RAFFAËLLI, Jean-François - b. 1850 Paris, d. 1924 Paris - WGA

RAFFAËLLI, Jean-François

(b. 1850 Paris, d. 1924 Paris)

French painter, pastelist, and engraver. He lived all his life in Paris. In 1868 he trained initially as a singer, attending courses in the morning at the École des Beaux-Arts and studying for periods with Gérôme. He exhibited at the first time at the Salon in 1870. From 1871 he was rejected each time at the Salon until 1876, when he had a big success.

From the mid-1870s he was influenced by Monet and Sisley and changed to Impressionism, and in 1880 and 1881 he exhibited at the 5th and 6th Impressionist exhibitions. His painting is full of social criticism in his depictions of the poor areas of Paris, in their subdued tones his paintings are close to realism. He also painted portraits and later above all landscapes in and around Paris. In 1889 he received a gold medal at the World Fair.

He invented the Raffaëlli paint, which has the properties of both oils and watercolours.

Carrefour Drouot

The present view of the Carrefour Drouot radiates the effervescence and vitality of Raffaëlli’s paintings of Paris. All is painted in quick, short-hand dashes of thick paint that mimic the buzzing quality of the busy street.

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Fisherman on the Bank of Seine

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Houses on the Banks of the Oise

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Man with Two Loaves of Breads

In the second half of the 1870s Raffaëlli turned to chronicling the life of the least fortunate - his portrayals of workers done over the next decade are almost unique in French painting in their uncompromising images of simple peasants, rag and bone men (chiffonniers), absinthe drinkers, and scenes of Bohemian life.

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The Absinth Drinkers

Raffaëlli was a painter of suburban scenes which were sometimes pessimistic and sometimes rather tender. Essentially self-taught, he essayed various thematic areas, and alternated between the Salon and other exhibition strategies. His contact with the Impressionists was merely loose, and consisted partly in a shared interest in social fringe groups. At first he painted Breton peasants, the urban alcoholics and rag-and-bone collectors. He also shared the Impressionists’ concern with the persuasive atmospherics of sketchy pictorial spatial contexts.

The Absinth Drinkers, a semi-lifesize canvas exhibited in 1881 as The Down and Outs, would have appealed to Degas for the canvas structure and the subject of the lonely outsiders, but also the delicately nuanced colouring.

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