Latest news with #GustaveCaillebotte
New York Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How ‘Gay' Became an Identity in Art
When did homosexuality change from a description of what people do to a definition of who they are? How was an act transformed into an identity? In this precarious moment, as White House pronouncements, court decisions and public polling indicate backsliding support for gay rights in this country, such questions, long chewed over by scholars of sociology, philosophy and gender studies, are addressed in two impressive art exhibitions in Chicago. Six years in the making, 'The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939,' at Wrightwood 659 gallery in Chicago, through Aug. 2, is an eye-opening global survey of same-sex-oriented art. With roughly 300 works on view, venturing beyond Europe and North America to include Latin America and Asia, it is a huge show. Yet the curator Jonathan D. Katz, who was assisted by Johnny Willis, said that procuring loans from international museums for an exhibition with this title and focus was a struggle, and more often than not, the requests were refused. Indeed, at the last moment, two promised paintings from Slovakia, which is governed by a socially conservative populist party, were withdrawn; a large black-and-white reproduction of one is hanging on a wall. Coincidentally, a superlative exhibition nearby, 'Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World' at the Art Institute of Chicago until Oct. 5, explores how the Impressionist master concentrated on the portrayal of men, at a time when turning the male gaze on another man was almost unthinkable. Most of his depictions are not overtly homoerotic. However, in a large painting, scandalous in its day and startling even now, he viewed from behind a naked man drying himself. It's the sort of boudoir picture that his friend Edgar Degas frequently made of female bathers. Caillebotte, who died at 45 in 1894, lived with a woman and never identified as gay. An important lesson drawn from both shows is that categories like gay and straight are markers of our time, not his. As documented in the erudite and sumptuous 'First Homosexuals' catalog, the term 'homosexual' (and 'heterosexual') came into being in the 1860s, along with 'urning,' a newly coined word that has not lasted so well. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German lawyer, divided humanity into those who are innately attracted to the opposite sex, and the 'urnings' who are enamored of their own. A few years later, the writer Karl Maria Kertbeny came up with 'homosexual.' Unlike Ulrichs, he viewed sexual choice as a changeable taste, not a binary division, akin to deciding what dish to cook for dinner. Yet in the years that followed, Ulrichs's hard-and-fast split between gay and straight came to be popularized with Kertbeny's terminology. Katz argues that at about the turn of the 20th century, in light of behavioral and psychological research, same-sex attraction shifted. Instead of something that could turn like a weather vane, it came to be regarded as an immutable orientation, and the objects of erotic fascination for gay and lesbian artists changed, too. Earlier gay artists embraced indeterminacy and represented bodies that blurred the line between masculine and feminine. But once homosexuality was no longer viewed as a momentary preference, androgynous adolescents gave way to muscular men and buxom women. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Chicago Tribune
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Letters: Title of exhibition at the Art Institute smacks of whitewashing
As a longtime supporter of the Art Institute of Chicago and an admirer of Gustave Caillebotte's work, I must express my profound disappointment with the institute's decision to rename the recent joint exhibition — originally titled 'Painting Men' at the Musée d'Orsay and the Getty Museum — to the sanitized and evasive 'Painting His World' here in Chicago. Having visited the d'Orsay's presentation last fall, where 'Paris Street; Rainy Day' — a masterpiece shared between Chicago and Caillebotte — stood as a centerpiece, I was struck by the French curatorial approach: thoughtful, honest and open to interpretation. The title 'Painting Men' was not an imposition or a presumption; it was an acknowledgment of the artist's lifelong preoccupation with the male figure, urban masculinity, and male intimacy in public and private spaces. By contrast, the Art Institute's retitling feels like a disappointing act of erasure. The new title not only dulls the edge of inquiry but reinforces the notion that recognition of queerness — or even ambiguity — in an artist's