In her article, “Tradition et modernité: Les Rassemblement, un livre de transition,”
Luce Abélès compares the prints in Badauderies Parisiennes with Vallotton’s previous woodcuts that were published in the press before the artist contributed to Badauderies Parisiennes. Abélès demonstrates that Vallotton adapted a lot of themes that had been already shown in the press to which he had collaborated previously. However, Abélès does not analyze the feature of the crowd and the way Vallotton visualizes it. The ambition in the following paragraphs is to investigate this aspect further, by relying on some of Abélès’s analyses, and focus on the strategies used by Vallotton to shape the
89 Gregory Shaya, “The Flaneur, the Badaud, and the Making of a Mass Public in France, circa 1860-1910,” in: The American Historical Review 109, 2004, p. 54.
crowd in Badauderies Parisiennes. Before going further in this direction, it is necessary to introduce briefly Vallotton’s precedent published prints.
Before publishing Badauderies Parisiennes, Vallotton had produced many adaptions of the Paris street scene, as for instance in 1894, the notable series of seven zincographs entitled Paris Intense (Fig. 62).90 The same year, Vallotton began to work for the illustrated hebdomadal Le Courrier Français, a humoristic publication that was offering information about Paris entertainments—balls, cabarets, café-concerts, operas, exhibitions—leaving a large place for satiric illustration entrusted to the most famous artists of the era.91 However, this collaboration which led to the production of twelve prints, lasted only three months.92 Later, just one year before publishing Badauderies Parisiennes, and after having left Le Courrier Français he participated from 1894 to 1895 in another hebdomadal satiric revue called Le Rire (Fig. 63).93 The prints that were published in succession in these different journals were all depicting Parisian crowds. The similarities we can find in these different publications offer a great platform for a comprehensive comparison in order to figure out which were Vallotton’s intentions and how the motif of the crowd evolved during that time.
In Paris Intense Vallotton created one frontispiece and six zincographs.94 The frontispiece (Fig. 62) presents a row of people standing so immovably on the paved background that it seems to have posed in front of a camera.95 If we compare this image
90 L. Joly ed., Paris Intense, Paris 1894; After Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre gravé et lithographié de Félix Vallotton by Maxime Vallotton and Charles Goerg(Genève 1972), this series was published in a limited printing quantity around hundreds. Abélès, (as note 12), p.316, n.15
91 Le Courrier Français (1884-1913) collaborates with many famous artist such as Jean-Louis Forain and Jules Chéret, Louis Legrand, Ferdinand Lunel, Uzès Jacques Lemot, Théophile Steinlen and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec…etc.. It is difficult to know its circulation at that time, but according to its fairly low price (20 centimes for one number of 12 pages), it must have achieved a large diffusion.
Abélès, (as note 12), p.316; p.316, n.16.
92 Abélès, (as note 12), p.316.
93 Vallotton’s participation in the illustrated press does not stop here. He continued to collaborate with Le Rire (1894-1898), Le Cri de Paris (1897-1902), L’Assiette au beurre (1902), le Canard sauvage (1903). Abélès, (as note 12), p.316; p.316, n.16.
94 I, “Paris intense” ; II, “L'Accident” ; III, “L'Averse” ; IV, “Le Monôme” ; V, “Au Violon” ; VI,
“Deuxième bureau” ; VII, “Les Chanteurs.”
95 Abélès, (as note 12), p.316.
with Vallotton’s design for the book jacket of the Badauderies Parisiennes (Fig. 1), we can notice significant differences. The frontal arrangement of the crowd in the initial composition has been replaced in the latest composition by a bird’s eye view. Rather than presenting the crowd as a unified and still entity, the jacket of the Badauderies Parisiennes is privileged to show it as something scattered and in movement. The individuals are in this respect walking to different directions. This modification reveals two key features of Vallotton’s crowd: multiplicity and transience.
The crowd on the book jacket of the Badauderies Parisiennes is composed of a multiplicity of individuals and provides a field to interplay. It is totally different from the uniformity embodied by the row of individuals who have just gathered coincidentally without interacting with each other as we find it on the frontispiece of Paris Intense. The transient aspect of the Badauderies Parisiennes is expressed through the movement of the individuals who are all about to leave or join a place. The throng of walkers is fluid and contrasts with the stagnant crowd of Paris Intense. Thus, the following analysis aims to demonstrate that these two key features, multiplicity and transience, are Vallotton’s canons to visualize the crowd.
In order to have a better understanding of the changes that took place in Valotton’s representations of the crowd, it is necessary to extend the comparison to the content of both Paris Intense and Badauderies Parisiennes. The juxtaposition of the illustrations we find in both series shows that five prints among six from Paris intense share many similarities with those in Badauderies Parisiennes.
