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The Floor Scrapers
Gustave Caillebotte · Impressionism
- Artist
- Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894)
- Date
- 1875
- Dimensions
- 102 x 146.5 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
The Floor Scrapers shows three bare-chested workmen on their knees, planing the wooden floor of an empty Parisian apartment. Light from a balcony window falls across their backs and the curling shavings of wood.
A closer look
Caillebotte chose a steep, plunging viewpoint, so that the floorboards rush towards the viewer in sharp perspective. The men’s muscular arms move in unison, and a bottle of wine stands beside them. Ordinary manual labour in a bourgeois setting was an unusual subject, and the Salon of 1875 rejected the painting as “vulgar”. Caillebotte then joined the Impressionists and showed it at their second exhibition in 1876, where it attracted much attention.
More by Gustave Caillebotte
In this gallery
Famous works elsewhere
- Le Pont de l'Europe 1876
- Les orangers 1878
- Man at His Bath 1884
- The Yerres, Effect of Rain 1875
- Voiliers à Argenteuil 1888
- The Bezique Game 1881