The Floor Scrapers (The Floor Planers or Floor-strippers)

English

The Floor Scrapers (The Floor Planers or Floor-strippers): Gustave Caillebotte

Price: Price on Request
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of Gustave Caillebotte >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Reproduction

Enlarge

Gustave Caillebotte Oil Painting - The Floor Scrapers (The Floor Planers or Floor-strippers)

Keywords: Floor, Scrapers, Floor, Planers, Floor, strippers

Work Overview: The Floor Scrapers (The Floor Planers; Floor-strippers)
Les raboteurs de parquet
Artist Gustave Caillebotte
Year 1875
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 102 cm × 146.5 cm ( 40 1⁄8 in × 57 5⁄8 in)
Location Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Les raboteurs de parquet (English title: The Floor Scrapers) is an oil painting by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. The canvas measures 102 by 146.5 centimetres (40.2 in × 57.7 in). It was originally given by Caillebotte's family in 1894 to the Musée du Luxembourg, then transferred to the Musée du Louvre in 1929. In 1947, it was moved to the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, and in 1986, it was transferred again to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where it is currently displayed.[1]

Caillebotte’s originality lay in his attempt to combine the careful drawing, modeling and exact tonal values encouraged by the Académie with vivid colors, bold perspectives, keen sense of natural light and modern subject matter of the Impressionist movement.[2] Painted in 1875, this work illustrates Caillebotte's continued interest in perspective and everyday life. In the scene, the observer stands above three workers on hands and knees, scraping a wooden floor in a bourgeois apartment—now believed to be Caillebotte's own studio at 77, rue de Miromesnil, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.[3] A window on the back wall admits natural light. The workers are all shown with nude torsos and tilted heads, suggesting a conversation.[4] Caillebotte’s interest in the male nude, set in a modern context, has been linked to his presumed homosexuality. It must be noted, however, that it was part of a larger trend, not necessarily limited to homosexual artists, that was first introduced by Courbet in a painting of two wrestlers (Szépmüvézeti Museum, Budapest).[5] This is one of the first paintings to feature the urban working class.[6] It reintroduces the subject of the male nude in the painting, but in a strikingly updated form. Instead of the heroes of antiquity, here are the heroes of modern life—sinewy and strong—in stooped poses that would appear demeaning if they did not convey a sense of masculine strength and honest labor.[7] There is a motif of curls in the image, from the wood shavings on the floor, to the pattern of ironwork in the window grill to the arched backs and arms of the workers.[8] The repetition in the image, with the three workers engaged in different aspects of the same activity but having similar poses, is similar to works by Caillebotte's contemporary, Edgar Degas.[8]

Despite the effort Caillebotte put into the painting, it was rejected by France's most prestigious art exhibition, the Salon, in 1875. The depiction of working-class people in their trade, not fully clothed, shocked the jurors and was deemed a "vulgar subject matter".[6] He was hurt by this rejection, and instead showed it at the second exhibition of the Impressionists, with whom he had already associated himself, in 1876.[9] He presented it alongside some of his other works, including a second, different version of Raboteurs from 1876, and his earlier work Jeune homme à sa fenêtre (Young Man at His Window)[10] The images of the floor scrapers came to be associated with Degas's paintings of washerwomen, also presented at the same exhibition and similarly scorned as "vulgar".[10]

The painting divided opinion in Parisian art circles. Among the detractors, Emile Porchoron, a critic of Impressionism, damned Caillebotte with faint praise: "the least bad of the exhibition. One of the missions Impressionism seems to have set for itself is to torture perspective: you see here what results can be obtained."[11] Émile Zola praised the technical execution, but then called it "an anti-artistic painting, painting as neat as glass, bourgeois painting, because of the exactitude of the copying."[12] Louis Énault was not troubled by the depiction ("The subject matter is certainly vulgar, but we can understand how it might tempt a painter") but did find fault with the image's fidelity to the scene: "I only regret that the artist did not choose his types better... The arms of the planers are too thin, and their chests too narrow... may your nude be handsome or don't get involved with it!"[13]

The painting received praise from many critics, though. Regarding the Salon rejection, poet and critic Émile Blémont called the decision "[a] very bad mark for the official jurors".[13] Maurice Chaumelin compared Caillebotte favorably to his contemporaries, writing that the work showed that he was "a realist just as raw, but much more witty, than Courbet, just as violent, but altogether more precise, than Manet."[11] Philippe Burty made comparisons to an even earlier generation of artists: "His pictures are original in their composition, but, more than that, so energetic as to drawing that they resemble the early Florentines."

This painting is one of the first representations of urban proletariat. 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. His thorough documentary study (gestures, tools, accessories) justifies his position among the most accomplished realists.

Caillebotte had undergone a completely academic training, studying with Bonnat. The perspective, accentuated by the high angle shot and the alignment of floorboards complies with tradition. The artist drew one by one all the parts of his painting, according to the academic method, before reporting them using the square method on the canvas. The nude torsos of the planers are those of heroes of Antiquity, it would be unimaginable for Parisian workers of those times. But far from closeting himself in academic exercises, Caillebotte exploited their rigour in order to explore the contemporary universe in a completely new way.

Caillebotte presented his painting at the 1875 Salon. The Jury, no doubt shocked by its crude realism, rejected it (some critics talked of "vulgar subject matter"). The young painter then decided to join the impressionists and presented his painting at the second exhibition of the group in 1876, where Degas exhibited his first Ironers. Critics were struck by this great modern tableau, Zola, in particular, although he condemned this "painting that is so accurate that it makes it bourgeois".

------------------------
Courbet originally submitted this painting to the official exhibition of the French Academy in 1875 but the jury of the exhibition, the Salon, refused the painting, deeming it "vulgar." Those representatives of the artistic establishment considered the subject, common workers refinishing a wood floor, "unheroic" and the strange, tilted view was thought to be too radical. Even the well-known, avant-garde writer and critic, Émile Zola, who had defended the Impressionists, denounced this work as being "anti-artistic" and "photographic." He went on to state that the work was "so accurate that made it bourgeois." However, The Floor Scrapers, which is regarded as one of Caillebotte's best works, did capture the attention and admiration of some of the Impressionist painters who persuaded him to display the piece in their second exhibition in 1876.

In this painting, three workers, naked from the waist up and completely absorbed in their strenuous labor, scrape away old layers of varnish in what is to become Caillebotte's first studio. The viewer observes the scene from the far end of the room and the floor seems to angle severely upward toward the window that is illuminating the portions of the floor that they haven't yet scraped as well as their bent and muscled backs.

In fact, The Floor Scrapers is one of the very first paintings representing the "urban proletariat," according to the Musée d'Orsay. "Whereas," explains the museum, "peasants (Gleaners by Millet) or country workers (Stone Breakers by Courbet) had often been shown, city workers had seldom been painted." Caillebotte did not, however, infuse this work with social or political meaning. Instead, the painting seems more like a visual document of an exceedingly banal event. At the most, he may have been connecting the careful labor of floor refurbishing to that of creating a painting like this one with such precision, a clearly laborious undertaking.

After Caillebotte's death, this painting was bequeathed to the French state but it was only through the insistence of Renoir and Martial Caillebotte that it was eventually hung in the Musée du Luxembourg in 1896.

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report

Gustave Caillebotte

Work Overview