The Absinthe Drinkers Analysis

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The painting which I decided to do my paper on is called ‘The Absinthe Drinkers’, it was made in the year 1881 by a French painter who is still very revered, his name is Jean Francois Raffaelli. This work of art is an oil on canvas painting with the dimension of 110.2 *110.2 cm which is made for the private collection, known as Salons in French. A Salon was a meeting of rich aristocrats of France. At the legions of honors we passed by this painting and I just fell in love with the scene presented inside of it. The first thing which came to my mind when I saw this painting was a hopeless depressed France, stuck in poverty. What intrigued me much about the painting was the fact that the two men inside of the painting where drinking Absinthe which is a very luxurious alcoholic drink, yet the two people who were drinking it seemed a little poor, as I noted that by looking at their …show more content…

The website stated that, “The painter, etcher, lithographer, illustrator, and sculptor Jean-François Raffaelli was born on April 20, 1850 in Paris. Before Raffaelli dedicated himself to painting under Jean-Léon Gerome (1824 – 1904) in art class, he became an actor.”(Art directory) Back in the days not everybody could afford high class drink like absinthe, Even though they look fairly poor. The painting depicts some absinthe drinkers, men in frock coats and top hats are seated at a table. The upper left of the frame allows a view of the country side with the house clearly seen on top left. When i looked at the two chairs by the side it made me think if they were waiting for someone as they were not shown talking in the painting. He uses techniques to tell that that the house is built on a hill, the factors that tell the viewer is that both of the people sitting in the painting look serious like they are having a serious discussion or they are stressed about

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