work must be neutralized for the comfort of a presumed audience. Equally troubling was curator Gloria Groom's response during Thursday night's member preview, in which she dismissed any exploration of Caillebotte's possible queerness by claiming she would not 'presume' his sexuality. Yet acknowledging that Caillebotte painted men — overwhelmingly, repeatedly and with intimacy — is not presumption. It's fact. What the French curators did so well was allow space for interpretation without fear, offering viewers the dignity of their own intelligence. Chicagoans deserve better. We should not shrink from critical engagement or whitewash complexity in the name of palatability. It's disappointing to see the Art Institute — once a beacon for cultural leadership — kowtow to imagined donor discomfort or a conservative fear of thought-provoking conversation. Let's trust our audiences, as the French have, to explore the fullness of an artist's world — including the people who populated constructive criticism by Edward Keegan in the Tribune ('Chicago Fire stadium plans cry out for a bit of quirkiness,' June 25) regarding the design of the new soccer stadium and the surrounding land referred to as The 78 in Chicago's South Loop prompts reflection on the many proposals for this land development, the Bears' new stadium and the possible new home for the White Sox. The design of the stadium and surrounding area offers a breath of fresh air in a city teeming with ideas but coming up short on the delivery. As a self-made man, Fire owner Joe Mansueto will fund this project with his own money as he has done with other projects mentioned by Keegan in the column. No whining. No pouting. No expectation of state funding nor Chicago resident tax dollars to build a private stadium for a soccer team. Yes, it differs from a traditional look in the stadium world. Open to criticism, the Gensler firm has presented a solid design. No political shenanigans. No groveling. A proposed start and finish date with a realistic budget. Rising above the need for a pat on the back, Mansueto has demonstrated the fortitude required to bring a solid idea to fruition with proper funding. Residents owe Mansueto our backing and a thank you for a job well has gotten a lot of bad press lately. As a lifelong Chicago-area resident, I would like to share some positives about a recent experience of mine. Last month, I walked from the West Ridge neighborhood to downtown and back — about 26.2 miles, or the distance of a marathon. I zigzagged through many neighborhoods, going through parks and streets. The street market in the Logan Square neighborhood went on for about a half mile. The stalls were packed with fruits, veggies, ethnic cuisine and even morel mushrooms. The music was lively, and the people were friendly. No police officers. As I approached, Humboldt Park was bustling with families out walking, kids playing ball and lovers holding hands. The park is where my parents courted in the 1940s. In my mind, I was able to picture them having a great day in the park. Part of the allure of this neighborhood is Humboldt Boulevard — gazing at the old mansions and churches that were once Jewish synagogues. I eventually headed to the United Center and then east. I can see how this neighborhood, once decimated by the riots of 1968 following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been transformed. The cafes and stores bustle with people of all ages. The West Loop is alive and well. In the 1970s, this was not possible. Once I got downtown, it was crowded for a Sunday. I headed back north, going through the North Side neighborhoods of Bucktown and Old Town. Some of the side streets are lovely, with a canopy of trees over the streets, beautiful gardens and the ever-present Chicago black wrought-iron fences. Going through Wrigleyville on a game day will always be an experience unto itself. The crowds gathered outside the ballpark were covered in Cubs wear. There were vendors selling water, peanuts, shirts and hats. The streets of Clark and Addison were blocked off, so it was like a street fair. The cops were friendly and helped tourists take pictures of the marquee. Then on to the Lakeview, Lincoln Square and Budlong Woods neighborhoods before returning to West Ridge. They were mostly subdued compared to the other areas that I covered, but they were all well kept up and clean. The city itself never looked better, and the people of this city do appreciate all that Chicago has to offer. There is an abundance of neighborhood parks in which everyone can enjoy a drink from a water fountain or a splash from it to cool off.I read that Mel Brooks just turned 99 years old. Maybe laughter is the best medicine.
