Though this picture has been described as a partial study for the large Pont de l'Europe exhibited in 1876, it seems more properly a variant version, complete in its own right. It is highly finished and is preceded by its own sketch version. Furthermore, though the main protagonists are similar, the picture represents an entirely different point on the bridge and is conceived completely differently in terms of composition and coloration.

The view has none of the lateral stretch of the other Pont de l'Europe but is instead severely cropped on all sides; no figure is complete, and neither the top of the trellis nor the ground line is visible. The effect is more like that of a telephoto lens than, as in the other version, of a wide-angle lens. In contrast to the deep spatial rush of the other version, this composition emphatically blocks our penetration, by the edge-to-edge interposition, in shallow depth, of the giant lattice of steel, parallel to the picture plane.

Offsetting the near-absolute symmetry of this huge angular pattern, Caillebotte sets all of the figures into the left half of the canvas, providing a mixture of regular geometry and snap-shot-like imbalance similar to that of the Rue de Paris; Temps de pluie .

We may assume that the central character here represents, as does his counterpart in the larger version, the artist himself3ƒ4though little more is shown of him than of the anonymous passer-by who exits at the left. His gaze away from us brings to mind the earlier Jeune homme à sa fen?tre; but the plunging sight line of that earlier work is here replaced by the intervening screen of the girders, seemingly blocking the figure's view as well as ours. What a baffling conception this is, so devoid of information and yet so evocative. The subtle notes of the white scarf and glove, pristinely elegant against the dark dirty severity of the trellis, accent the standoff between man and machined metal.

Curious, too, is the coloration: a virtually unrelieved uniformity of grey and blue. If we see this and the other Pont as being, like the two Raboteurs, separate considerations of the same basic motif, we can perhaps see them, too, in the context of the kind of series paintings Monet did throughout his life, taking essentially the same subject under different conditions of weather and light. The contrast between the bright sunlight of the larger Pont and the deep wintry overcast of this version may even suggest a conscious attempt to embody a separate mood here, literally blue."5

Given all the substantial differences of emotion, composition, and execution that separate it from the view of the Pont de l'Europe shown in 1876, this "variant" work may, in fact, have been painted at a different date altogether, closer to 1880. The palette, brushwork, figure scale, spatial closure, and mood would all be consistent with Caillebotte's work of c. 1880-82. Allowing for obvious differences in color, this from-behind view of a viewer seems to belong more to the world of the Homme 14 balcon of 1880 than to that of the Jeune homme à sa fen?tre of 1876. If this were a later reconsideration of the early bridge theme, it would be consistent with Caillebotte's reconsideration of the family crystal from the 1876 Déjeuner in a still life painted after his mother's death (Nature morte). There, as in this second bridge scene, a wide-angle perspective is replaced by a more limited space and closer cropping.

Accession number:

AP 1982.01 

Provenance:

Martial Caillebotte (the Artist’s brother) [1853-1910] and descendants. Extended loan, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1964-1971. Private collection, Paris, by 1976; (P. Borgognon & Fils SA, Geneva); purchased by Kimbell Art Foundation, Fort Worth, 1982.