Caillebotte’s Boater Pulling in his Perissoire (1878) is one of his last in his series of perissoire paintings and emphasizes the sense of isolation from society. The man is standing on the ledge which is completely barren and does not include any people. Even though Caillebotte’s Boater Pulling in his Perissoire does not show the man actually paddling like in Caillebotte’s other paintings, it does show the same sort of progression of being a part exclusion from a group. The men’s paddling has continuously been a metaphor for Caillebotte’s artwork and how he fits in with the people in his surroundings. In this painting the man is standing on the shore and using his oar to pull in his boat so he can go paddling. The significance is that the man is all alone and still about to go boating. This contrasts his other paintings where the men are not alone physically in their boating excursions, but actually isolate themselves within the group. The ‘company’ of the other boaters in the other painting were just a façade to mask the loneliness of the boaters who actually feel a sense of seclusion. In Boater Pulling in his Perissoire the man knows that he is isolated from the rest of the community, but he chooses to continue with his paddling. What is significant is that he is consciously going out for a paddle alone. The insecurities about being alone that Caillebotte attempted to hide by including many paddlers seems to have become more comfortable of an idea to Caillebotte. Caillebotte shows that he begins to accept the isolation that comes from what Distel calls in Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist his ‘misfit nature’ and shows how he continues to do what he loves without any cares about this seclusion.
Perissoire on the Yerres. Private Collection. 1878.