Focus on Homme au bain (painting) and analyze the Analysis.
By this point in his career, Caillebotte had painted many images with great fidelity to realistic portrayals of people and their environment. As with his Les raboteurs de parquet (English title: The Floor Scrapers), Caillebotte did not attempt to show an idealized form of masculinity, but instead depicted a typical 19th-century male.Interpretations of this work contrast the masculinity of the image with the figure's vulnerability. Male nudes were not commonly depicted in Impressionist images, though female nudes were an established theme. Feminist critics have argued that images of nude females at their toilette were associated with prostitution in the 19th-century France. Thus, this image challenges traditional notions of masculinity and gender norms in domestic settings.
nude Les raboteurs de parquet masculinity Impressionist gender norms