Study for Le Pont de l'Europe

This preparatory study in Rennes relates to Caillebotte's monumental Le Pont de l'Europe of 1876, one of the defining paintings of Haussmann's modernized Paris. The Europe Bridge, spanning the Saint-Lazare rail yards, was a symbol of the new iron-and-steel city — modern, functional, and slightly vertiginous. The study allowed Caillebotte to work out compositional problems: the relationship between pedestrian figures and the bridge's diagonal ironwork, the recession into the smoky rail yards below. Studying such preparatory works reveals his methodical, architecturally-minded approach to composition that set him apart from the more spontaneous Impressionists.

The study is more loosely handled than the finished painting, with gestural marks establishing spatial relationships and figure placement. The ironwork of the bridge is sketched in bold strokes, and the atmospheric haze of the rail yards is suggested with thin, blended passages.