Chicago Tribune
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago's museums for summer 2025: ‘Reptiles' at the Field, brews at the zoos and ‘Spider-Man' the exhibit
The movement du jour is for a museum to describe its offerings as 'immersive.' It's become a cliché, but it does nod to a cultural trend that predated, then was amplified by, the pandemic: Experiences, not exhibitions, are coaxing folks off their couches and into cultural institutions. That trend crops up in our museum preview this year. In fact, some of these suggested events don't even take place within the confines of their host institution. But if you find that a classic, walk-and-read exhibit can't be beat — I tend to be in that camp — we have plenty of those, too. Adventurers, academics and all-around-curious-people, read on! Kayaking for a cause: Dreaming of afternoons idling down the Chicago River? You can live out your summer fantasy while doing good thanks to the Shedd Aquarium, whose experts will lead conservation tours by kayak all summer long. Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 27 on the Chicago River; $65 per person; reservations at 'Reptiles Alive!': This exhibit builds on the work of Field Museum herpetologist Sara Ruane, also featured earlier this year as part of the museum's rotating 'Changing Face of Science' exhibition. If you come expecting the usual models or taxidermy, you're in for a treat: 20 live reptiles, including a spitting cobra and emerald tree boa, are housed onsite for the exhibition. June 20 to April 5 at the Field Museum, 1400 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, open daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; requires all-access pass, $43 adults, 'Native Pop!': For generations, activists have pushed museums — including many in Chicago — to depict Native Americans' lives as they are, rather than presenting them like a relic of the past. The 'now' is palpable in this Newberry Library showcase of Indigenous artists working in various pop mediums. Through July 19 at the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., open Tuesdays through Thursdays 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; free admission, On at the Art Institute: In addition to its exploration of 'Paris Street; Rainy Day' by painter Gustave Caillebotte, the museum is hosting the largest local retrospective of thought-provoking wartime sculptor H.C. Westermann in decades, open through May 2026. Contemporary art lovers will be agog at Raqib Shaw's epic 'Paradise Lost,' a 21-panel artwork that has never been displayed in its complete form until now (through Jan. 19). Meanwhile, the museum continues to show off its huge collection of Japanese prints with 'The Dawn of Modernity: Japanese Prints, 1850–1900,' in which artists document Japan's encounters with the industrialized West. All at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave., open Wednesdays through Mondays 11 a.m.-5 p.m., except Thursdays, open 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; admission $26-$32, Become a researcher for a day: A new exhibition opening at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum allows visitors to try their hands at activities inspired by real-life fieldwork. 'By A Thread: Nature's Resilience' emphasizes that conserving the natural world isn't a passive proposition: It requires everyone's help, including yours. The exhibit opens the same day as the museum's Summer Nature Fest. For $10 admission ($8 children), you can stick around for food and activities after the museum closes. June 20 to June 2026 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; adult tickets $12-$17, A peek inside: The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry's upcoming 'Beyond the Surface,' exhibit is a deep dive into the X-ray photography of Andrei Duman, starting July 3. The images show the inner workings of everyday objects, such as the many components of a car or the delicate wiring of a corded telephone. If you can't wait for that, a current exhibition in the spirit of the museum's recent '007 Science' feature, 'Marvel's Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing.' is open through February, though it's a little light on the science. Both at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive, open daily 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; admission $26 adults. 'Marvel's Spider-Man' requires an additional ticket costing adults $18-$22; reservations and more information at Boozy zoos: The Brookfield Zoo is becoming a watering hole in the name of wildlife conservation. Next up are 'Tequila and Tails' and 'Wines and Vines,' the latter doubling as the opening of the Zoo's new Tropical Forests habitat. (Non-drinkers rejoice: Mocktail tickets are available for a lower price.) Lincoln Park Zoo also revives its own drinker-friendly summer events with craft breweries and wineries posting up on zoo grounds. 