This painting is an excellent example of how to use a central eye level.

The position of the eye level is the key compositional element in many of Caillebotte's works.

In this scene, the viewer shares the same eye level as the strolling figures. This creates the strong illusion that you are walking or standing on the same street. The common eye level forms a spatial link between you and the other figures and psychologically you feel that you are part of the scene. The picture frame becomes your field of vision and you almost get the sense that you need to step aside to avoid brushing shoulders with the approaching gentleman.

This intimate relationship between the viewer and the image is what makes the work so popular. It is like taking a look through a window in time.

The painting is very carefully arranged. The strong eye level divides the picture horizontally, while the lamp-post and its reflection bisect the image vertically. These lines intersect at the central vanishing point, creating four rectangles, each of which contributes a separate element to the composition of the painting:

1) The lower right rectangle with the boldest shapes and strongest contrasts, establishes the foreground.

2) The lower left rectangle with its triangular arrangement of figures that echo the shape of the building above, stakes out the middle ground.

3) The upper right rectangle links the foreground and background as the buildings recede in sequence from behind the umbrellas.

4) The upper left rectangle provides the main background interest with both sides of an apartment block viewed in dramatic perspective.

(Mouse over the image to view this structure.)

It is hard to avoid the idea that the shapes which fill the upper rectangles are subconsciously influenced by Caillebotte's training as a naval architect. The apartment block on the left is like the bow of a massive ship steaming towards the viewer. If you continue the analogy, the umbrellas on the right suggest the wind-filled forms of sails bobbing about on the sea of wet cobblestones. Yachting, after all, was one of the main pastimes to which Caillebotte returned when he gave up painting in later life.

In common with the Impressionists, Caillebotte captured the everyday scenes of urban Paris, usually from a middle class viewpoint. In Paris Street, A Rainy Day, painted in 1887, he portrays the new look of the city at the end of the 19th century.

Baron Georges Haussmann was given the job of modernising the old Paris of narrow streets and alleys. He replaced these with the network of wide boulevards that characterise Paris to this day.

In this painting, the grid-like arrangement of the space and the radial frames of the umbrellas evoke the arterial structure of this new road system.

What makes Caillebotte's paintings different from typical Impressionist works is the precision of his painting technique. For example:

The Floor Scrapers ( 1875 ), which captures the momentary play of light on the floor and on the backs of the workmen, is Impressionistic in its subject matter and in its attempt to portray atmospheric lighting conditions. However the painting technique owes more to earlier traditions. What makes this picture modern for the time is that Caillebotte uses an unusual eye level which lies above the picture plane. Psychologically, this elevated viewpoint exaggerates the back-breaking fatigue of the subject. The extreme position of the figures is also reminiscent of the images of stretching dancers by Degas.

Caillebotte also created some typical Impressionist works. 'Rooftops under Snow' (1878) is a painting which uses a dramatically high viewpoint. This type of composition originated with the development of photography. Its design is influenced by the cropped photographic images which were popular among the Impressionists at the time. The painting technique used here is more characteristically Impressionistic.