Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye

     The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC., is a favorite spot to visit during any stop in the nation's capitol.  This trip brought a pleasant surprise: an impressionist exhibition of one of the unsung masters of the period- Gustave Caillebotte.  Not only was he a painter of the school, but also a great patron of the Impressionist Masters.  Being a wealthy individual, he was able to collect impressionists' works, and support his belief that this was the new style that would mark a break with the past.  he was correct.
      Gustave painted Parisienne street scenes, carefully structuring the subject(s), the landscape/city scape, and the perspective.  His work was original and drew much positive criticism. By the 1880's, his interests changed and by 1890, he had moved to the suburbs of Paris, to a small town, Petit Gennevilliers, north of Paris along the river Seine.  Here he was dedicated to landscapes.  He liked boats and boating and they became the subject of many of his paintings.
     His life was cut short by a stroke in 1894, and his vast collection was willed to the state.  It became the basis of the national collection of impressionists in  France.