Nuage Blanc

"Discernible in Raza's recent pictures are the forms of houses, trees and mountains; but to conclude on the strength of this that they are a literal description of nature would be to misjudge them entirely. Obviously the villages and country-side of Provence and Italy have cast their spell - fleeting or intense, as the case may be - over the artist; but these impressions have only served to precipitate and crystallize an inner landscape whose blandishments have haunted the artist for years, ever since his youthful familiarity with the intricate architecture and luxuriant vegetation of his native land.
[...] For all the tragic intensity of its smouldering fires, and the glare of its greenery, the world of Raza hangs in a torrent of potentialities, amid the contending powers of darkness and light. Notwithstanding the storm of life, the artist, true to himself, has acquired the gift of serenity; he has achieved the inexpressible plentitude which, in the Arabian poem, is born of the reiterated syllable signifying Night."
Jacques Lassaigne, Raza, Galerie Lara Vincy, Paris, 1958 (unpaginated)