A Man Docking His Skiff

Caillebotte painted this in 1878 on the Yerres, the river that ran through his family's estate southeast of Paris, where he rowed through most summers. He was an unusual figure among the Impressionists, a wealthy engineer and boat designer who quietly bought his friends' canvases and helped pay for their exhibitions. Here he sets the viewpoint down low and close, so the steep diagonal of the bank crowds the man as he leans out over the water to draw his little boat in with a paddle. The whole scene tilts toward the river, the way it might look to someone sitting in the next skiff.