing a wooden floor thought to have been that of the artist s own studio was considered vulgar by some critics and this is the probable reason for. Whereas peasants gleaners by millet or country workers stone breakers by courbet had often been shown city workers had seldom been painted unlike courbet or millet caillebotte does not incorporate any social moralising or political message in his work. Until now nearly all pictures of men and women at work were country scenes of farm workers and peasants such as the gleaners 1857 and man with a hoe 1862 by millet and the stone breakers 1849 50 by gustave courbet. French art academics were resistant to the idea of artists capturing the lives of the city poor but this was eventually accepted.
Three men finishing the wood floors of what seems to be a chic paris apartment these may be caillebotte s own rooms. 101 6 147 3 cm. Caillebotte made his debut in the second impressionist exhibition in 1876 showing eight paintings including les raboteurs de parquet the floor scrapers 1875 his earliest masterpiece. The floor scrapers 1875.
It was originally given by caillebotte s family in 1894 to the musée du luxembourg then transferred to the musée du louvre in 1929. The canvas measures 102 by 146 5 centimetres 40 2 in 57 7 in. 40 58 in. The floor scrapers is an oil painting by french impressionist gustave caillebotte.
French art had previously embraced the depiction of peasants within the countryside but to focus on them in the city was relatively. The style of this work belongs to the realism genre but unfortunately for gustave the art establishment only considered peasants and farmers from the countryside as acceptable subjects in works of art which highlighted the realism of working class life. Wikimedia commons public domain. A member and patron of the group of.
Want to sell a work by this artist. In the floor scrapers 1875 a subject that allies him with realism caillebotte has chosen an unusual theme. Despite his formal training his. That painter gustave caillebotte and his haunting oil les raboteurs de parquet the floor scrapers were not known to me then despite the fact that i was already developing a sense of art history.