Callenotte and Seurat

Callebotte’s paintings are similar and different to impressionist paintings. Callebotte’s painting, Pairs Street; Rainy Day   compared the impressionist Georges Seurat's painting,  A Sunday on La Grande Jatte really shows some of the similarities and differences. You can see some similar features with the subject matter, and location, as well as differences. But there are very obvious differences in the colors and texture of the paintings.  

The subject matter for both these paintings is outdoors, which is very much an impressionist thing to do. There are many outdoor settings for that time period. But Callebotte’s painting is also in a very city-like area, there is no grass, flowers or trees. It is just bricks and buildings. While Seurat’s painting is outdoors, with many aspects of nature in the painting. You can see grass, trees, water, and some flowers. 

The subject matter of these paintings can be considered similar and different. They both have multiple people in the painting, but Callebotte’s there is a significantly lower number walking the streets, and Seurat’s has many sitting and standing on a grass field in a park. Callebotte’s painting shows modernism, with the clothing of the few people in this painting. Specifically you can see the modern clothing on then man and woman who are walking toward the viewer. You can also see the light post behind the couple, which is very modern. Seurat’s painting also shows modernism, but perhaps a bit more than Callebotte’s. You can see many more people in the painting, all dressed in modern/stylish clothing of the time, along with dogs, and sail boats.

There is a very large difference in color between Callebotte’s and Seurat’s paintings. Callebotte used many dark and fairly bland colors. He did not have a large selection of colors in this painting. It was mostly a dash of red and green, than completely made of tone of black and white. A big distinguishing trait of impressionism is their scientific exploration and use of colors in their paintings, which you only see a bit of in his. You can see he many played around with it a bit, perhaps with the shadows and reflections on the wet ground. But Seurat really showed abundance color in his painting. You see how he really played with colors, putting shadow on different colors, using many shades, and colors from all over the wheel. He used color in a very impressionistic way.

Lastly, there is a large difference in texture of these two paintings. Impressionist paintings typically are not very clean, refined and detailed. But Callebotte’s painting has very defined brush strokes. You can really see the details in most parts of this painting. The couple at the front of the paintings, you can see eyes, lips, noise, ears, and details of clothing all very easily. There are not movement orientated brush strokes or accentuated brush strokes. But in Seurat’s painting you can see the lack of detail, the faces only have slight colorations in spots that allow you to know face, some actually are completely blank. You also can not see specific buttons and lines that you can see in Callebotte’s painting. There is obvious emphasized noise in the brush stroke in Seurat’s painting. 

Although Callebotte’s painting were made in Impressionist time period, there are too many differences for me to say he was an  impressionist. But I do love his work!