I Piallatori di parquet di Caillebotte | Analisi dell'opera

The original title of the painting which is “Les raboteurs de parquet” which is usually translated as parquet “planers” or sometimes as “scrapers”. It is a painting from 1875 that measures 102 × 147 cm and is kept in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. What the workers are doing is clear. They are carrying out the sanding of the parquet that is the finishing that in the past was carried out with a tool, the scraper consisting of a sharp steel sheet that was passed on the parquet to make the surface smooth and homogeneous. A scraper is undoubtedly the tool held by the worker who is in the middle of the painting; he holds it in his two hands passing it on the wooden boards thus removing the shavings that we see scattered on the floor. The other two workers use different tools. The one on the right uses a more complex tool with a block and a handle and therefore appears to be similar to a finishing plane. The man on the left, on the other hand, seems to be doing less forceful and more precise work. Net of any licenses that Caillebotte may have taken - in fact we never know how faithful the painters' reproduction of gestures and objects is and how much the desired scenic effect is - the painter wanted to immortalize some workers intent on reaming, scraping , planing the parquet of a bourgeois interior in the center of Paris, perhaps the same apartment bought by the painter's wealthy family. From this point of view, the painting is innovative because it shows us workers who work in the city, the urban proletariat. Caillebotte dedicated a second painting to the "parquet laminators" also presented at the 1876 Impressionist exhibition. The subject is the same as the first version but with some differences. We are always in a bourgeois interior with a window that we see on the left from which we see a building. There are two workers at work. We distinguish a boy who, sitting on the floor, is intent on handling tools and another, a mature man who is instead caught in the moment of maximum tension and effort while he is beating the parquet. Also in this version, the attention to detail is remarkable. Particularly valuable is the rendering of the parquet surface which reflects the light entering from the left. The compositional diagonals, underlined by the wooden planks and the postures of the workers, lead our gaze from right to left to the window. Compared to the first version, however, the composition is less complex. What do you think of Caillebotte's I Planers and the painter? Write it in a comment Contact us and follow us here: Email: [email protected] Instagram: https: //www.instagram.com/1000quadri / ... Facebook:   / 1000quadri   Are you interested in art books? Subscribe to our Telegram channel: https://t.me/libridarte