Photo by Braun, Clement & Co.
A GLASS OF GOOD RED WINE · J. F. RAFFAËLLI
CHAPTER VIII · “REALISTS”: RAFFAËLLI, DEGAS, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
“IL Y A SELON MOI, DEUX ÉLÉMENTS DANS UNE ŒUVRE: L’ÉLÉMENT RÉEL, QUI EST LA NATURE, ET L’ÉLÉMENT INDIVIDUEL, QUI EST L’HOMME”
ZOLA
JEAN FRANÇOIS RAFFAËLLI joined the Impressionist movement late, and did not commence to exhibit with the other members of the group until 1880, when he sent a canvas to the gallery in the Rue des Pyramides. He had clearly grasped the trend and scope of the idea, but cannot be classed altogether with the other members of the group as a “Luminarist.” This may be due to many causes apparent in his work. He is not a painter for the love of painting itself, and does not revel in colour for colour’s sake. He is no analyst of the shimmering effects of a summer’s sun. That side of Impressionism has never appealed to him. Yet his right to be numbered amongst them is assured, for, in spirit, he is one of the first of the school.
Raffaëlli is the historian of the “banlieue” of Paris. His street scenes are typical, life-like, and modern, and they will be treasured in future years as veritable documents of the daily existence of the great city. He wanders through the dreary “no man’s land” outside the fortifications, and transfers to his block the most vivid portraits of the nondescript characters who swarm through that gaunt wilderness. He is a man of much mental refinement, who has had to struggle for every inch of the artistic success which now surrounds him. Richly endowed by nature, he had no resources to fall back upon save his determination to conquer. In a few words M. Geffroy sums up the opening of this curious career.
Raffaëlli has had many employments, has been engaged in many trades, has searched the town for work. He has been in an office, has sung bass at the Théâtre Lyrique, has chanted psalms in a church choir, and at the same time painted under the tuition of Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts. He travelled through Europe, penetrating even so far as Algeria, working in each town as he stopped. Returning to Paris he exhibited landscapes founded upon the studies he had accumulated in his portfolio, some pictures of the Louis XIII. style, some portraits, a view of the Opera. Suddenly he opened his eyes to a sight nobody had seen before, disdained by the whole world, subjects which had never reached the dignity of an entrance in art circles. He became the recorder of the suburbs of Paris and their wandering inhabitants.
For years he experimented endeavouring to produce a medium best suited to his temperament. In the solid paint crayons we have an addition to the working tools of the artist which is of notable importance. This is not his only gift to France, for it is he who practically resuscitated the beautiful but dying art of etching in colours. In this work he was ably seconded by Miss Mary Cassatt. He is not only an artist but an actor, a musician, an orator, a sculptor, an etcher, a pastellist, an illustrator, and a man of letters. He is a fine example of the pioneer temperament. No sooner is success achieved in one branch of energy than he is in chase of another idea. One day he is trying to invent a perfect oil-crayon; the next, and colour etching is his sole ambition. He draws the elegant “mondaine” of the Boulevards, and then sallies out to study the frowsy denizens of the “banlieue.” In this quarter he found congenial subjects for a series of little masterpieces.
Amidst these wretched surroundings, warehouses, factories, wooden sheds ruinous and dilapidated, refuse heaps, brick-kilns, homes of the outcasts and cut-throats of the metropolis, Raffaëlli discovered a rich mine of material hitherto entirely unworked. The district is peculiar to Paris, and owes its existence to the clear half-mile of view required around the useless fortifications. This territory has, in mining phrase, been “jumped” by the penniless. Upon it squat the failures, the drunkards, the thieves, all the vicious under-life of the city. The artist revealed this world to the unsuspecting citizens. He lived in it, studied it day by day, and is a greater authority than the “sergots” upon the manners and customs of a neighbourhood which even the police shun. Such a blot upon the fair page of so magnificent a capital is rapidly being wiped away, but Raffaëlli has immortalised in his etchings and drawings some of the poetic atmosphere which enveloped these legions of the damned.