Les declasses: A French Absinthe Society or Raffaelli’s The Absinthe Drinkers...1881? Jean-Francois Raffaelli was born and died in Paris, 1850, 1924, respectively. Raffaelli, the Florentine-Parisian “Artist Who Paints Chiefly the Miserable” would have been among the paupers if he had not been recognized as an outstanding artist. (“Artist Who Paints…” 1). This is why I found this painting satisfying and moving. My sons are extremely talented like Raffaelli. Their talents lie in a different branch of the arts. If they were without their talents, they would be among the paupers. Even though countries and centuries apart, this is the common ground that I share with Raffaelli and his The Absinthe Drinkers. I love wine. I consider myself a social…show more content… In other words, marginal people, the working class, the protalitarians, or rather in the case of The Absinthe Drinkers, non-working people. Raffaelli’s visual composition, his depiction, and his image of two skinny men, haggard from head to toe, drinking absinthe, reflects his swagger. Nonetheless, there are those of us who appreciate idealism in the form of ‘photo-shop’ oil-on-canvass painting such as Claude Gellee’s, called Claude Lorrain (French, Champagne 1604/5-1682 Rome) View of Tivoli at Sunset, ca. 1642-1644 Oil--this is not reality. But, in stark contrast, is Raffaelli’s, The Absinthe Drinkers (Les…show more content… M. Raffaelli’s…meticulous craft engraves the wrinkles of a wrist supporting a jaw or the fibrils of blood in feverish eyes” (Young 2). This spacious painting was done in thinly applied colors. For example, we see a dreary beige wall, on a dreary day, which helped create a somber mood for its subjects. “…elements in the painting echo the surface of the canvas: the flat wall, the fence, the profile of the man, the side of the table, even the railroad shack at upper left. This compositional geometry encloses the drinkers’ in their own world…” (Young