Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/237

Rh R A F R A F 219 Wooclliouselee, Robertson, Home, Ferguson, and Dugald Stewart were resident in Edinburgh, and they were all, along with a host of others less celebrated, immortalized on the painter's canvas. Of his fully matured manner we could have no finer examples than his own portrait and that of the Rev. Sir Henry Moncreiff Wellwood, the bust of Dr Wardrop of Torbane Hill, the two full-lengths of Adam Rolland of Gask and that of William Macdonald of St Martin's. It was commonly believed that Raeburn was less successful in his female than in his male portraits, but the exquisite full-length of his wife, the smaller like- ness of Mrs R. Scott Moncrieff in the Scottish National Gallery, and that of Mrs Robert Bell are sufficient to prove that he could on occasion portray all the grace and beauty of the gentler sex. Raeburn spent his life in Edinburgh, rarely visiting the metropolis, and then only for brief periods, thus preserving his own sturdy individuality, if he missed the opportunity of engrafting on it some of the fuller refinement and delicacy of the London portraitists. His leisure was em- ployed in athletic sports, in his garden, and in architectural and mechanical pursuits, and so varied were the interests that filled his life that his sitters used to say of him, "You would never take him for a painter till he seizes the brush and palette." Professional honours fell thick upon him. In 1812 he was elected president of the Society of Artists in Edinburgh, in 1814 associate, and in the following year full member of the Royal Academy. In 1822 he was knighted by George IV. and appointed His Majesty's limner for Scotland. He died at Edinburgh on the 8th of July 1823. In his own day the portraits of Raeburn were excellently and voluminously engraved, especially by the last members of the great school of English mezzotint. In 1876 a collection of over 300 of his works was brought together in the Royal Scottish Academy galleries ; in the following year a series of twelve of his linest portraits was included in the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy, London ; and a volume of photographs from his paintings has been edited by Dr John Brown. Raeburn possessed all the necessary requirements of a popular and successful portrait-painter. He had the power of producing a telling and forcible likeness ; his productions are distinguished by breadth of effect, by admirable force of handling, by execution of the swiftest and most resolute sort. Wilkie has recorded that, while travelling in Spain and studying the works of Velazquez, the brash-work of that master reminded him constantly of the "square touch" of Raeburn. But the portraits of Velazquez are unsurpassable examples of tone as well as of handling, and it is in the former quality that Raeburn is distinctly wanting. The colour of his portraits is sometimes crude and out of relation, inclining to the use of positive and definite local pigments, and too little perceptive of the changeful subtilties and modifications of atmospheric effect. His draperies frequently consist of little more than two colours the local hue of the fabric and the black which, more or less graduated, expresses its shadows and modelling. In his flesh, too, he wants in all but his very best productions the delicate refinements of colouring which distinguish the works of the great English portrait-painters. His faces, with all their excellent truth of form and splendid vigour of handling, are often hard and bricky in hue. RAFF, JOSEPH JOACHIM (1822-1882), composer and orchestral conductor, was born near Zurich on 27th May 1822 and educated chiefly at Schwyz. Here, under the care of the Jesuit fathers, he soon became an excellent classical and mathematical scholar, but received scarcely any instruction in his favourite art, in which, nevertheless, he made extraordinary progress through sheer force of natural genius, developed by persevering study which no external obstacles could induce him to discontinue. So successful were his unaided efforts that, when in 1843 he sent some MSS. to Mendelssohn, that warm encourager of youthful talent felt justified in at once recommending him to Breitkopf &, Hartel of Leipsic, who published a large selection of his early works. Soon after this he became acquainted with Liszt, who gave him much generous encouragement. He first became personally acquainted with Mendelssohn at Cologne in 1846, and gave up all his other engagements for the purpose of following him to Leipsic, but his intention was frustrated by the great composer's death in 1847. After this cruel disappoint- ment he remained for some time at Cologne, where his attention was alternately devoted to composition and to the preparation of critiques for the well-known periodical Cdcilia. Thus far he must be regarded as, in every sense of the word, a self-taught artist ; but he felt the need of systematic instruction so deeply that, retiring for a time from public life, he entered at Stuttgart upon a long course of severe and uninterrupted study, and with so great success that in 1850 he appeared before the world in the character of an accomplished and highly-cultivated musician. Raff now settled for a time in Weimar in order to be near Liszt. Hans von Billow had already brought him into notice by playing his Concertstuck for pianoforte and orchestra in public, and the favour with which this fine work was everywhere received encouraged him to attempt a greater one. During his stay in Stutt- gart he had begun the composition of an opera entitled Koniy Alfred, and had good hope of securing its perform- ance at Dresden ; but the political troubles with which Germany was then overwhelmed rendered its production in the Saxon capital impossible. At Weimar he was more fortunate. In due time Konig Alfred was produced there under Liszt's able direction with complete success ; it is still frequently performed at the court theatre, as is also his second opera, Dame Kobold, written for the same theatre in 1870. His third opera, Samson, has not yet, we believe, been publicly represented. Raff remained at Weimar until 1856, when he obtained a large clientele at Wiesbaden as a teacher of the pianoforte. In 1859 he married Doris Genast, an actress of high repute, and thenceforward devoted himself with renewed energy to the work of composition, displaying an inexhaustible fertility of invention tempered by an amount of technical skill which stamped even his lightest works with the dignity to which the union of natural talent with high artistic cultivation can alone give birth. He resided chiefly at Wiesbaden till 1877, when he was appointed director of the Hoch-Conservatorium at Frankfort, an office which he retained until his death, 25th June 1882. Raffs compositions are almost innumerable. More than 200 have been published, including ten symphonies undoubtedly his finest works quartets, concertos, sonatas, songs, and examples of nearly every known variety of style ; yet he never repeats himself. Notwithstanding his strong love for the- romantic school, he is never guilty of extravagance, and, if in his minor works he is sometimes a little commonplace, he never descends to vulgarity. His symphonies Lcnorc and Im Walde are truly wonderful examples of musical painting, and replete with poetry in every bar. RAFFLES, SIR THOMAS STAMFORD (1781-1826), the son of a captain in the West India trade, was born at sea off the coast of Jamaica on 5th July 1781. Returning with his mother to England, he was placed in a boarding- school at Hammersmith, where he remained till the age of fourteen, when he entered the East India House as an extra clerk. While employed there he occupied his leisure hours in particularly studying languages, for which he possessed great facility. In 1805 the directors of the India House having resolved to found a new trading settlement at Penang, Raffles was appointed assistant- secretary, and on his voyage out he acquired the Malay language. Owing to the illness of the chief secretary, he soon had to undertake the entire administrative labour of the new government. In 1808 he had to visit Malacca to recruit his shattered strength ; here he enjoyed large opportunity of mingling with a very varied population, and, in company with the two Orientalists Marsden and