Muscle power

Bosc d’Anjou posted a photo:

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) – Canotiers [Rowers] (1877). In a private collection. Shown at the temporary exhibition “Cailebotte Painting Men” at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, October 2024-January 2025.

The curators commented that “Caillebotte’s style and framing give the men’s bodies a solid physical presence, placing the viewer as close to them as possible, at a time when the explicitly sexualised figure of the oarsman was one of the preferred vehicles for expressions of female desire. (…) Water sports were known to develop a harmoniousmuscle sytructure, enhanced by the simple white knit (then seen as an undershirt).