Jean-François Raffäelli
French, 1850-1924
Vase with Flowers, 1890s, late
oil on paper mounted to board
28 1/2 x 21 1/4 in.
SBMA, Gift of Michael and Jan Schwartz
2005.93.3
Jean François Raffaelli - Self-Portrait, pastel, crayon and chalk on board, 1879
“There is no beauty in Nature; beauty resides in character." - Jean-François Raffäelli
RESEARCH PAPER
Raffaëlli uses a palette of complementary contrasting colors of sunshine yellow, vermillion red and seaweed green in his piece, Vase with Flowers. The light brown background emulates the wooden board on which the paper has been mounted. Other colors to a lesser extent such as white, black, and dark blue. Black leaves exist in the shadows and white highlights emphasize the red poppies and the light reflecting on the daisies.
Rafaëlli uses an economy of light strokes to paint the delicate yellow petals of the daisies. He uses broader smoother brush strokes for the red poppies. He paints longer strokes for the green leaves and stems. The background is mostly smooth light brown with some dark grey-blue shadows. When we look at these flowers up close, we can see a collection of a variety of brush strokes. When we step back, the flowers come alive in warm yellow and red colors.
The daisies meander towards the sky, looking for sunshine. The stems raise the flowers in ascending diagonal and vertical lines. The leaves gravitate towards the ground in opposing diagonal lines. The flower vase is implied more than explicitly drawn or painted. The artist conveys the idea of light passing and reflecting through a glass vase.
The vase and flowers create a rhomboid shape that draws our gaze from the bottom of the painting to the top of the bouquet of flowers. Then our eyes travel from the red poppies on the left to the bright yellow daisies on the right. Behind and around the flowers, there is mostly negative space that does not make reference to any place in particular. There is no table, wall decorations or window. Rafaëlli does not attempt to place these flowers in any particular physical space. He wants us to look at these flowers and their relationship to light and each other.
This painting is oil on paper mounted on a wooden board. One reason to use oil on paper is that it allows for finer strokes than on canvas. It is less expensive and often used for studies for larger works. The paper must be primed with acrylic gesso or an oil primer. Gesso is a white paint mixture of chalk, gypsum and pigment. Artists will use oil, watercolor or printmaking paper. The wood must be sealed with polyvinyl acetate or with an acrylic polymer sealer to prevent acidity from the wood to seep into the paper. Then the artist will use a roller to roll glue on the surface. The painting will be pressed to the board under pressure to eliminate air bubbles. The artist will also seal the painting with a varnish or a spray sealer. There is no record of exactly what technique Rafaëlli used for this work.
Jean Francois Rafaëlli was born in Paris on April 20, 1850. He died in Paris, in the 16th arrondisement, and his body was laid to rest in Père Lachaise. His father’s family was of Italian origin, specifically from Tuscany. His mother’s family was French from the city of Lyon. Rafaëlli was born and raised in Paris, and always had a commitment to the people of the city of his birth.
Rafaëlli’s artistic instincts began in theater, opera and church choirs. He was a singer and was also interested in theater costumes. His formal training in painting was limited to three months in the École des Beaux Arts in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was widely considered an academic.
The artist took several trips that influenced him. He first travelled with a theater group as a singer to Spain, Italy, Egypt and Algeria. His stage name was Raffa. In 1876, he took a trip to Brittany where he painted sailors. This was the beginning of his interest in realist subject matter. He later settled in Asnière, a Parisian resort and booming industrial town on the Seine. It is sometimes also described as a suburb or a “banlieu.” In Asnière, Rafaëlli painted the inhabitants of the slums: workers, vagabonds, ragpickers. He also painted many fortifications that no longer exist.
Rafaëlli is sometimes called a naturalist and sometimes a realist. He was heavily influenced by the impressionists, but his use of a dark palette set him apart. His subject matter was also distinct. Rafaëlli painted the people who lived in the slums around Paris. He did so with humanity and social conscience. He was influenced by the literature of realist writers like Emile Zola and Joris Karl Huysman. He collaborated in the illustration of a book by Huysman called Paris Sketches (“Croquis Parisiens”). He was also influenced by impressionist Berthe Morisot, and her paintings of her family members.
Degas invited Rafaëlli to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881. Rafaëlli contributed 40 works for the 1880 exhibition and 33 for 1881. Monet, Paul Gaugin and Gustave Caillebotte demanded that Rafaëlli be excluded in the future because they considered that he dominated the exhibits with the large number of works. Rafaëlli went on to have shows of his own in Belgium, France and the United States.
Vase with Flowers is a small, but important part of Rafaëlli’s oeuvre. He painted oil on canvas, oil on paper, he did some printmaking, he sketched and drew extensively, and he did some sculptures as well. He wrote, composed, and sang in theater and church choir. His subject matter evolved and changed from the inhabitants of the suburbs of Paris, to the scenes in the city, to scenes of other cities and locales, to flowers, and fortifications.
Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Rubén A. Rivera de la Garza, February 19, 2023.
Bibliography
Gavan, S. (2022, December 23). Tips for oil painting on paper (and the best paper to use). ArtWeb Blog. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
https://blog.artweb.com/how-to/oil-painting-on-paper/
How to mount artwork to a piece of wood - strathmore artist papers. strathmoreart. (2015, February 13). Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
https://www.strathmoreartist.com/blog-reader/how-to-mount-artwork-to-a-piece-of-wood.html
How to prepare paper for oil painting. Malcolm Dewey Fine Art. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
https://www.malcolmdeweyfineart.com/blog/how-to-prepare-paper-for-oil-painting#.Y_LZuh_MK3B
Jean Francois Raffaelli biography: Annex galleries fine prints. Jean Francois Raffaelli Biography | Annex Galleries Fine Prints. (n.d.). Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/3498/Raffaelli/Jean
Jean-Francois Raffaelli Paintings For Sale. Leighton Fine Art. (2022, October 30). Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
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Marder, L. (2019, October 20). Can I do an oil painting on paper? The Spruce Crafts. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
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Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, October 23). Jean-François raffaëlli. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 19, 2023, from
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois_Raffa%C3%ABlli
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Raffaëlli was best known for his depictions of Paris’s ragpickers and the blighted areas of the city in which they lived. However, he held a special appreciation for flower painting. According to his biographer, the artist once proclaimed “Yes, in truth, I try to be the flower itself at the moment that I paint it.” Indeed, Raffaëlli extended his philosophy of embodiment, which he termed caractérisme, even to the subjects of his still lifes, as this floral composition attests. As was his habit, Raffaëlli allows the beige support of his artist’s board to offset his subject, economically suggesting the glass vase in which the flowers are contained, as well as the reflection that it casts, with just a few strokes of color. The petals and intertwined stems of sunshine-yellow daisies and vermillion poppies, in varying states of bloom, are expertly distinguished by the artist’s canny use of black. Thus, the seeming incompleteness of the painting is in fact a virtuoso demonstration of the artist’s skill in conjuring his subject through a minimum of tonal contrasts and drags of the brush.
- Ridley-Tree Reinstallation, 2021