Due to construction at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, a few of the works from the impressionist exhibit are currently on display at the Frist Museum in Nashville, TN. This weekend I went to the museum to see the exhibit and was pleased to see Caillebotte’s piece “Les raboteurs de parquet”. The first time I saw this work was years ago when my mom bought a print to put up in my dad’s office; it has always reminded me of him.
“The Floor-Scrapers” was painted in 1875 in the Batignolles area in France. The piece is one of the “first representations of urban proletariat”, many peasants or country workers had been painted before, but rarely city workers. The painting is not an unusual piece of Caillebottes’, as he often depicted scenes from modern life; he was a more realistic painter than some of the impressionist painters. He is realistic because of the mens’ gestures, tools and the lack of any sort of political message in the work.
My dad, very familiar with hardwood flooring, looked at the painting and noticed the hammer lying on the floor between the two men in the center of the piece. He wondered why there would be a hammer there; one is not needed to strip a floor. Perhaps Caillebotte isn’t such a realist after all?
"Gustave Caillebotte The Floor Planers." N.p., 2006. Web. 29 Nov 2010.
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