Gustave Caillebotte: Parquet Planers, 1875. A recurring narrative in the Musée d’Orsay is the offence that academic painters took at the new ideas coming up after 1850. The well-known new champion is a stylistic matter, impressionism. More interesting to me is a thematic conflict. This painting was lambasted for its depiction of what couldn’t even pass as a genre piece: Mere craftsmen performing a very mundane task. And it’s big! and realistic! and created with plenty of patience over a long period of time! What a scandal.