You Made An Impression
This essay was originally written in my 2013 Impressionism class with Dr. Jessica Locheed at the University of Houston. I have had some additional comments this year.
With the growing dynamics of urban development, 19th-century Paris emerged as a constantly evolving metropolis. Impressionism—a movement defined by fleeting light, visible brushwork, and unblended color—drew deeply from this urban energy. Artists turned their gaze toward city life: scenes of leisure, train travel, shifting gender roles, and the spectacle of public life. The cultural identities of men and women were not only shaped by the artists, but also by critics like Charles Baudelaire, who, in his 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” outlined archetypes based on class, lineage, and social role.
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) by Édouard Manet
Impressionists reflected this “coming of modernity,” capturing a world eager to witness and be witnessed. Baudelaire famously described modernity as “the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent”—qualities Impressionist art sought to depict. Within his text, he categorized individuals into types: the Dandy, the Flâneur, and the Bohemian for men; for women, figures oscillated between muses and prostitutes. Limited thinking, right? There was surely more nuance and diversity than these archetypes allowed—especially given Baudelaire’s Eurocentric, white male lens. I can’t recall learning about any Impressionist artists of color in my art history courses.
Baudelaire’s archetypes echo strongly in the paintings of Gustave Caillebotte. Though often under-recognized among the more painterly Monet, Manet, and Degas, Caillebotte's work directly engages with the structure and psychology of modern identity.
Baudelaire himself was a multidisciplinary figure, immersed in the literary and artistic life of 19th-century Paris. He published “The Painter of Modern Life” the same year Manet painted the controversial Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) and the Salon des Refusés opened. It was a pivotal moment—conflictual and groundbreaking—the start of modernism. The essay outlines not just the painter’s role but the landscape of “types” within society. The artist is like a child, according to Baudelaire: observant, playful, engaged in the world without cynicism. He describes beauty, fashion, and morality through a sharply gendered and classed lens.
His Dandy is idle, wealthy, and elegant—“accustomed from his earliest days to the obedience of others.” In 19th-century painting, Dandies appear at ease in polished interiors or strolling boulevards, unbothered and self-possessed. The Flâneur, in contrast, is a man of the street, a voyeur of the modern crowd. “To be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world”—this paradox defines his pleasure.
Gustave Caillebotte, whose realist touch sets him apart, offers some of the most illuminating portraits of these archetypes. He was long sidelined by critics for being too traditional, his use of perspective and structure seeming at odds with the looser brushwork of his peers. Yet Caillebotte’s technical restraint allowed him to explore identity, class, and the shifting terrain of urban modernity with a clarity unmatched by others.
As Broude notes, “Caillebotte’s art sheds light on the formation of individual and class identities in Paris during a crucial era of transition.” His attention to the psychological and social impact of modernity—particularly within the shifting roles of gender and class—makes his work especially relevant to Baudelaire’s classifications. Caillebotte doesn’t simply illustrate types; he complicates them, offering narrative depth and spatial logic that challenge the viewer to look beyond stereotype.
Ultimately, Impressionism was not just about capturing the light or fleeting moment—it was about shaping the image of who society was becoming. Caillebotte did this with sensitivity and restraint, and Baudelaire gave artists a language to do it. Even if his ideas were reductive, they framed a conversation that continues to echo in how we think about art, identity, and visibility.
Skiffs on the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte, 1877, via the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Works Cited
Baudelaire, Charles, and Jonathan Mayne. The Painter of Modern Life, and Other Essays. London: Phaidon, 1964.
Caillebotte, Gustave, and Norma Broude. Gustave Caillebotte and the Fashioning of Identity in Impressionist Paris. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2002.
Rosenblum, Robert, and H. W. Janson. 19th Century Art. New York: Abrams, 1984.
