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Paris Street; Rainy Day

Life-size painting of an urban scene in Paris. A man in a top hat holding an umbrella and a woman in a long fashionable dark dress walk arm in arm toward the viewer as other city dwellers with umbrellas walk in various directions across cobblestone roads and sidewalks.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • Life-size painting of an urban scene in Paris. A man in a top hat holding an umbrella and a woman in a long fashionable dark dress walk arm in arm toward the viewer as other city dwellers with umbrellas walk in various directions across cobblestone roads and sidewalks.

Date:

1877

Artist:

Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894)

About this artwork

This monumental painting is Gustave Caillebotte’s largest, most ambitious work and has been a visitor favorite since the Art Institute acquired it in 1964, well before the artist’s contributions to the Impressionist movement were widely recognized. Caillebotte captured a busy intersection of Paris that was only a short walk from his home. In fact, his paintings of Paris rarely depict areas beyond his familiar neighborhoods.

Caillebotte demonstrated his affinity with the Impressionists through his subject of modern urban life but approached these settings with a more Realist technique. The dramatic cropping of the scene may have been inspired by the newly popularized medium of photography; the two central figures seem to be walking straight into the viewer as something captures their attention outside of the frame. At the time, artists rarely attempted to depict people in motion; Caillebotte carefully placed each of the background figures to evoke the feeling of bustling city streets. When he started exhibiting with the Impressionists, Caillebotte also focused on portraying the atmosphere of his scenes; here, instead of explicitly painting raindrops to indicate the weather, he suggests it through the incorporation of newly available retractable umbrellas and the subtle reflections on the wet cobblestones.

Status

On View, Gallery 201

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist

Gustave Caillebotte

Title

Paris Street; Rainy Day

Place

Paris (Place depicted:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1877

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Inscribed lower left: G. Caillebotte. 1877

Dimensions

212.2 × 276.2 cm (83 1/2 × 108 3/4 in.); Framed: 241.3 × 306.1 × 10.2 cm (95 × 120 1/2 × 4 in.)

Credit Line

Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection

Reference Number

1964.336

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/20684/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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