He turned his back on such aesthetics, on impressionism, which would have been irrelevant, and observed traditional Tunisia with passionate love. He exteriorised tradition, and gave his art historical legitimacy. Exalting tradition through his paintings, he made painting itself a tradition, where (in a Muslim society) it had been absent.
Khayachi was a cultivated man and a humanistic painter, cleaving to the beautiful, the true, the noble and the just. Like ancient philosophers in search of truth, he painted to attain perfection.
