Page 9 - Gallery 19c Volume 3_Les Types de Paris_digital_Neat

P A I N T I N G A N D V E R S E

Les Types de Paris: Parisians and their City as Seen through the Eyes of
Jean-François Raffaëlli and Contemporary Writers

A G N È S P E N O T, P h D

“Les Types de Paris by Raffaëlli . . . is an album of sketches by the master of Asnières, with captions by the most
renowned authors of Paris: Daudet, Zola, Mallarmé even, and also Bourget. This is . . . a book for Paris lovers.”

—“Types de Paris,” La Vie Parisienne: mœurs élégantes, choses du jour, fantaisie, December 21, 1889 1

Commissioned by publisher Plon, Nourrit & Cie, Les one, with its most striking types, its hidden face, its
Types de Paris is a collection of essays, short stories and physiognomies that give it both charm and vitality?” 2
poems illustrated and edited by Jean-François Raffaëlli Although earlier writings on Paris and Parisians had
(1850–1924) (Figs. 1 and 2). The twenty-two contributors attempted to memorialize a city disappearing to
to the book included some of the leading writers of the industrialization and social depravation, Les Types was
day—among them, Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), conceived as a socio-historical document, a testimony
Émile Zola (1840–1902), Guy de Maupassant (1850– of urban transformation and the people inhabiting
1893), Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907), and Stéphane its streets. To best represent this, Raffaëlli opted to
Mallarmé (1842–1898)—who strove to evoke overlooked combine writings with drawings, the symbiosis of the
aspects of fin-de-siècle Parisian life, offering a “true” two transforming the book into an artwork itself.
portrait of the city and its inhabitants. The chapters And thus, Les Types became emblematic of a successful
were published in ten weekly installments from the first collaboration between visual artist and writer, each
of February 1889 in the newspaper Le Figaro. expressing his vision of 1880s Paris through his
medium of choice: Raffaëlli with forms and colors;
The year 1889, with the opening of the Exposition the writers with words and rhymes. Les Types de Paris
Universelle, the erection of the Eiffel Tower and the was not Raffaëlli’s first foray into illustration. He had,
centenary of the French Revolution, positioned Paris as for example, illustrated the 1880 Vaton edition of
the epicenter of modernity. As visitors flocked to the Huysmans’ Croquis parisiens (fig. 3). Concomitantly,
capital, the time was propitious for Raffaëlli and his Les Types provides insights into the intellectual scene
colleagues to publish a book revealing “la vraie vie” in of Paris at the end of the century, where intense
the City of Lights: “When, as all parts of the province self-inspiration and interrelations between the
and abroad are getting ready to visit the big city, isn’t main protagonists and the various forms of art
it time to make the Paris of our days known, the real reigned supreme.

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