DOI Heft:
No. 136 (July, 1904)
DOI Artikel:Jourdain, Frantz: Modern French pastellists: J. F. Raffaëlli
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19882#0170
Modern French Pastellists
'le declasse from the pastel by j. f. raffaelli
makes itself at home amid
the broken bottles, the
sardine tins, the rubbish,
the cinders, and the filth,
whose faint odours unite
under the pale sky with
the mouldy stench of the
Parisian dung-heaps.
One must not suppose,
however, that this most
strange historiographer of
the banlieue—of which, as
was Ajalbert in literature,
he has been the Chris-
topher Columbus — is ab-
solutely hypnotised on the
subject of these social
shallows, for he has also
shown his love of that
interest and pity for the poor, the humble, the which has grace and charm. Fashionable, lux-
outcast, those who had fallen on life's road, the urious Paris, too, has attracted him, and the
pariahs whom the artists who have done sublime brilliant kaleidoscope of the Square de la Trinite,
work have never disdained to know. Tramps and the Place de 1'Opera, the carrefour of St. Germain-
labourers, vendors of chestnuts, rag-pickers, and des-Pres, and the Boulevard des Italiens has pro-
prowlers—all the homeless, foodless, shoeless troop vided him with delightful opportunities of revealing
of sorrow and vice, of resignation and crime, of ill- the facility and suppleness of his brush,
chance and despair—these
were his models, and they
have been depicted by him
with extraordinary justness
and eloquent sincerity.
Faithful and intelligent
adept as he is of the
naturalist doctrine, the
painter has placed these v
figures in their true sur-
roundings, against the
background and in the
atmosphere which are their WflHr^Wj%\
own, the mysterious har- tSjM iti £ *
mony of things being thus ^S^SM *«~ • ^
complete. With marvel- V
lous intuition he has divined Er * .'. ,v~* • .^gmam-
the melancholy poetry ^sHflHfr'l* *•
springing from the outcast
landscape of the Fortifica-
tions, with its grass affected
as it were by scurf, and its
trees as by the green-sick-
ness. And this he peoples
with a world of unhappy ■■'^tlB^fW^'fl|
creatures, dirty, degraded,
rickety, sickly, despised,
which it is not proud "la voiture sur la route" from the pastel by j. f. raffaelli
148
'le declasse from the pastel by j. f. raffaelli
makes itself at home amid
the broken bottles, the
sardine tins, the rubbish,
the cinders, and the filth,
whose faint odours unite
under the pale sky with
the mouldy stench of the
Parisian dung-heaps.
One must not suppose,
however, that this most
strange historiographer of
the banlieue—of which, as
was Ajalbert in literature,
he has been the Chris-
topher Columbus — is ab-
solutely hypnotised on the
subject of these social
shallows, for he has also
shown his love of that
interest and pity for the poor, the humble, the which has grace and charm. Fashionable, lux-
outcast, those who had fallen on life's road, the urious Paris, too, has attracted him, and the
pariahs whom the artists who have done sublime brilliant kaleidoscope of the Square de la Trinite,
work have never disdained to know. Tramps and the Place de 1'Opera, the carrefour of St. Germain-
labourers, vendors of chestnuts, rag-pickers, and des-Pres, and the Boulevard des Italiens has pro-
prowlers—all the homeless, foodless, shoeless troop vided him with delightful opportunities of revealing
of sorrow and vice, of resignation and crime, of ill- the facility and suppleness of his brush,
chance and despair—these
were his models, and they
have been depicted by him
with extraordinary justness
and eloquent sincerity.
Faithful and intelligent
adept as he is of the
naturalist doctrine, the
painter has placed these v
figures in their true sur-
roundings, against the
background and in the
atmosphere which are their WflHr^Wj%\
own, the mysterious har- tSjM iti £ *
mony of things being thus ^S^SM *«~ • ^
complete. With marvel- V
lous intuition he has divined Er * .'. ,v~* • .^gmam-
the melancholy poetry ^sHflHfr'l* *•
springing from the outcast
landscape of the Fortifica-
tions, with its grass affected
as it were by scurf, and its
trees as by the green-sick-
ness. And this he peoples
with a world of unhappy ■■'^tlB^fW^'fl|
creatures, dirty, degraded,
rickety, sickly, despised,
which it is not proud "la voiture sur la route" from the pastel by j. f. raffaelli
148