Joseph (art model)

Joseph (pronounced [ʒozef]) also known as Joseph le Nègre[1] (c. 1793 – c. 1865) was a 19th-century Haitian acrobat and art model active primarily in France. Joseph is best known for his work with the French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault and served as a principal and only Black model for Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa (1819).[2]

Joseph
Portrait study (1818–1819) by Théodore Géricault
Born
unknown

c. 1793
Saint-Domingue
Diedc. 1865 (aged 71–72)
France
OccupationArt model
Known forThe Raft of the Medusa

Life and work

Joseph's family name has not been recorded, although it is believed that he was born in the French colony of Saint Domingue, present day Haiti, around 1793.[3] He is said to have arrived in France in or around 1804 and first settled in Marseille. By 1808, Joseph had moved to Paris where he was hired as an acrobat and actor for Madame Saqui's troupe.[1][4] Joseph was one of the many immigrants who had left Haiti in the aftermath of the 1791 Haitian Revolution and the subsequent abolition of slavery in the French colonies (which lasted from 1794 until 1804, before being legalized again by Napoleon).[3]

Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819)

Joseph gained recognition after serving as a principal model for Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, an 1819 painting depicting a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate Méduse, which ran aground off the coast of today's Mauritania on 2 July 1816.[5] Joseph, whom Géricault had first encountered during an acrobatic show, was hired as a model shortly after the artist began working on The Raft of the Medusa in September 1817.[3] Even though only one of the fifteen survivors on the raft, a soldier named Jean Charles, is said to have been Black, at least two men in Géricault's painting were modeled after Joseph.[3][6]

Annotated version of The Raft of the Medusa (1819) by Théodore Géricault, showing figures said to have been modeled by Joseph.

Most notably, Joseph served as a model for the man assumed to be Jean Charles, waving a dark red handkerchief in hopes of being noticed by the passing ship. Influenced by an ancient Greek Classical sculpture titled Belvedere Torso and with his back turned toward the viewer, Joseph's silhouette is placed atop the pyramidal grouping of survivors in the composition's right half.[7]

In addition, a small rendering of Joseph's face, with his gaze directed toward the spectator, is placed within a group of three figures positioned between the wooden mast and the supporting rope on the mast's right-hand side.[3] Around the same time he painted The Raft of the Medusa, the artist also completed a study of Joseph in a manner consistent with tête d’étude, an established tradition in the French studio practice wherein a portrait of an individual is painted for possible use in large-scale compositions.[3][8] Some accounts indicate that Joseph also served as inspiration for a third individual, a man seen seated in the middle of composition directly in front of the mast.[9]

Théodore Géricault, Study for The Raft of La Méduse, Ingres Museum, Montauban.

Géricault identified as an abolitionist and his decision to include representations of Black people in the painting has been interpreted as a political statement against slavery and French colonialism.[7][9] According to Come Fabre, a curator at the Louvre in Paris where Géricault's painting is displayed, the artist "wanted to show the equality of man when facing terror and death."[6]

Art historians Klaus Berger and Diane Chalmers Johnson note that Géricault made the individual modeled on Joseph the "focal point of the drama, the strongest and most perceptive of the survivors, in a sense, the 'hero of the scene.'"[10] They argue that the artist's choice to do so was not a "last-minute" decision as evidenced by early sketches for the work, including the portrait study, and point to Géricault's concerns regarding the "extreme cruelties" of illegal slave trade in the French colonies.[10] Echoing this sentiment, the Congolese writer and artist Bona Mangangu describes Joseph's Black body as "powerful, in good health, which rises above the white bodies, survivors of the raft weakened by disease and fatigue."[9]

Later career (1819 to 1860s)

Following his work for Géricault, Joseph was hired as a model at the l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1824.[5] He would later model for other French artists, including Horace Vernet, Alfred de Dreux, Théodore Chassériau (who was a grandson of a Haitian landowner of mixed-race),[11] and Adolphe Brune. Surviving records indicate Joseph was admired for his impressive physique and his collaboration with contemporary painters is said to have paved the way for future models of color in France.[12] An article from the French newspaper Le Figaro published in 1858 described Joseph as "the most handsome model who ran the ateliers of Paris" and claimed that there was not a single French “artist, painter or sculptor who does not know Joseph."[13]

According to Mangangu, however, Joseph was not recognized outside of the art circles in Paris and, similarly to other people of color, would continue to face systemic racism in France even after slavery had finally been abolished in 1848.[9] Moreover, Mangangu notes that art modeling was considered a "vile profession" that was usually paid an average of three Francs per each session, barely a livable wage during that time.[9]

See also

Citations
  1. Mourgues, Elsa (2019-03-22). "Joseph ou le renouveau du modèle noir au XIXe" [Joseph or the Revival of the Black Model in the 19th Century]. Radio France (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  2. Nayrolles, Jean (2010-04-01). "Le nègre Joseph. Trois images du Noir". Midi-Pyrénées Patrimoine (in French): 64.
  3. "Study of the Model Joseph, Nineteenth-Century Paris, and Romanticism" (Online exhibition). Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-10 – via Google Arts & Culture Project.
  4. Allen, Denise Maria (2003). Masterpieces of Painting in the J. Paul Getty Museum (5th ed.). Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. p. 86. ISBN 0-89236-709-1.
  5. Solly, Meilan (2017-03-27). "Musée d'Orsay Renames Manet's 'Olympia' and Other Works in Honor of Their Little-Known Black Models". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
  6. Bar, Roni (2017-02-06). "Cannibalism, Insanity and Class Warfare: The Tragedy Behind 'The Raft of the Medusa' Painting". Haaretz. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  7. Black McCoy, Claire (2021-05-27). "Théodore Géricault, Raft of the Medusa". Smarthistory. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  8. Snell, Robert (2018). Portraits of the Insane: Théodore Géricault and the Subject of Psychotherapy. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-47840-6.
  9. Combis, Hélène (2019-03-22). "Qui était Joseph, modèle noir du Radeau de la Méduse?" [Who was Joseph, black model of the Raft of the Medusa?]. Radio France (in French). Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  10. Berger, Klaus; Johnson, Diane Chalmers (1969). "Art as Confrontation: The Black Man in the Work of Gericault". The Massachusetts Review. 10 (2): 301–340. ISSN 0025-4878.
  11. Pound, Cath (2019-03-23). "The hidden figures revealed by art". BBC Culture. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  12. Ahdifard, Unita (2023-02-09). "Joseph: A Celebrated Haitian Model in 19th-Century Paris". Getty Research Institute. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  13. "Study of the Model Joseph, Nineteenth-Century Paris, and Romanticism" (Online exhibition). Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. 2023. Retrieved 2023-02-10 – via Google Arts & Culture. 'There is not in France a single artist, painter or sculptor who does not know Joseph...the most handsome model who ran the ateliers of Paris!' (Le Figaro, 1858)
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