Nineteenth century Paris was developed and modern, life there, was coloured and luxurious. The city had boulevards studded with cafes, restaurants, theatres and public parks where folks went and had merry times. In the nooks of this jolly and festive city, there lived the most downtrodden section of the society as well. Contrasted with the urban class, they lived a lowley life and became symbols of social inequality, marginalisation and unseen labour that accompanied the growth of the modern metropolis. Chiffonniers, french for Paris rag pickers, in the late nineteenth century, wandered through streets, mostly in the early morning or late night. They searched through rubbish on the streets, for objects that could be collected, reused or sold. They gathered, discarded materials such as old cloth, paper, glass, metal and other items that still posessed commercial value, using hooks while carrying a sack or basket. These items were then sold to dealers and eventually returned to systems of production through recycling, making rag pickers an important but neglected part of the economy. Painted above, is an old rag picker in shabby clothes, directly looking at the viewers as if confronting them about the injustice and inhumanity that they seamlessly allow. Vassily Perov, active in nineteenth century, was a member of the peredvizhniki and his body of work rarely deals with popular or celebratory subject matters. He paints the reality as it is and chooses to depict the sections and people of the society who have been systematically marginalised and ripped off of power. Through his painting, Perov attempts to make the ignored and unseen, seen, hence giving them the much needed representation. Belonging to a period of Russian realism, he paints his subjects in a realistic manner. In the painting above, his subjects occupy a central position in his composition, one of them gazing directly at the viewer, the other one turned away, thus pointing out how they keep being subjected to unfairness, quietly. In the foreground, his basket is kept that forms a symbol of the work that he does. Resting underneath a tree, the old man looks helpless but brave enough to have withstood the difficulties of his life. The faint shadow of the Paris city forms the background.
In Vasily Perov’s Parisian Rag Pickers (1864) two figures are shown on the margins of Parisian society, involved in the quiet and difficult work of collecting discarded material. In the foreground an older man sits with a tired, weather-beaten face, behind him a woman sits beside a basket full of what they have gathered. Their shabby clothes and lowered faces immediately tell of the severity of their lives, but Perov does not portray them as objects of pity. They are shown, rather, with a quiet dignity. Their insular lives are contrasted with the larger world of the city beyond by the big tree that shelters them and the distant city. The city looks close enough to see, but socially it seems a long way away. This distance matters because the painting is not simply about poverty, but rather about who gets to be seen in the modern city and who remains invisible. Perov's time in Paris appears to have heightened his sensitivity to foreign social environments, and his work transforms a familiar task into a meditative study of human suffering. The soft light and subdued colours help to create the melancholic mood, and the simple gestures and tired postures stop the figures from becoming symbols and make them real people. In the end the painting asks us to stop and see lives a busy city might not see.
