The Argenteuil Bridge and the Seine

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The bridge at Argenteuil and the Seine
Gustave Caillebotte , around 1883–1885
65 × 82 cm
oil on canvas
Private collection

The bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine ( French Le pont d'Argenteuil et la Seine ) is the title of a landscape painting by the French painter Gustave Caillebotte . The picture, painted in oil on canvas around 1883–1885, is 65 cm high and 82 cm wide. It shows the Seine with a view through an arch of the Pont d'Argenteuil onto the town of Argenteuil and the surrounding landscape. The picture is in a private collection.

Image description

The painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine is a landscape painting. The view goes through the arch of the Pont d'Argenteuil over the Seine to the opposite bank with the village of Argenteuil. The water surface determines large parts of the lower half of the picture and borders on the left, right and lower edges of the picture. The exact location of the painter remains unclear because a reference point - for example at the bottom of the picture - is missing. When depicting the water, there are short brushstrokes in green, blue, orange and gray in the foreground, which indicate a slight undulating movement with rippled water. On the opposite bank, the water appears calmer thanks to long horizontal blue brushstrokes. On the river to the right, a dark gray paddle steam tug is moving upstream. Its reddish paddle wheel at the stern creates a white spray , and gray smoke rises from the chimney in the middle of the ship. The tug is pulling a red-brown barge with an unspecified light-colored cargo behind it, which is on the left not far from the bridge pier.

The representation of the bridge is unusual in this picture. Caillebotte does not show the building with its seven arches from a distance, as it spans the Seine and is integrated into the landscape. Instead, he depicted a section of the bridge up close and focused on the construction from below from a “theatrical perspective”. On the left is a single stone bridge pillar cut from the edge of the picture, on which five iron arches are stacked one behind the other. They reach across the entire canvas and hit the right edge of the picture before they meet another supporting bridge pillar. The art historian Paul Hayes Tucker commented on this daring pictorial composition that the iron arches are only held in place by “believing in the existence of a pillar beyond the frame and our trust in Caillebotte's art”.

Caillebotte reproduced the bridge in great detail. The outer arches are marked by recesses in the blue-gray metal, while the perforation is missing on the inner arches. A strut framework with vertical and diagonal supports connects these arches with the carriageway lying on cross connections. The shadow of the roadway can be seen under the bridge as a broad dark stripe on the water surface. A shadow can also be clearly seen on the bridge pillar on the right: While the front part of the pillar is kept dark, the rear part is brightly colored. At the transition between light and dark, the perforated rear iron arch projects its distinctive pattern onto the stone surface. The bridge, which runs diagonally to the right towards the upper edge of the picture, is bordered by a railing that stands out clearly against the cloudless blue sky. The silhouette of a pedestrian can be seen on the bridge, most of which is hidden by the railing. His clothes and hat hardly stand out from the bridge railing in terms of color. Due to its small appearance in relation to the bridge, it illustrates the imposing size of the building.

The arch of the bridge frames the landscape on the opposite bank. The highest natural elevation there is the green, overgrown Butte d'Orgemont hill , the apex of which harmonizes with that of the arch of the bridge. The mill tower of the Moulin d'Orgemont is indicated on the hill . A little to the left below, a tall factory chimney protrudes from a group of houses in the center of Argenteuil. Two more groups of houses can be found to the left and right of this, separated by groups of trees or other vegetation. The white walls of the house stand out richly in contrast to the red or dark gray roofs. A brownish riverside path runs along the Seine in front of the houses. On the right it crosses under the Argenteuil railway bridge that crosses the Seine upstream , the first pair of piers appearing on the right edge of the picture.

In this picture, Caillebotte combines the nature of the landscape in the Seine valley with the signs of industrialization. The arch of the bridge takes the shape of the hill, the river is a natural waterway and at the same time serves as a traffic artery, bridges made of iron and chimneys bear witness to technical progress and yet are integrated into a colorful nature on a light-flooded summer day in the Île-de-France . The picture is signed on the lower right with G. Caillebotte .

Dating of the painting

It is not known when exactly Caillebotte created the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine . After Caillebotte's death, the picture was shown in an exhibition of his works in the Durand-Ruel Gallery in 1894 and was dated to 1885. The Caillebotte expert Marie Berhaut followed this chronological classification in the catalog raisonné she wrote, and the art historian Michel Laclotte also assumed 1885 as the date of creation. Kirk Varnedoe vaguely dated the picture "around 1880-1885". Other publications assume that it was made “around 1883” or pinpoint the year 1883 without giving any reasons.

