The Yerres, Effect of Rain

Caillebotte painted The Yerres, Effect of Rain in 1875, during the years he spent summers on his family's estate at Yerres south of Paris. The river Yerres runs through the property, and Caillebotte returned to it repeatedly as a testing ground for Impressionist water effects. Rain as a subject was rare in the movement — Monet and Sisley preferred bright conditions — and Caillebotte's choice of a grey, disturbed surface reflects his interest in the less-celebrated atmospheric states of the French countryside. The concentric ripples across the water's surface function almost as a formal study in pattern and rhythm.

Horizontal brushstrokes across the water create rain-pocked stillness, broken by circular ripple patterns rendered in precise, repeating marks. The palette is deliberately muted — greens, greys, and dull ochres — suppressing the colour contrasts typical of high Impressionism.