Jean-François Raffaëlli

Jean-François Raffaëlli (April 20, 1850 – February 11, 1924) was a French realist painter, sculptor, and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists. He was also active as an actor and writer.

Biography

Born in Paris, he was of Tuscan descent through his paternal grandparents. He showed an interest in music and theatre before becoming a painter in 1870. One of his landscape paintings was accepted for exhibition at the Salon in that same year. In October 1871 he began three months of study under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris; he had no other formal training.Turner 2000, p. 346.

Raffaëlli produced primarily costume pictures until 1876, when he began to depict the people of his time—particularly peasants, workers, and ragpickers seen in the suburbs of Paris—in a realistic style. His new work was championed by influential critics such as J.-K. Huysmans, as well as by Edgar Degas.

The ragpicker became for Raffaëlli a symbol of the alienation of the individual in modern society. Art historian Barbara S. Fields has written of Raffaëlli's interest in the positivist philosophy of Hippolyte-Adolphe Taine, which:

led him to articulate a theory of realism that he christened ''caractérisme''. He hoped to set himself apart from those unthinking, so-called realist artists whose art provided the viewer with only a literal depiction of nature. His careful observation of man in his milieu paralleled the anti-aesthetic, anti-romantic approach of the literary Naturalists, such as Zola and Huysmans.

Degas invited Raffaëlli to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881, an action that bitterly divided the group; not only was Raffaëlli not an Impressionist, but he threatened to dominate the 1880 exhibition with his outsized display of 37 works. Monet, resentful of Degas's insistence on expanding the Impressionist exhibitions by including several realists, chose not to exhibit, complaining, "The little chapel has become a commonplace school which opens its doors to the first dauber to come along." An example of Raffaëlli's work from this period is ''Les buveurs d'absinthe'' (1881, in the California Palace of Legion of Honor Art Museum in San Francisco). Originally titled ''Les déclassés,'' the painting was widely praised at the 1881 exhibit.

After winning the Légion d'honneur in 1889, Raffaëlli shifted his attention from the suburbs of Paris to city itself, and the street scenes that resulted were well received by the public and the critics. He made a number of sculptures, but these are known today only through photographs. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1912 Summer Olympics. In the later years of his life, he concentrated on color printmaking. Raffaëlli died in Paris on February 11, 1924.

Notes

References

*Gordon, Robert; Forge, Andrew (1988). ''Degas''. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
*Turner, J. (2000). ''From Monet to Cézanne: Late 19th-century French Artists''. Grove Art. New York: St Martin's Press.
*Young, Marnin. "Heroic Indolence: Realism and The Politics of Time in Raffaelli's ''Absinthe Drinkers''," ''The Art Bulletin'' 90, no. 2 (June 2008): 235-259.

External links

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* Jean-François Raffaëlli papers, at the Getty Research Institute

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raffaelli, Jean-Francois
1850 births
1924 deaths
Painters from Paris
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
19th-century French engravers
20th-century French engravers
19th-century French sculptors
French people of Italian descent
People of Tuscan descent
French male writers
Members of the Ligue de la patrie française
French Realist painters
Color engravers
Olympic competitors in art competitions
19th-century French male artists