The Seine at Argenteuil as a motif of impressionist painting

Argenteuil is about eleven kilometers west of Paris. There has been a road bridge over the Seine since 1831 and the railroad has been connecting the suburb with the capital since 1861. This not only resulted in an increase in the population, but the first industrial companies also settled here. Caillebotte illustrates this in the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine through the factory chimney in the center of the village. Argenteuil was a place of leisure for the Parisians. In addition to weekend trippers who strolled along the shore and went to garden bars, numerous sailing enthusiasts came to the place. They used the optimal conditions for their sport, as the Seine is wider and deeper here than in other parts of the Paris region. In 1867 sailing competitions took place here as part of the Paris World Exhibition and the prestigious Parisian sailing club Club Cercle de la Voile , to which Gustave Caillebotte had belonged since 1876, had its berths in Argenteuil.

In the 1870s, the impressionist painters came to the place. Claude Monet lived here from 1871 to 1878 and repeatedly chose the surrounding landscape and the sailing boats on the Seine as motifs for his pictures. Other painters visited him and also created landscape views here. Alfred Sisley came to Argenteuil in 1873 and 1874, followed by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Édouard Manet , who were guests at Monet in 1874. All these painters were a few years older than Caillebotte and had accordingly started painting earlier. Caillebotte had known Monet at least since 1876, when both of them exhibited in the second group exhibition of the Impressionists in Paris. Among other works by Monet, this exhibition also featured the painting Regatta in Argenteuil from 1872 ( Musée d'Orsay , Paris), which Caillebotte acquired for his collection in the same year. Caillebotte knew Argenteuil from 1876 at the latest as a sailing area and as a motif of Impressionist painting. In his own pictures, however, he did not choose Argenteuil as a motif until years later, when Monet no longer lived here.

  • Claude Monet: Regatta at Argenteuil , 1872

  • Gustave Caillebotte: Sailing Boats in Argenteuil , around 1888

Gustave Caillebotte and his brother Martial bought a house in Petit Gennevilliers , a settlement directly across from Argenteuil, in 1881 . One of the reasons for this was his enthusiasm for sailing. Gustave Caillebotte had already sailed regattas in Argenteuil and the location of the house right on the river meant that he was only a short distance away from his boats, which were built according to his plans by a nearby shipyard. The painting Sailing Boats in Argenteuil ( Musée d'Orsay , Paris), created around 1888, clearly shows the bank of Petit Gennevilliers with a row of boats on the water and in the background the road bridge of Argenteuil, of which an arch in the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine can be seen.

The two bridges over the Seine, which had just been rebuilt after the destruction in the war of 1870/71 , were part of the recurring motif of the Impressionist painters. In 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, Monet painted two views of the road bridge that Caillebotte certainly knew and that may have served as models. In the picture, the Seine Bridge at Argenteuil ( Neue Pinakothek , Munich), Monet shows the road bridge from the side with sailing ships in the foreground. Monet, like Caillebotte later, chose a section of a bridge arch through which the hill of Orgemont and the town of Argenteuil can be seen. However, Monet was at a greater distance from the bridge and his location can be clearly identified on the bank by tufts of grass at the bottom of the picture. In Monet's work, the arch of the bridge rests balanced on two pillars and there is no unusual perspective that Caillebotte later chose. In Monet's The Bridge at Argenteuil ( National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC), the painter has moved closer to the bridge. It shows the view over the Seine to the other bank parallel to the bridge with a toll booth as the end point. Here, in the approach, there is a view from below of the bridge, which, unlike in Caillebotte's picture, blends harmoniously into the landscape at the edge of the painting.

When Caillebotte began the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine , he knew the works of Monet from his time in Argenteuil. These may have served as models for him, but he did not copy them. Caillebotte probably chose a boathouse floating on the Seine as the location for his view of the bridge structure, which he captured in the painting The Pontoon of Argenteuil (private collection) in 1883 . Caillebotte's perspective may also have been influenced by contemporary photography. There are a number of bridge views that Auguste Hippolyte Collard photographed since the 1850s. In his photo of the Paris Pont de Grenelle from 1875/76, numerous details of the bridge construction can be seen from below, as can also be seen in Caillebotte's later painting. Around 1885-1887, Caillebotte painted in The Railway Bridge of Argenteuil ( Brooklyn Museum , New York City) again a bridge motif from below, but which is much more sketchy than the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine .

