The paintings of Gustave Caillebotte depict striking Parisian street scenes, from Boulevard Haussmann and The Bridge of Europe looking out onto the Gare Saint-Lazare to Caillebotte’s best-known work, Paris Street, Rainy Day, which hangs in Chicago’s Art Institute today. Caillebotte has long been acknowledged as an important painter—and munificent patron—of the French impressionist movement. Yet his paintings, in their near-photographic precision, stand apart from the works of Renoir and Monet in important ways.Gustave Caillebotte: An Impressionist and Photography sets out to explore the development of the artist’s distinctive style. Though there is no evidence that Caillebotte practiced photography, he took an early interest in the art form, influenced perhaps by his brother, the photographer Martial Caillebotte. As a result, Gustave Caillebotte’s paintings show an emphasis on realism and often take on the composition and perspective of a photograph as well, with figures toward the...