'Tequila and Tails' on June 14 and 'Wines and Vines' on Aug. 23, both 6-9 p.m. at Brookfield Zoo Chicago, 31st Street and Golfview Avenue, Brookfield; non-member tickets $105 or $70 for mocktails, 'Craft Brews' on June 28 and 'Summer Wine Fest' on July 25, both 7-10 p.m. at the Lincoln Park Zoo, 2001 N. Clark St.; admission $57; tickets and more information at Waltz of the flowers: After experiencing the lushness of the Chicago Botanic Gardens in midsummer, step into Nichols Hall for a reprise of 'Superbloom,' the dance work premiered by Chicago company The Seldoms in 2023. For those who can't make the three performances, Art on the Mart has commissioned a video version to be projected in full view of the Riverwalk (Thursdays through Sundays July 10-Sept. 7). July 25-27 at the Chicago Botanic Gardens, 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe; tickets $27-$29 adults. Show times and more information at Museum multiplayer: On your hands and knees, begging your kids to do something besides playing video games all summer? Take them to the American Writers Museum, whose 'Level Up: Writers & Gamers' shines a rare spotlight on the scribes behind their favorite titles. Open through Nov. 2 at the American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michigan Ave., open Thursdays through Mondays 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; admission $10-$16, Home is where the history is: If you haven't yet been to the recently opened National Public Housing Museum in Little Italy, it's high time to fix that. Spend an afternoon exploring its attentively curated exhibitions for free, or, for a small sum, take a guided tour through recreations of real families' units on museum grounds, in the former Jane Addams Homes. 919 S. Ada St., open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays; free admission, $15-$25 apartment tours can be scheduled at
Forbes
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Gustave Caillebotte's Unusual, Radical Impressionist Men On Tour
'Paris Street, Rainy Day,' 1877 Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Oil on canvas, 83 9/16 x 108 3/4 in (212.2 x 276.2 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1964.336. Art Resource, NY EX.2025.2.79 Degas' ballet dancers. Renoir's voluptuous nudes. Mary Cassatt and Berthé Morisot's mothers with children. Monet's portraits of his first wife Camille; Renoir's and Manet's portraits of Camille. French Impressionism was flush with paintings of women. Then there was Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894). Caillebotte occupied a central position within the Impressionist group. His family wealth allowed him to become an essential financial backer to numerous Impressionist painters and amass one of the finest collections of their work. When Caillebotte died, his bequest of artwork to the French state eventually formed the backbone of Paris' Musée d'Orsay's unrivaled collection of Impressionist paintings. Renoir was the executor of his estate. Caillebotte was a damn good painter too, and he painted men. He painted men to such an unusual degree when compared to his contemporaries that three of the greatest art museums in the world–the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Orsay–have teamed up to explore why this was through an exhibition, 'Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men.' On view are a stupefying assemblage of paintings among the most celebrated from the Impressionist movement and Modernism more broadly. Seeing them together like this without a time machine set for 1880s Paris, almost surely never again. Two are particularly noteworthy for filling art history textbooks: Floor Scrapers (1875) from the Orsay and the Art Institute's Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877). Paintings that turn ordinary people into art nerds. 'Floor Scrapers,' 1875, Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Oil on canvas, 40 3/16 x 57 1/16 in (102 x 145 cm). Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Gift of the heirs of Caillebotte through his executor Auguste Renoir, 1894. Musée d'Orsay. dist Grand Palais RMN / Patrice Schmidt EX.2025.2.32 Answering the million-dollar question of why Caillebotte painted more men more prominently than any other Impressionist by a wide margin begins with biography. The artist came from a family of brothers, went to all male schools, served in the all-male French military, and trained as an artist in an all-male studio. He was a member of numerous amateur associations like the Paris Sailing Club that were exclusively male. He was a committed bachelor his entire life. All the other French Impressionist men lived in a similarly male dominated society, so that's only part of the answer. Caillebotte's reality was unique from his peers due to his wealth. His father accumulated a self-made fortune and then died along with Caillebotte's mother and a brother in quick succession in the 1870s, leaving the artist money to share with one other brother before turning 30. Flush with cash, Caillebotte didn't need to create for the market. He could paint whatever he wanted, even subjects not favored by collectors. Subjects like men. And not men of the aristocracy. 'Caillebotte had a lot of cross class affinity,' Getty curator Scott Allan told 'He's interested in working guys. He's comfortable around working guys; often, they're his employees, but you get this sense that Caillebotte was happier hanging out with the gardener, or the sailors he employed, or the guys at the shipyard that were building the boats he designed, than he was making the rounds in high society in Paris.' Such was the case with Floor Scrapers. 'This was not a subject you saw on the walls of the (Paris) Salon. There are plenty of pictures touching on themes of labor, but it's always peasant labor out in the countryside; (Caillebotte) modernizes it and urbanizes it,' Allan said. 