  • Claude Monet: Bridge of the Seine at Argenteuil , 1874

  • Claude Monet: The Bridge at Argenteuil , 1874

  • Gustave Caillebotte: The Argenteuil Pontoon , 1883

  • Auguste-Hippolyte Collard: Pont de Grenelle, Paris , photograph from 1875/1876

  • Gustave Caillebotte: The Argenteuil Railway Bridge , around 1885–1887

Provenance

Gustave Caillebotte: Portrait of Eugène Lamy , around 1889

The painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine was owned by Eugène Lamy from around 1885. He was one of Caillebotte's Parisian friends and may have received the picture as a gift. Monet painted his friend Lamy on the banks of the Seine ( portrait Eugène Lamy , private collection), with the Argenteuil road bridge in the background. In 1894 the collector Edmond Décap bought the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine and paid 1500 francs for it . Lamy owned an important collection of Impressionist works, including several works by Degas, Monet and Renoir. The painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine was first transferred to the Depeaux-Décap collection and then came into the possession of Maurice Barret-Décap. His collection was auctioned on December 12, 1929 at the Paris auction house Hôtel Drouot , including lot no. 2 the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine . Afterwards the picture was in the collection of the diamond dealer Myran Eknayan for a few years . Via the Parisian gallery Brame & Lorenceau the work came into the possession of the Swiss collector Samuel Josefowitz on July 10, 1963 , who had built up an extensive art collection over several years, including some works by Gustave Caillebotte. On 6 November 2008 the painting was in the New York branch of the auction house Christie's auctioned off and went for 8,482,500 US dollars to an unknown buyer. Three years later, on November 2, 2011, the painting was put up for auction again in the New York branch of the Sotheby’s auction house. The painting was bought by an unnamed buyer for a retail price of US $ 18,002,500. The painting will be part of the exhibition Impressionism. The art of the landscape is shown in the Museum Barberini in Potsdam and serves there as an advertising image for the catalog and posters. The Handelsblatt newspaper therefore speculated that the painting The Bridge of Argenteuil and the Seine was part of Hasso Plattner's private collection .

literature

  • Marie Berhaut : Gustave Caillebotte, catalog raisonné des peintures et pastels . Wildenstein Institute, Paris 1194, ISBN 2-85047-249-2 .
  • Anne Distel : Gustave Caillebotte, The unknown impressionist . Royal Academy of Arts and Ludion Press, Gent 1996.
  • Mary G. Morton, George ™ Shackelford, Michael Marrinan: Gustave Caillebotte, the painter's eye . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2016, ISBN 978-0-226-26355-7 .
  • Michel Laclotte: L'impressionisme et le paysage français . Édition de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-7118-0285-X .
  • Paul Hayes Tucker : The impressionists at Argenteuil . Yale University Press, New Haven 2000, ISBN 0-300-08349-1 .
  • Kirk Varnedoe : Gustave Caillebotte . Yale University Press, New Haven 1987, ISBN 0-300-03722-8 .
  • Ortrud Westheider , Michael Philipp (Hrsg.): Impressionism, the art of the landscape . Catalog for the exhibition at the Museum Barberini Potsdam, Prestel, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-7913-5628-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ French title according to Marie Berhaut: Gustave Caillebotte, catalog raisonné des peintures et pastels , p. 198, no. 334.
  2. ↑ Described as “perspective théatrale” in Michel Laclotte: L'impressionisme et le paysage français , p. 153.
  3. ^ Analogous translation of the English original text: "The only things that hold them up are our belief in the existence of a pier beyond the frame and our trust in Caillebotte's artfulness" in Paul Hayes Tucker: The impressionists at Argenteuil , p. 116.
  4. ^ Marie Berhaut: Gustave Caillebotte, catalog raisonné des peintures et pastels , p. 198.
  5. ↑ Michel Laclotte: L'impressionisme et le paysage français , p. 152.
  6. ↑ Kirk Varnedoe: Gustave Caillebotte , p. 170.
  7. ↑ See Anne Distel: Gustave Caillebotte, The unknown impressionist , p. 1881 or Paul Hayes Tucker: The Impressionists at Argenteuil , p. 116.
  8. ↑ See on this Mary G. Morton, George TM Shackelford, Michael Marrinan: Gustave Caillebotte, the painter's eye , p. 278 or Ortrud Westheider, Michael Philipp (ed.): Impressionismus, die Kunst der Landschaft , p. 139.
  9. ^ Anne Distel: Gustave Caillebotte, The unknown impressionist, p. 181.
  10. ^ Marie Berhaut: Gustave Caillebotte, catalog raisonné des peintures et pastels , p. 198, no. 334.
  11. ↑ Information about the auction on the website of the Christie's auction house
  12. ↑ Information about the auction on the website of the auction house Sotheby’s
  13. ↑ Susanne Schreiber: Which pictures belong to Hasso Plattner , article in Handelsblatt from January 27, 2017