Turpitudes Sociales

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Le Suicide de l'abandonnée (The Suicide of the Forsaken)

Turpitudes sociales (German social outrage ) is a cycle of pen and ink drawings by the impressionist painter Camille Pissarro . The 28 pen drawings depict social upheavals and the exploitation of the predominantly rural population by the French upper class.

background

Camille Pissarro showed interest in his less privileged fellow human beings throughout his life. Even in his early work in the 1850s, he drew black workers (possibly disenfranchised as slaves) and market scenes with Indians and gauchos on his trips to South America . Since the 1870s he was also politically involved in the field of socialist anarchism , following the school of the anarchist and pioneer Pyotr Alexejewitsch Kropotkin , which ultimately led to the French government monitoring and controlling his correspondence.

When France fell into a severe economic depression due to poor harvests in the wine-growing industry due to a phylloxera epidemic and unemployment reached serious proportions, especially among the agricultural workers, who made up two thirds of the French workforce, his political commitment increased. He joined the debating club Club de l'Art Social in 1889 , subscribed to anarchist newspapers such as Le Père Peinard , La Rèvolte , Le Prolètaire and Les Temps nouveaux and made drawings for them. He supported these papers and the families of imprisoned anarchists financially and created numerous pictures that depicted the social reality, the hard work and the difficult life of the rural population, unvarnished and free of any romanticization .

In addition, he expressed his contempt for the Parisian bourgeoisie through the picture cycle Turpitudes sociales , which was admittedly not intended for publication due to his supervision, but sent to his nieces Esther and Alice Isaacson in December 1889 as a lesson on the horror of modern capitalism .

drawings

The album of drawings is unique in the expression of his political stance in Pissarro's work. The pages were bound in a bundle, the title page of which was designed by Pissarro's eldest son Lucien and was given the heading Turpitudes sociales .

Each drawing depicted a scene of oppression, hardship or scandal and was commented on with an excerpt from anarchist or literary texts. Among other things, it shows the shocking working conditions in the factories, suicides, hunger, poverty, drunkenness, exploitation and violence. In contrast, he contrasts corrupt bankers, the pompous funeral of a cardinal, the marriage of wealthy people for the purpose of asset accumulation and other excesses of capitalist society.

The drawings are done with pen and brown ink over pencil sketches and measure 31 × 24 cm each. He sent 22 of the 28 drawings to the Isaacsons in December 1889. He probably delivered the last six personally in the late spring of 1890 when he visited the sisters in London, when he realized that sending them by post could lead to his seizure and arrest.

The sheets are in the collection of Jean Bonna, Geneva. The drawings include the following motifs:

  • Title Turpitudes sociales
  • Cover: Old man looks down on Paris
The title page shows an older, bearded man with a scythe looking torn and looking out over Paris. The word anarchy glows over the Eiffel Tower like the rays of a rising sun.
  • contents
A citizen and a worker tug at a banner that reads TABL DES MATIF , with an overview of the sheet names underneath.
  • Sheet 1: The capital
A fat citizen stands on a pedestal, clutching a sack full of money. Hundreds of workers beg for him.
  • Sheet 2: The marriage of reason
Representation of an upper-class marriage for the purpose of accumulating assets in front of a registrar.
A gathering of the bourgeoisie.
Three careworn old women talk to each other in a market square.
  • Sheet 5: The suicide of a stock trader
A rich citizen lies dead on his sofa, his pistol on the floor.
A pompous funeral of an ecclesiastical dignitary with numerous mourners.
  • Sheet 7: Servitude in the workhouse
A fat overseer turns his back to hard-working, emaciated slave laborers, some of whom are lying motionless on the ground .
  • Sheet 8: Slaves at their meal
Three seated slaves get a liquid from a fourth.
  • Sheet 9: The prison of Saint Honoré
Numerous sedentary women doing forced labor in prison.
  • Sheet 10: The hanged millionaire
A man hangs from a street lamp in an alley. A ladder leans against the house wall.
  • Sheet 11: Jean Elend
In a dark alley, under a lantern, lies an emaciated figure.
  • Sheet 12: The suffocation
A woman and two children are dead in a bed. A coal stove ( carbon monoxide poisoning ) stands out.
  • Sheet 13: The suicide of an abandoned person
A woman throws herself off a busy river bridge
  • Sheet 14: No more bread
A desperate woman sits in a bare attic room. Two children beg their father for food.
  • Sheet 15: Next nothing
A crowd in front of a public meal.
  • Sheet 16: The misery with the black hat
In the light of a street lamp, a stooped woman and a stooped man in a black top hat walk through the darkness.
  • Sheet 17: The stagnant art
A thickly dressed painter sits crouching in front of an easel in his studio.
  • Sheet 18: Sophie's choice
A young girl without shoes stands humbly in front of a desk, behind which an older, well-dressed man is sitting.
  • Sheet 19: The beggar
A man with a child begs in the street, behind a grocery store with full display.
  • Sheet 20: The agony
Three men kick and choke a citizen.
  • Sheet 21: The virtue rewarded
In a pub, two men at two tables each privately touch a young woman. A woman with a toddler in her arms stands in front of the tables.
  • Sheet 22: Small scene from married life
A man pulls a woman by the hair through a room. He swings a stick over himself.
  • Sheet 23: The Drunkards
Two drunkards stumble out of a wine bar.
  • Sheet 24: Before the accident
A house painter sits on a seat board held by ropes on a high house facade. Roofers are also working unsecured on the roof of the neighboring house.
  • Sheet 25: After the accident
Two men haul a stretcher down a street with a large crowd. The person on the stretcher is covered with a cloth.
  • Sheet 26: The hospital
Numerous beds in a row in a hospital with numerous patients on rounds.
  • Sheet 27: The poor man's funeral procession
A funeral coach drives through a deserted street.
  • Sheet 28: The uprising
Fighters with flag and guns on a barricade.
  • Reverse with title Turpitudes sociales

literature

  • Camille Pissarro - Turpitudes sociales. Presses Universitaires de France; 2009, ISBN 978-2-13057574-0 .
  • Ralph E. Shikes, Paula Harper : Pissarro: the father of impressionism. German by Asma El Moutei Semler. Athenaeum, Königstein / Ts. 1981, pp. 204-207

Web links

Commons : Turpitudes sociales  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gerhard Finckh (ed.): Camille Pissarro - The father of impressionism. Exhibition catalog of the Von der Heydt Museum ; Wuppertal; 2014; P. 312.