Page 11 - Gallery 19c Volume 3_Les Types de Paris_digital_Neat

Rodin (1840–1917) as an event “for delicate
souls who love such desolate places,” was one of the
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many social gatherings the intelligentsia used to debate
on contemporary life over a gargantuan meal (fig. 4).
Writers Huysmans, Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897),
Léon Hennique (1850–1935), Octave Mirbeau
Fig. 1: Portrait of Jean-François Raffaëlli. Raffaëlli papers, Getty Research Institute (inv. Fig. 2: Jean-François Raffaëlli, Hôtel de ville, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France.
860758). On the background, hangs Raffaelli’s painting Hôtel de ville. (1848–1917), and Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926) regularly
gathered with musician Emmanuel Chabrier
(1841–1894) and painters Claude Monet (1840–1926)
and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901). Sometimes
Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896) and Georges
Clemenceau (1841–1929) would also attend the dinner. 6
Raffaëlli capitalized on these strong friendships, many of
The 179 drawings by Raffaëlli are the centerpiece of Les de Balzac (1799–1850) in the literary realm, Raffaëlli whose names are featured in Les Types de Paris. Other
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Types de Paris and serve as a retrospective of the artist’s created a new school of painting characterized by the social events also served as talent pools to develop Les
work. Already at the early age of 14, Raffaëlli “perceived representation of humanity and its complexities. Types. One such source was the “dîner des cosaques,”
life in sadness,” as his father experienced financial “a social gathering of pacifist poets and charming
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difficulties after his business failed. Raffaëlli took a In the chapter “Étude des mouvements de l’art moderne litterateurs” orchestrated by Mirbeau, who wrote
series of menial jobs to help support himself and pay for et du beau caractériste” at the end of his 1884 exhibition “Cocher de maître” for Les Types. Significantly, this specific
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his own art classes at the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue, Raffaëlli theorized that Les Types de Paris project of the “Parisian Millet” to carefully record
(1824-1904). Raffaëlli also sang to earn a living, by day in was the natural culmination of his political and social the natural world was in the same vein as the artistic
churches for marriage and funeral services, and by night activism. While his attraction to the working class and movement of Impressionism. 10
in a theater on Boulevard des Italiens. The privation of poor possibly stemmed in part from his own difficult
this period would haunt Raffaëlli for the rest of his life, early years, his efforts to explore novel spheres of
manifesting itself in the familiar subjects he strove to expression to give voice to his manifesto, as displayed
honor with his brush strokes. Picturesquely portraying in Les Types de Paris—the unspoken word, the unpainted
the indigence of Paris and its banlieues (suburbs), image, the unheard sound—are the result of his
the underrepresented, the humble, the workers, the affiliation with a circle of authors and intellectuals from
ragpickers, and the beggars became his signature the avant-garde. The “dîner de banlieue,” which Raffaëlli
style: “Portraits-types des gens du people.” Like Honoré described to his friend and fellow participant Auguste Fig. 3: Le marchand de marrons, etching by Raffaëlli for J. K. Huysmans Croquis parisiens,
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p. 49. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, (inv. C39545).
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