For instance, “The Accident" (“L'Accident”) (Fig. 64), which is the theme of one of the Paris Intense’s zincographs, is represented several times in Badauderies Parisiennes, as for instance in “The Angry Horse” (“Le Cheval emporté”) (Fig. 65).
The furious and frightened two horses have the same elevated position as in the carriage accident of Paris Intense. Vallotton displays “The Angry Horse” in the same kind of
composition as in “The Accident.” The horse is tramping on a person who is probably dead and the gawkers witnessing the event are “gathering” in such a way that they are gradually forming a circle. This process of “gathering” is an important element in Vallotton’s street scenes. It not only reflects literally the Badauderies Parisiennes’
subtitle: Les Rassemblements (The Gatherings) but also corresponds to the transient nature of the crowd. Furthermore, the process of gathering is a trigger to bring onlookers to form the crowd and expand it. The crowd is in this respect naturally composed of a multiplicity of individuals. As mentioned previously, from the frontispiece of Paris intense to the book jacket of Badauderies Parisiennes, the crowd has changed from a static and homogeneous entity into something transient and diverse.
Another comparison between “The Singers” (“Les Chanteurs”) from Paris intense (Fig. 66) and “Courtyards Singers” (“Chanteurs des Cours”) in Badauderies Parisiennes (Fig. 67) shows that beyond the representation of the same topic involving street singers, the main protagonists are not the music performers but the crowd.
Though the composition in each print is reversed—in “The Singers,” the audience’s access to the spectacle is taking place horizontally and from right to left; yet, in “Singers of Courtyard,” the sight line is reversed to the vertical so that the display of spectators unfolds from the bottom to the top of the image: they see the show in the courtyard from the door. However, in both prints the content is rather the same, since the spectators are the main protagonists of the story. In both images, Vallotton displays the crowd at the center and emphasizes the facial expressions animating the gawkers.
The principle of gathering is also expressed through the presence of individuals joining the crowd. In “The Singers,” two women are running to see the spectacle and in “Singers of Courtyard” (Fig. 68), a man is shown at the moment when he has just joined the back row of the crowd (Fig. 69). The dual quality of this process of gathering implies in both examples the instantaneous change that affects the crowd and on the other hand, indicates the potential increasing number of onlookers.
Besides “The Accident” and “The Singers,” Paris Intense contains three other prints in which the process of gathering is re-exploited in Badauderies Parisiennes. In
“To Detention” (“Au Violon”) (Fig. 70), one man trying to escape from his arrest finds its equivalent in “Insulting the Police Forces” (“Outrage aux Agents”) (Fig. 71); “The Student Parade” (“Le Monôme”) in which (Fig. 72) young students are parading in the middle of the street becomes “The Demonstrators” (“Les Manifestants”) in Badauderies Parisiennes (Fig.73); in “The Rainstorm” (“L'Averse”) (Fig. 74), the pedestrians protecting themselves from the rain with an umbrella become spectators witnessing the parade of the president in “The President” (“Le Président”) (Fig.75).96
Vallotton not only adapts in Badauderies Parisiennes motifs present in Paris Intense but also borrows elements from the revues he collaborated in. The most evident example is “The Hercules of the Crossroad” (“L'Hercule de Carrefour”) (Fig. 6) which is based on the two previous versions he made in Le Courrier Français and Le Rire.
The scene showing the performance of a strong man attracting the attention of the crowd in the street was such a popular theme at that time that Vallotton treated it three times, twice in revues and one in a book project.97 The theme appears for the first time in Le Courrier Français (25 February 1894) under the title “The Herculeses” (“Les Hercules”) (Fig. 76). Vallotton presents the strong man at the end of his weightlifting process facing the crowd with his arms hold high, while his assistant is trying to perk up the crowd and enhance the ambiance by opening his arms to greet the spectators.
The next year, Vallotton reinterprets in the 9 November 1895 issue of Le Rire the role of the assistant in “The Wrestlers” (“Les Lutteurs”) (Fig. 77) in order to accompany an article written by his friend Jules Renard, a collaborator of La Revue Blanche and also one of the authors who later would participate in the Badauderies Parisiennes. In the second version of the Herculeses, Vallotton keeps the character of the assistant barely
96 Abélès, (as note 12), p.317.
97 Abélès, (as note 12), p.317.
without any modification (Fig.78). However, this version reveals Vallotton’s attempt to add layers to the background in comparison with the previous version. In the precedent version of “The Hercules,” the performance is on the ground; however, in
“The Wrestlers,” Vallotton creates a carpet under the strong man’s feet and adds a second row of spectators in the throng, avoiding representing the officers’ feet. He depicts them in white in order to distinguish them from the first row of people treated in black (Fig.79). This intention of layering the crowd becomes more evident in the third version that appears in Badauderies Parisiennes.
