Gustave Caillebotte: Painting the Paris of Naturalism, 1872–1887

Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), the son of a wealthy businessman, is perhaps best known as the painter who organized and funded several of the groundbreaking exhibitions of the Impressionist painters, collected their works, and ensured the Impressionists’ presence in the French national museums by bequeathing his own personal collection. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and sharing artistic sympathies with his renegade friends, Caillebotte painted a series of extraordinary pictures inspired by the look and feel of modern Paris that also grappled with his own place in the Parisian art scene.

Gustave Caillebotte: Painting the Paris of Naturalism, 1872–1887 is the first book to study the life and artistic development of this painter in depth and in the context of the urban life and upper-class Paris that shaped the man and his work. Michael Marrinan’s ambitious study draws upon new documents and establishes compelling connections between Caillebotte’s painting and literature, commerce, and technology. It offers new ways of thinking about Paris and its changing development in the nineteenth century, exploring the cultural context of Parisian bachelor life and revealing layers of meaning in upscale privilege ranging from haute cuisine to sport and relaxation. Marrinan has written what is sure to be a central text for the study of nineteenth-century art and culture.

Michael Marrinan is professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the coauthor of The Culture of Diagram (2010) and the author of Romantic Paris (2009) and Painting Politics for Louis-Philippe (1988).

“Gestated over many years, and beautifully produced, [this book] lavishes attention on Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte. . . . Picture by picture, quartier by quartier, Michael Marrinan follows Caillebotte's traces and guides the reader through his fifteen most productive years.”
—Nineteenth Century French Studies

“Michael Marrinan’s study of Gustave Caillebotte offers valuable new material and presents revisionist interpretations of his paintings that deserve to reinvigorate scholarly debates that have, over the last decade, started to approach a consensus. . . . Marrinan’s monograph is essential reading for scholars of Caillebotte and Impressionism.”
—Burlington Magazine

“This in-depth study of the life and career of the French painter and patron presents new research documents to create a revealing portrait of Caillebotte and the Parisian art scene in the late 19th century.”
–Apollo

“In the growing literature on Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Michael Marrinan’s monograph stands tall. Rooted in groundbreaking research and sustained visual analysis, it offers the most detailed panorama yet of the artist’s career.”
—H-France