Gustave Caillebotte and his nude men : A norm-critical analysis of the male gaze

During the 19th century, France was a cultural stronghold filled with political aspects and dreams. Art flourished and the ancient heroic ideals had shaped the male nude art for many years. But new times would come and change the artistic basis forever. The start of Impressionism also became the beginning of a new era, where gender roles began to be questioned and the image of masculinity began to falter. An artistic revolution saw the light of day, artists no longer wanted to follow the traditional rules and normative footprints that had been put in the ground long before their days. Gustave Caillebotte, a young rich art collector and a dear friend of the impressionistic circle started to paint just for fun, without knowing that his name would echo over the world more than a century after his death. Male nude art was strictly marginalized during the 19th century, but Caillebotte would be one of the first artists who dared to defy the traditional rules. The purpose of the essay is to get a better idea of the norms that influenced French oil painting during the 19th century and how the artist Gustave Caillebotte related to the classical image convention with his two works Man in the Bath and Man Wipes His Leg. The essay will delve into an analysis of these two motifs and examine how they challenged the heteronormative gaze, also called the male gaze, before the essay concludes with an empirical result