'It was a provocative choice to have these working-class guys stripped to the waist in a fancy bourgeois apartment.' The painting was made six years after the Paris Commune, a brutally suppressed working class uprising. 'There's a lot of anxiety among the property classes about potential further violent uprisings–there's a big wealth gap,' Allan explained. 'Caillebotte was being politically provocative too in his choice of some of these male subjects; he wanted to push the limits.' Caillebotte's interest in painting men is also tied up in his country's history immediately predating the 1871 Paris Commune. 'After France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (1870–1871), there's a heightened concern about the state of French manhood, virility,' Allan said. The Franco-Prussian war was a humiliating, demoralizing affair for the French, ending the nation's power over continental Europe. 'So, there's this new cultural emphasis on virility and that comes across in Caillebotte's art,' Allan continued. 'He's invested in certain notions of masculinity in complicated and nuanced ways. His depictions of modern sportsmen, bathers, soldiers all key into this broader concern around issues of virility.' Caillebotte's career also coincides with the beginning of France's Third Republic (1870–1940). 'There's this rejuvenation of these Republican values: liberty, equality, fraternity,' Allan said. 'A new reemphasis on this idea of fraternity–of democratic male citizenship–is important in the cultural background. This idea of fraternity is a good overarching framework for this exhibition because it works on the family level, but also more broadly on the social, cultural, political level. It is a concept that runs through the exhibition in a lot of ways.' 'Fraternity' not in the American sense of college guys getting drunk and acting a fool; 'fraternity' in the sense of brotherhood. Values, interests, and objectives for the nation shared by men. A bond. 'Boating Party,' about 1877-78. Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Oil on canvas, 35 1/4 x 45 15/16 in (89.5 x 116.7 cm). Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Painting listed "national treasure" by the French Republic, acquired with the exclusive patronage of LVMH, major patron of the Musée d'Orsay, 2022. Grand Palais RMN (Musée d'Orsay) / Franck Raux EX.2025.2.35 Caillebotte's wealth and the artistic freedom it provided him was also paired with great ambition and a radical streak. 'He's in this very competitive avant-garde milieu. Degas is doing his milliners and laundresses and ballet dancers. Renoir is doing these pretty Parisiennes–these major figure painters that he is friends with and rivals with, and modern masculinity is relatively untapped iconographic terrain,' Allan said. '(Painting men is) a way for Caillebotte to differentiate himself and broaden the horizons of painting modern life.' Caillebotte routinely, provocatively, intentionally substituted men into paintings where women had previously been. Men playing the piano. Men rowing boats. 'He unsettles the gender expectation of painting. He does it time and again. One obvious example, his notorious, naked man toweling off after a bath (1884's Man at His Bath),' Allan said. 'This is something you did not see, especially in large scale painting at the time–totally unheard of. There are plenty of nude bathers, but it's always women. In Caillebotte's immediate circle in the 1880s, Degas is doing one nude female bather after another, and they're incredibly radical from an artistic point of view, but kind of conventional in this focus on the female nude.' As a response, Caillebotte applied the male gaze to men. Again, directly from the artist's lived experience. He would have seen naked men bathing while serving in the army and then the reserves. He would have seen floor scrappers working on his properties. Paris Street, Rainy Day, that was the path he walked through Paris daily. 'He's an iconographic innovator. He's highly original in his selection of subjects and I think he wanted to be seen as extremely original and modern and bold in his choices,' Allan said. 'Part of his strategy is a gendered strategy. He's really aware of what the artists in the circle are doing.' 'Man at His Bath,' 1884, Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Oil on canvas 57 x 45 in (144.8 x 114.3 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds by exchange from an anonymous gift, Bequest of William A. Coolidge, Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, and from the Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund, Mary S. and Edward J. Holmes Fund, Fanny P. Mason Fund in memory of Alice Thevin, Arthur Gordon Tompkins Fund, Gift of Mrs. Samuel Parkman Oliver—Eliza R. Oliver Fund, Sophie F. Friedman Fund, Robert M. Rosenberg Family Fund, and funds donated in honor of George T. M. Shackelford, Chair, Art of Europe, and Arthur K. Solomon Curator of Modern Art, 1996–2011. © 2025 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston EX. 2025.2.80 Was Caillebotte gay? Is that the reason he painted so many men? 'It's a hard question to resolve,' Allan admitted. 'His paintings certainly make room for a homoerotic gaze, people bring that to the paintings for sure. It's a valid response, but in the show, (we're) trying to avoid reducing the art to the question of the artist's sexuality. We really want to emphasize the issue of gender expression and how it intersects with painting and Caillebotte's interest in modern masculinity.' No contemporary correspondence or accounts from the artist or associates indicates Caillebotte was gay. He did have a prominent, long-term relationship of an uncertain nature with a woman. Viewers get into trouble reading 19th century paintings from a 21st century perspective, especially when it comes to sexuality. 