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GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE , PARIS, 1848 - GENNEVILLIERS, 1894 The Garden Oil on canvas 33 x 46 cm The first impression is that of a profusion of colours. Long before one can distinguish flowers, one is first caught by these coloured patches, closer to the palette than to the canvas. As if the two were merging. The foreground, in particular, is brushed with a green that doesn't try to get rid of the brushstrokes that spread it. The blurred treatment thus invites our eye to focus beyond, into the depth of the picture, where suddenly appear potted plants and then, further away still, a high table with three legs. We are indeed in a garden with a path lined with planters. The flowerbed in the foreground then takes on its full meaning and place. Gustave Caillebotte has learnt the lesson of his Impressionist friends by quickly painting his colours, scattering here and there his red touches which diminish according to the rules of perspective. Although the dazzling light of the pure colours in the foreground is also indebted to the Impressionist style, it is the angle of view that makes this composition original. The point of view is flush with the flowers in the foreground, and the table is seen from a slightly lower angle. Innovative, daring, framed like a photograph, this work alone sums up Gustave Caillebotte's modernity. Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) was a French impressionist painter. After studying law, he began painting in the studio of Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) and then at the École des Beaux-arts in Paris. The death of his father in 1874 allowed him to inherit a comfortable fortune and to devote himself to painting. It was then that he began to paint small formats of the family property in Yerres, until its sale in 1878. His first painting, in 1875, was a realist one, The Floor Scrapers, and was refused by the Salon because of its prosaic subject, the work of workers. Caillebotte then turned to Impressionism and participated in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880 and 1882. He helped the movement financially and was personally involved in the organization of the exhibitions. He bought paintings by Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir and Manet, building up an exceptional collection which he bequeathed to the State on his death. These paintings are now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. In 1880, Caillebotte bought a property in Petit-Gennevilliers, on the banks of the Seine, where he received his Impressionist friends, including Monet, who was inspired by his garden to create his own in Giverny. In contact with them, the smooth brushstrokes and apparent drawings of the early days disappeared in favour of fragmented brushstrokes and an evocation of forms and light through the juxtaposition of colours, as can be seen in this Garden. When in 1886, Paul Durand-Ruel organized a large impressionist exhibition of 300 paintings in New York, ten of Caillebotte's paintings were included, thus establishing his reputation with the American public. His premature death at the age of 46 interrupted the career of one of the most original talents of Impressionism and deprived him of a reputation that he would not achieve until a century later. Provenance: A.K. Private Collection, Paris. Certificate: Wildenstein Committee