Caillebotte: Painting Men [And Dog]

the getty's alt text for this gustave caillebotte painting is three lean, shirtless men scrape away the finish off of a studio floor
Gustave Caillebotte said shirtless workers’ rights: The Floor Scrapers, 1875, collection: Musée d’Orsay

Fellas, is it gay to depict athletic male bodies in form-revealing outfits in suggestive work that makes room for a desiring gaze that is not necessarily male or heterosexual? Is the question not quite asked and not not answered by the Gustave Caillebotte retrospective that has come from the Musée d’Orsay to the Getty. William Poundstone has a rundown of the LA version of the show, its premise, shifting titles—Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men is the Getty’s low-key hilarious variation—and the wall text I paraphrased in the first sentence.

caillebotte's painting of his family's grey whippet or whatever, a thin, short haired dog sitting up, with its front legs extended, its rear legs pulled in, on a carpet of red, green and some blue brushstrokes, in which some pattern, or border, can be barely discerned, it's almost an abstract painting of the kind monet would make in years to come, plus a dog, plus the dog's name, paul, painted into the upper right corner, all in a gilt frame
Gustave Caillebotte, le Chien Paul, c. 1886, 65 x 54 cm

What’s important is, the show also includes Caillebotte’s second best painting of a floor: his 1886 portrait of his dog Paul on a Persian rug, that didn’t sell in London a little while back.

Gustave Caillebotte: “Painting Men” [lacmaonfire s/o bremser]
Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men is at the Getty through May 2025 [getty.edu]