Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

Effect of Rain (Effet de pluie)

Etching and aquatint, 1879
Gift Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1982.84

Camille Pissarro has been described as a “painter-printmaker,” diligently pursuing etching and lithography while he continued to paint. Indeed, he was the most prolific printmaker among the Impressionists, although he rarely attracted buyers. Effect of Rain was made during a particularly fertile period, a time of close collaboration with Edgar Degas (1834–1917). Both were stimulated by their interchanges, and each experimented with complex, unconventional techniques without any concern to sell the results.
This print is a masterwork of aquatint utilized in an impressionistic and painterly style. Pissarro loosely established the forms with aquatint and with acid brushed directly onto the plate; he roughened patches with emery paper; and he scratched in lines with a metal brush, creating a convincing sensation of falling rain.