Jean-François Raffaëlli

On stable panel; under UV: varnish fluoresces unevenly in some areas.
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During his lifetime, Jean-François Raffaëlli was critically acclaimed at the Salon, where like Manet, he tenaciously sought acceptance.  However, unlike Manet, he also participated in the landmark Impressionist exhibitions. Raffaëlli trained in the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme, but also was befriended by Degas, who would become his ardent supporter. His reputation and ambition were such that, like Courbet and Manet, he was able to successfully mount a one-man show.  And while very little is known of his sculpture, he was represented by Théo van Gogh.  He even invented a novel implement called a bâtonnet Raffaëlli, an oil stick that yielded a medium between oil and pastel. Yet in spite of all of these accomplishments, Raffaëlli's name has all but disappeared from the art historical canon.

Our painting is one of Raffaëlli's earliest depictions of the suburban workers from Asnières.  In 1879, by his own admission, Raffaëlli was exhausted and verging on nervous collapse brought on by his desire to put into writing his own thoughts on a modern aesthetic (Barbara Schinman Fields, Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850-1924):  The Naturalist Artist, Ann Arbor, 1979, pp. 36-7).  Seeking solitude, Raffaëlli left Paris and rented a house in the suburb of Asnières.  With its incessantly spewing smokestacks, this desolate region provided the backdrop for Raffaëlli's paintings from this period; its inhabitants his new protagonists. Commenting to Edmond de Goncourt, Raffaëlli confessed that his search to reveal the essence of a personality had taken him to Italy, Spain and Africa, only to discover what he had been seeking in his own backyard in Asnières (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, "16 February 1888," Journal: memoires de la vie littéraire, ed. Robert Ricatte, Paris and Monaco, 1956, 3, pp.755-76).  There, among the faces and expressions of its inhabitants – retired workmen, rag pickers, beggars, garlic sellers and chimney sweepers - Raffaëlli found his inspiration and the vehicle to reveal what he defined as man's distinctive trait: character.

Even Van Gogh recognized Raffaëlli's treatise on caractérisme as a complex theory (Letter of 6 July 1885, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1959, 2, pp. 394-5).  Success would depend on turning the intangible into the tangible; in other words, convincingly depicting and therefore revealing, the physiological and psychological constitution of man by using the humble people of Asnières as his models.  The critics grappled with his notion.  Albert Wolfe, the art critic for Le Figaro commented in his introduction for Raffaëlli's Les Types de Paris (1889), an extensively illustrated album of stories by the most prominent Realist and Naturalist writers in Paris that Raffaëlli was indeed a modern painter with new ideas.  But of even greater significance, he was human (Albert Wolff, "Jean-François Raffaëlli," Les Types de Paris (Paris, 1889, p. 6).

Raffaëlli's "neighbors" in Asnières were comprised of the full spectrum of the middle and lower classes,  with the most desolate existence represented by the chiffoniers or rag pickers, itinerant scavengers, who prowled the Paris streets at night in search of discarded items such as rags, bones, glass, hair, tobacco, paper or sardine cans. The respectable, hard working man was also a type that intrigued Raffaëlli.  He is often shown with the tools of his trade, such as the large broom in our painting, which signifies that this "model" most likely works as a street cleaner.  He has met up with another man, possibly now retired,  who now has free time to read his newspaper and take a walk with his dog.  Their lifetime of toil is marked by their large, callused hands and dusty garments.  They appear to be discussing some topic in the newspaper, while an obedient dog, probably a pet judging from his collar, patiently waits for a treat.  The clearly marked road sign leaves no doubt that this scene is taking place in Asnières.  These two workmen are portraits of types; they are early representations of Raffaëlli's muse that came to define the most interesting and complex works of his career.