'Relations between men were very different in the 19th century,' Allan said. 'If you read correspondence between men in the 19th century, sometimes it can seem weirdly intimate in a way that that is very different from today.' Man at His Bath feels homoerotic in 2025. Maybe. Maybe it was contemporary commentary on new hygiene practices promoted within the French army Caillebotte observed. Maybe it was deliberately provocative. Maybe it was a response to Degas. The exhibition goes out of its way not to bog down over the 'is he/isn't he' question of Caillebotte's sexuality. 'You get into these terrible conversations where the people who don't want a queer reading of Caillebotte will be like, 'Well, look, he did a female nude too, and that's an even bigger and more important painting.' Then the people who want to advance a queer reading of Caillebotte will be like, 'Don't straight-wash Caillebotte,' Allan said. 'I don't want to reduce the art to the question of the artist's sexuality. That's so reductive. The nude is a major genre of painting with a long tradition, and first and foremost, we have to understand how Caillebotte is intervening in a genre of painting and doing interesting new things that mess with our expectations, maybe unsettle our position as viewers. That's part of the radical charge of his art. To simply say, 'Oh, he was gay, and that's why he painted this,' it's so much more interesting and complicated than that.' 'Painting Men' can be seen for free at the Getty Center in Los Angeles through May 25, 2025, before heading off to the Art Institute of Chicago from June 29 to October 5, 2025.
Los Angeles Times
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
It's raining men at the Getty's survey of Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte
Whether French Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte was gay is not known, although it is frequently noted that he never married. (The artist died young, at 45, in 1894 from what is thought to have been a stroke.) Certainly, however, Caillebotte was homosocial. Evidence of the importance to him of strong social interactions with other men, rather than women, is all over his work. Workmen scraping wood floors in a room that would become the artist's studio. A man leaning casually against a cafe table, other men across the bar reflected in the mirror behind him. Men rowing boats on the river, reading books or newspapers, playing the piano, working at a desk or merely sitting in a comfortable chair lost in thought. Men playing cards at home. Men looking out over the city from balconies or gazing at it through the crisscrossed steel girders of a bridge. Men toweling themselves dry after a bath. The emphasis on men's daily lives is very unusual, given the prominence of women as subject matter in scores of paintings of the period by Manet, Degas, Morisot, Monet, Renoir, Cassatt and more of his Impressionist friends and colleagues in Paris. Feminine activity as seen by artists both male and female is a primary focus of those artists' works. But in Caillebotte's art, it's raining men. At the J. Paul Getty Museum, the first Los Angeles museum survey of Caillebotte's paintings in 30 years brings the atypical subject to the foreground in engrossing ways. The artist has been routinely positioned as 'the forgotten' or 'the unsung' Impressionist, his name hardly as familiar as so many others, although there has been no shortage of scholarly and museum attention to his art since the 1970s. He's far from overlooked. But, oddly enough, his distinctive theme of masculinity emerging in a modern context has been largely unnoticed in museum exhibitions before now. 'Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men' fixes that. With more than 60 paintings and almost as many drawings and studies, the show shifts attention away from stylistic analysis of Impressionist painting's formal structures and working methods, at which Caillebotte was not always adept, to issues of identity explored in subject matter. Forget close study of broken brushwork. In the French Republic's revolutionary motto of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, which cracked open modernity, brotherhood's place in ideas of freedom and social equality gets examined. Caillebotte's actual younger brother, René, was the model for 'Young Man at His Window,' a terrific 1876 painting acquired by the Getty in 2021, and one spur to organizing this show. Getty curator Scott Allan worked with Paul Perrin, director of collections at Paris' Musée d'Orsay, where the exhibition was seen last fall, and Gloria Groom, curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, where it concludes its international tour beginning in June. René, shown from behind, face unseen, is anonymous in 'Young Man at His Window,' a nearly 4-foot vertical painting. Elegantly dressed, he holds a firm, wide stance, hands thrust in pockets, as he looks out over a smart urban intersection from an upper floor of his wealthy family's new home in Paris' fashionable 8th arrondissement. A few carriages are passing by; near the center, a chic young female pedestrian about to arrive at the curb is a possible focus of his regard. A plush, red velvet fauteuil tucked into the lower right corner of the picture is like an upscale launching pad, which has propelled the man to the balustrade along a tall French window. Opposing diagonals of the room and the opened right-hand window meet at a pointed angle where René stands, placing him smack at the center of a jutting space. It's as if he's plowing forward on the prow of a ship. The clever composition emphasizes his dynamic placement as a commander of the modern city, spreading out below. Caillebotte's best paintings exploit such savvy compositional drama, which signals a keen awareness of performing for a viewer standing in front of the canvas. 