Studio: international art (23.1901)

THE STUDIO

THE WORK OF JEAN-FRANCOIS development of his personality. Always keenly
RAFFAELLI. BY GABRIEL critical with regard to himself, he has had the good

MOUREY. fortune to discover the exact extent of his natural

gifts, and thus has been able to march straight
M. Jean-Francois Raffaelli holds an ex- towards that goal which his temperament—his par-
ceptional place in French art. While his early ticular sentiment—permitted him to reach, thereby
comrades—Degas, Claude Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, revealing a prescience seldom seen in the artists,
for example, those with
whom, about the year 1880,
he fought the good fight for
individualism as against the
"School," for truth against
convention, in a word, for
light against darkness—
while these, I say, remain,
so to speak, the pariahs
of art, generally discounten-
anced, despite the admira-
tion of the true artist and
the true connoisseur —
despite, too, the prices
" fetched " by their works
on the market and in the
public sales, Raffaelli has
contrived to win his
position, has acquired
substantial foothold among
the public, and has even
gained recognition in official
circles. This, I hasten to
proclaim, he has achieved
without concession of any
sort, without the smallest
desire to flatter the taste
of the masses, without
in the slightest degree
sacrificing his artistic con-
victions ; and the case is
so rare as to deserve
recording. M. Raffaelli has
fulfilled, and more than
fulfilled, the early promise
he displayed ; a strict
sense of the logical and
a powerful will have

r ""•v>- jean-franijois raffaelli

been ever present in the (From a photograph by the F. Gutekunst Co., Philadelphia, U.S.A.)

XXIII. No. 99.—June, 1901. 3