skies. With an irony free from bitterness he has noted the clumsy
gestures of the labourer in his Sunday garb and the grotesque
silhouettes of the small townsmen, and has compiled a gallery of very
real sociologic interest. M. Raffaëlli has also exhibited Parisian
landscapes in which appear great qualities of light. He excels in
rendering the mornings in the spring, with their pearly skies, their
pale lights, their transparency and their slight shadows, and finally he
has proved his mastery by some large portraits, fresh harmonies,
generally devoted to the study of different qualities of white. If the
name "Impressionist" meant, as has been wrongly believed, an artist who
confines himself to giving the impression of what he sees, then M.
Raffaëlli would be the real Impressionist. He suggests more than he
paints. He employs a curious technique: he often leaves a sky completely
bare, throwing on to the white of the canvas a few colour notes which
suffice to give the illusion. He has a decided preference for white and
black, and paints very slightly in small touches. His very correct
feeling for values makes him an excellent painter; but what interests
him beyond all, is psychologic expression. He notes it with so hasty a
pencil, that one might almost say that he writes with colour. He is also
an etcher of great merit, and an original sculptor. He has invented
small bas-reliefs in bronze which can be attached to the wall, like
sketches or nick-nacks; and he has applied his talent even to renewing
the material for painting. He is an ingenious artist and a prolific
producer, a roguish, but sympathetic, observer of the life of the small
people, which has not prevented him from painting very seriously when he
wanted to, as is witnessed among other works by his very fine portrait
of M. Clemenceau speaking at a public meeting, in the presence of a
vociferous audience from which rise some hundred of heads whose
expressions are noted with really splendid energy and fervour.