'Floor Scrapers,' a personal favorite, assumes an intimate vantage point of looking down toward the workmen's vigorous labor, which results in a floor that appears vertiginously tilted up. It's as if the shirtless workmen might soon tumble into a viewer's space. 'Paris Street, Rainy Day,' easily Caillebotte's most famous (and largest) painting, is a push-pull extravaganza of male urban energy. A vertical lamppost splits the scene roughly into halves. In the closely cropped right half, a man confidently leads a woman toward us by the arm, while in the left half, mostly men bustle about in the space opened in a broad intersection created by dramatically thrusting buildings. Way over to one side, the front end of a carriage miraculously — and impossibly — vanishes behind two pedestrians. The visual trick may have been created by the artist's use of a common optical viewing aid called a camera lucida. If so, the painted visual surprise, which the painter surely knew, is one more nod to our status as keen observers. The urban push-pull of 'Paris Street, Rainy Day' becomes the recreational play of looking at art. The game continues in 'Boating Party,' which puts us inside a rowboat right up close to a top-hatted rower whose exertion will paradoxically pull the boat away from where we stand. Our vision zooms in, while the rower is poised to zoom out. In the rarely seen 'Man at His Bath,' the tug assumes a culturally determined tension around male nudity. We unexpectedly find ourselves in an ordinary guy's presence after he has just gotten out of the privacy of a bathtub and is toweling himself off. He's nearly life-size. Caillebotte has jettisoned the usual classical trappings of Greek and Roman heroes, which typically cloak male nudes in sober history and myth. How closely should we — male or female — be examining this man's lovingly painted buttocks? Sometimes the composition gets away from Caillebotte, despite the best of intentions. Another painting accomplishes a snappy cultural reversal by putting Charlotte Berthier, his longtime female companion (whom he chose not to marry), in the extreme foreground reading a newspaper, while a man in the background is stretched out on a sofa reading a book. It's a pointed swap of the usual reading material shown in traditional Western pictures of women and men. The composition portrays her alert perusal of a text connected to the public world of action, and him relaxing with a text connected to a contemplative interior life. Unlike the lovely woman, however, the man on the couch is awkwardly drawn, and the shift in scale is all wrong. Overwhelmed by big, floral-patterned cushions, he looks like a child or a doll. The clumsiness derails the scene. Indeed, each of the show's seven thematic sections is anchored by a single strong painting. The rest are subsidiary — helpful in fleshing out the period themes of masculinity based on family, work, friendships, sports and the like, but also evidence for why Caillebotte doesn't rank in the top tier of Impressionist painters. Overall, with most paintings bland, unadventurous or ungainly, he just isn't that good — perhaps unsurprising for a serious career that didn't last much more than a decade. That fact has been unmistakable since 1976, when Houston's Museum of Fine Arts sparked the general revival of interest in his work with the artist's first full retrospective exhibition in the U.S. (The Getty's is the fourth.) Here was a fresh Impressionist face from America's favorite modern art movement, but just a handful of pictures were top-notch. He made around 500 paintings during his lifetime, so the ratio is poor. The date of the Houston show is revealing. It coincides with the efflorescence of 1970s feminist art history. Among the many benefits of feminist scholarship and its focus on the complex nature of identity has been the subsequent study of homosocial experience. For men, same-sex socialization must also deal with the conventional oppression against homosexuality — a categorizing term invented when Caillebotte was 20 and in common usage by the time he died. In modern life, men can get close to other men — just not too close. Think again about 'Young Man at His Window.' For all we know, Caillebotte's brother René could be looking to see who's riding in the far carriage passing by in the distance, or getting out of the carriage pulled up by the curb just below his window. Maybe it's a man. Maybe the prominent placement of a lone young woman in the center intends to provide a protective shield, offering another ambiguous prospect. Painting men in late 19th century France meant that caution had to be taken. Today, when issues of marginalized identity are under massive political assault, the Getty show opens up tantalizing questions.