In “The Hercules of the Crossroad,” the assistant has disappeared while the Hercules in leopard short pants is presented as a slender figure in the process of weight-lifting. This has as primary effect to show the work of his muscles on his muscular body.
However, the most significant modification concerns the emphasis put on the increasing layers of the crowd of spectators (Fig. 80). As I mentioned previously, under Vallotton’s depiction, the crowd is defined as multiple and transient through the action of the “gathering.” The ambition to increase the layers of the crowd has the effect to emphasize its multiple dimension. There is no longer one or two rows of spectators, but rather a crowd made of a multiplicity of intricate rows, in which numbers of different onlookers such as children, officers, bakers, bourgeois, ladies…etc. are differentiated.
They are all interlaced in the crowd. Moreover, behind the crowd, passersby and running dogs are depicted in the background. All of this adds to the layers and quantity of the crowd.
The transience of the crowd is conveyed in Badauderies Parisiennes through the presence of onlookers who join the crowd appealed by the events that are the objects of the other people’s attention. At the same time there are also gawkers who swiftly lose their interest and prepare to leave. This dispersing action has a controversial meaning behind the gathering, but once these two actions join together, it brings out the crowd’s
“transience” in Vallotton’s prints. For instance, in “The Wreck” (“L’Épave”) (Fig. 81)
which was published in Le Courrier Français, (6 May 1894), and in its reinterpretation as “The Victim of Drowning” (Le Noyé) (Fig. 10) in the Badauderies Parisiennes, the theme of the drowning is depicted in both versions through the presence of a drowned body guarded by the police on the riverside of la Seine and a group of gawkers who crowd around the crime scene. Obviously, by comparing these two versions, it is not hard to notice that Vallotton adds once again the layers and quantity of the crowd in the second version. In “The Victim of Drowning”, he diversifies the crowd with gawkers of various professions such as a digger man who carries a shovel and a pickaxe and a construction painter who holds a bucket of paint and a stepladder.
The feature of transience in Vallotton’s crowd is visualized by two men in action in “The Victim of Drowning.” Firstly, on the right side of the image, one young man who carries a box on his back (Fig. 82) is probably a traveler. This young man who is turning his back seems to have almost lost his interest and prepares to leave but he is still curious about the drowning body because his gaze is still lingering on the corpse.
However, on the left side of the image, a digger man who carries a shovel and a pickaxe is departing from the crime scene. The digger turns his back to leave; it seems that he has stayed there just for curiosity only to finally lose his interest in the event itself, since he is going to his work. His leaving is a prophetic sign which may influence the young man’s own abandon of the scene (Fig. 83). This dispersing action embodies the transient aspect in Vallotton’s depiction of the crowd.
After demonstrating that multiplicity and transience are two key features in Vallotton’s canonical representations of the crowd, there is a necessity to analyze the
“narrative” links existing between the relief prints that compose Vallotton’s Badauderies Parisiennes. In fact, all thirty illustrations are thirty distinct events which could be appreciated separately without any problem. However, it does not mean that these illustrations depict thirty absolutely separate events with the absence of a connecting thread that could bring together the illustrations at issue here. If we take a
closer look at the characters depicted in the book, it will not be hard to recognize that some of them reappear in different illustrations. Such a mobility of certain characters portrayed in Vallotton’s illustrations not only provides a line of consistency that underlies the entire book but also represents the transient aspect of the crowd. In “The Victim of Drowning,” the leaving digger man could be identical to one of the labors who is digging underground with a pickaxe in the “Roadworks” (“Travaux de voirie”) (Fig. 15) of Badauderies Parisiennes. The role switches from one scene to another though there is no conspicuous relevance between Vallotton’s thirty illustrations.
Although the arrangement of Vallotton’s thirty illustrations has no visible consequence, the individuals who compose the crowd could be classified into some groups within these thirty relief prints: fashion ladies, middle-age fat women, young bourgeoises, elder or fat men, industrious people, naughty children, even dogs are also members of the crowd. These groups of people are, to some extent, representative of the real street scene in late nineteenth century in Paris. For instance, the figure of the baker’s boy (Fig. 85) appears recurrently in Vallotton’s prints as for instance, in “The Military Music” (“La Musique militaire”) (Fig. 11), “The Bomb” (“La Bombe”) (Fig.
19), “The Hercules of the Crossroad” (“L'Hercule de Carrefour”) (Fig. 6), “The Barrack’s Entrance” (“À la porte des casernes”) (Fig. 84) and “Insulting the Police Forces” (“Outrage aux Agents”) (Fig. 71). Vallotton’s baker’s boy corresponds to the factual costume of the time if we compare him with the photo taken by Eugène Atget (1857-1927) in Paris around 1899 and 1900 (Fig. 86).