The Floor Planer, 100×145 cm, oil on canvas, 1875. Held at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Gustave Gaillebotte (1848–1894) was the realist closest among Impressionists. His works resemble camera lenses. He came from high society, was a supporter, collector, and financial sponsor of Impressionism, yet remained the least known among them, only recognized after a century.

He initially studied law but became a shipbuilding engineer. Passionate about humanities and arts, he entered the studio of Leon Bonnat, a renowned portrait expert, in 1872, and was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts the following year. In 1874, he attended the first Impressionist exhibition and met Degas, embracing new artistic concepts. He established his unique realistic style; this painting of floor planers is a masterpiece created after visiting an Impressionist exhibition. Continuing to paint scenes of Parisian life, he gradually liberated himself from obvious influences, and by 1880, his work approached that of Monet and Renoir.

Starting in 1876, he began collecting works by his Impressionist friends and sponsored the third Impressionist exhibition. Before his death in 1894, he donated all his collections and artworks to the French government.

The Floor Planer shares social realist characteristics with Daumier's works and Degas's Ironing Women, inspired by the renovation of his home floors. This work resembles a photograph taken by a camera (in fact, it was painted based on photographs). Three floor planers are shown bare-backed, backlit, kneeling and bent over, working hard. Their powerful hands appear slightly elongated compared to their upper bodies in perspective. The lines they plane and those fading behind create depth in the spatial perspective, filling the entire scene with vitality. Here, the audience seems to hear the rhythm of planing, creating a strong sense of presence. Is this not a pioneer of photographic realism in the 1870s?