Ultimately, in his series of perissoire paintings Caillebotte uses the paddlers as a symbol of himself and how he was somewhat isolated as a member of society. Although little is documented about Callebotte and his personality, much can be interpreted from his actions and paintings. It was not until 1892, years after most of his paintings are dated, that Caillebotted finally marries. He lives a substantial part of his life alone and without a companion. Caillebotte also moved out to a rural setting, away from urban Paris filled with great masses of people and constant companionship, to Petit-Gennevillers, where he would spend the rest of his life (Herbert, 245). This move shows how Caillebotte consciously made the move to seclude himself from the rest of society and act on his own feelings of isolation. Caillebotte’s loneliness is apparent in his perissoire paintings. Just at the number of boaters decreases with each painting, becoming more and more comfortable with being alone, Caillebotte eventually moves to the countryside towards the end of his life to fulfill his own behavior. Caillebotte learns that he needs not mask his isolation with the busyness of the city, just as the paddlers did by going out in big groups. His actions and paintings show he felt excluded from society, but why? In Gustave Caillebotte Varnedoe explains how activities such as his painting and boating lead to Caillebotte secluding himself: “Caillebotte’s psychic world is one in which consistent internal isolation or self-enclosure is offset only by the loss of self-consciousness through focused activity or reverie” (Varnedoe, 16). Therefore, it is by continuing these activities that Caillebotte isolates himself because when he loses touch with himself, he is not able to interact with the rest of society. The irony of the situation is that Caillebotte’s source of expressing his thoughts and feelings about his isolation is the means in which he isolates himself.