Lot Essay
Drawn to the world of street singers and musicians, Ribot liked to inter-mingle of popular imagery with themes derived from traditions of high art that had been passed down from the seventeenth-century. Since Ribot was exhibiting canvases of this kind both at the traditional Paris Salons and with the more progressive Socit Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Ribot broke the boundaries of what was perceived as conventional. The Mandoline Player, both in its theme and the location where it could have been shown, advanced the perception that Ribot was open to changes linked with a younger generation of painters emerging out of the Realist tradition.
Ribot here presents a young musician dressed in an everyday costume. His cape is thrown back, freeing one arm to play his instrument; on his head is a large plumed typical of street performers. While it is clear that Ribot is alluding to the traditions of performers in Paris, he has situated this musician in his studio, against the backdrop of a non-descript environment, similar to the way in which other Realist painters such as Franois Bonvin had positioned street people throughout the 1850s when they used them as models. On the floor are found a discarded sheat of music and a burning cigarette. Both have been placed there to heighten the sense of immediacy that was a significant part of Ribot's presentation. Furthering this illusion is the way in which the musician is represented as actually playing the instrument with his mouth open to vocalize a song. In presenting his model in this way, Ribot was humanizing his performer, thereby making it possible for a larger audience to understand his aims.
The pose of this singer is active, one leg placed before the other as if keeping time with the music he is playing. Ribot's picture can be compared in this respect with Edouard Manet's, Spanish Singer or the Guitar Player of 1861, works Ribot certainly knew. Manet like Ribot exhibited at both the Salons and with the Socit des Beaux-Arts (fig. 1). Instead of placing his musician on a bench, facing the spectator, Ribot has his performer respond subtly to an unknown audience, shifting his head to the right away from the gaze of the viewer. Ribot is less aggressive than Manet in composing his scene although he is no less modern in trying to involve a spectator with his performer.
At the time, Ribot's relationship with Edouard Manet was openly discussed by supporters of his work. In 1887, in a preface to Ribot's retrospective exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, the well- established critic Louis de Fourcaud regarded Manet and Ribot as members of the same Realist camp. Fourcaud saw Ribot as "painting the model's character and energy" by removing the figure from his environment; Manet did something else by "painting the location where the figure was situated," and by recording the air and the atmosphere of the location. Fourcaud believed that Ribot painted a "real person" by understanding the nature and psychology of the model while Manet emphasized traits of any musician or mandoline player thereby enhancing the universal nature of the subject and the setting or the place occupied by a figure in an environment. Fourcaud found the two approaches were not contradictory: Ribot showed "what was living" and to Fourcaud Manet revealed "how one might live" thereby defining two poles of the realist tendency. Such a critical discussion reveals just how significantly Ribot's works were regarded by progressive critics in nineteenth century France.
The Mandoline Player also directs attention to Ribot in another way. The subtlety of the light illuminates an interior where the painter has relied almost exclusively on tones of gray and white. The only bright spots of color are the pinks in the face of the performer and on his hands, the latter an expressive motif that Ribot frequently emphasized in his canvases and through hundreds of preliminary drawings. As a tonal painter, able to create an entire environment with a limited palette, Ribot suggests seventeenth century Spanish artists such as Diego Velsquez and an understanding of the canvases of James McNeill Whistler, who had become a dominant personality at the time. But Ribot's tonalism allows him to concentrate more persuasively on the expressive possibilities of a sitter's personality without going too far toward constructing a two-dimensional design.
In demonstrating an ability to modernize a traditional theme Ribot takes his place among the progressive painters of the 1860s. His Mandoline Player becomes the canvas that best defines the major achievements of this artist, especially when compared with other primary creators of the era such as Edouard Manet.
Gabriel P. Weisberg will include this painting in his forthcoming monographic study of Ribot's work completed with the assistance of the Wildenstein Foundation.
(fig. 1) Edouard Manet, Le chanteur espagnol,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Ribot here presents a young musician dressed in an everyday costume. His cape is thrown back, freeing one arm to play his instrument; on his head is a large plumed typical of street performers. While it is clear that Ribot is alluding to the traditions of performers in Paris, he has situated this musician in his studio, against the backdrop of a non-descript environment, similar to the way in which other Realist painters such as Franois Bonvin had positioned street people throughout the 1850s when they used them as models. On the floor are found a discarded sheat of music and a burning cigarette. Both have been placed there to heighten the sense of immediacy that was a significant part of Ribot's presentation. Furthering this illusion is the way in which the musician is represented as actually playing the instrument with his mouth open to vocalize a song. In presenting his model in this way, Ribot was humanizing his performer, thereby making it possible for a larger audience to understand his aims.
The pose of this singer is active, one leg placed before the other as if keeping time with the music he is playing. Ribot's picture can be compared in this respect with Edouard Manet's, Spanish Singer or the Guitar Player of 1861, works Ribot certainly knew. Manet like Ribot exhibited at both the Salons and with the Socit des Beaux-Arts (fig. 1). Instead of placing his musician on a bench, facing the spectator, Ribot has his performer respond subtly to an unknown audience, shifting his head to the right away from the gaze of the viewer. Ribot is less aggressive than Manet in composing his scene although he is no less modern in trying to involve a spectator with his performer.
At the time, Ribot's relationship with Edouard Manet was openly discussed by supporters of his work. In 1887, in a preface to Ribot's retrospective exhibition at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, the well- established critic Louis de Fourcaud regarded Manet and Ribot as members of the same Realist camp. Fourcaud saw Ribot as "painting the model's character and energy" by removing the figure from his environment; Manet did something else by "painting the location where the figure was situated," and by recording the air and the atmosphere of the location. Fourcaud believed that Ribot painted a "real person" by understanding the nature and psychology of the model while Manet emphasized traits of any musician or mandoline player thereby enhancing the universal nature of the subject and the setting or the place occupied by a figure in an environment. Fourcaud found the two approaches were not contradictory: Ribot showed "what was living" and to Fourcaud Manet revealed "how one might live" thereby defining two poles of the realist tendency. Such a critical discussion reveals just how significantly Ribot's works were regarded by progressive critics in nineteenth century France.
The Mandoline Player also directs attention to Ribot in another way. The subtlety of the light illuminates an interior where the painter has relied almost exclusively on tones of gray and white. The only bright spots of color are the pinks in the face of the performer and on his hands, the latter an expressive motif that Ribot frequently emphasized in his canvases and through hundreds of preliminary drawings. As a tonal painter, able to create an entire environment with a limited palette, Ribot suggests seventeenth century Spanish artists such as Diego Velsquez and an understanding of the canvases of James McNeill Whistler, who had become a dominant personality at the time. But Ribot's tonalism allows him to concentrate more persuasively on the expressive possibilities of a sitter's personality without going too far toward constructing a two-dimensional design.
In demonstrating an ability to modernize a traditional theme Ribot takes his place among the progressive painters of the 1860s. His Mandoline Player becomes the canvas that best defines the major achievements of this artist, especially when compared with other primary creators of the era such as Edouard Manet.
Gabriel P. Weisberg will include this painting in his forthcoming monographic study of Ribot's work completed with the assistance of the Wildenstein Foundation.
(fig. 1) Edouard Manet, Le chanteur espagnol,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York