Caillebotte à Yerres
July 2014

The Oarsman, one of 40 of Gustave Caillebotte's works amassed for this exhibit on the grounds of the family estate where he grew up outside Paris. I didn't know much about him, probably because when shown with other giants of the Impressionist movement (Monet/Renoir/Sisley), he gets short shrift. Indeed at the Musée d'Orsay collection visited the same week, there was only one. Whatever fiction impressionism creates is counteracted by a strong element of realism in Caillebotte's work (the likely influence of his brother's interest in that new medium in the 1880s, photography).
a_oarsmen