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diff --git a/41492-0.txt b/41492-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..890b0db --- /dev/null +++ b/41492-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1197 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41492 *** + +MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR + +EDITED BY--T. LEMAN HARE + + +WHISTLER + +1834-1903 + + + + +IN THE SAME SERIES + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. + CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. + RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. + JOHN S. SARGENT T. MARTIN WOOD. + +_Others in Preparation._ + + + + +[Illustration: PLATE I.--OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE. Frontispiece + +(In the National Gallery) + +This nocturne was bought by the National Collections Fund from +the Whistler Memorial Exhibition. It was one of the canvases +brought forward during the cross-examination of the artist in the +Whistler v. Ruskin trial.] + + + + +Whistler + +BY T. MARTIN WOOD + +ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR + + +[Illustration] + + +LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + +NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate + I. Old Battersea Bridge Frontispiece + In the National Gallery + Page + II. Nocturne, St. Mark's, Venice 14 + In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq. + + III. The Artist's Studio 24 + In the possession of Douglas Freshfield, Esq. + + IV. Portrait of my Mother 34 + In the Luxembourg Galleries, Paris + + V. Lillie in Our Alley 40 + In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq. + + VI. Nocturne, Blue and Silver 50 + In the possession of the Hon. Percy Wyndham + + VII. Portrait of Thomas Carlyle 60 + In the Corporation Art Galleries, Glasgow + + VIII. In the Channel 70 + In the possession of Mrs. L. Knowles + + + + +[Illustration] + +I + + +At the time when Rossetti and his circle were foregathering chiefly at +Rossetti's house, quiet Chelsea scarcely knew how daily were +associations added which will always cluster round her name. Whistler's +share in those associations is very large, and he has left in his +paintings the memory of many a night, as he returned beside the river. +Before Whistler painted it, night was more opaque than it is now. It had +been viewed only through the window of tradition. It was left for a man +of the world coming out of an artificial London room to paint its +stillness, and also to show us that we ourselves had made night more +beautiful, with ghostly silver and gold; and to tell us that the dark +bridges that sweep into it do not interrupt--that we cannot interrupt, +the music of nature. + +The figure of Whistler emerges: with his extreme concern as to his +appearance, his careful choice of clothes, his hair so carefully +arranged. He had quite made up his mind as to the part he intended to +play and the light in which he wished to be regarded. He had a dual +personality. Himself as he really was and the personality which he put +forward as himself. In a sense he never went anywhere unaccompanied; he +was followed and watched by another self that would perhaps have been +happier at home. Tiring of this he would disappear from society for a +time. Other men's ringlets fall into their places accidentally--so it +might be with the young Disraeli. Other men's clothes have seemed +characteristic without any of this elaborate pose. He chose his clothes +with a view to their being characteristic, which is rather different and +less interesting than the fact of their becoming so because he, +Whistler, wore them. Other men are dandies, with little conception of +the grace of their part; with Whistler a supreme artist stepped into the +question. He designed himself. Nor had he the illusions of vanity, but a +groundwork of philosophy upon which every detail of his personal life +was part of an elaborate and delicately designed structure, his art the +turret of it all, from which he saw over the heads of others. There is +no contradiction between the dandy and his splendid art. He lived as +exquisitely and carefully as he painted. Literary culture, merely, in +his case was not great perhaps, yet he could be called one of the most +cultured figures of his time. In every direction he marked the path of +his mind with fastidious borders. And it is interesting that he should +have painted the greatest portrait of Carlyle, who, we will say, +represented in English literature Goethe's philosophy of culture, which +if it has an echo in the plastic arts, has it in the work of Whistler. +In his "Heretics" Mr. G. K. Chesterton condemned Whistler for going in +for the art of living--I think he says the miserable art of living--I +have not seen the book for a long time, but surely the fact that +Whistler was more than a private workman, that his temperament had +energy enough to turn from the ardours of his work to live this other +part of life--indicates extraordinary vitality rather than any weakness. +Whistler was never weak: he came very early to an understanding of his +limitations, and well within those limitations took his stand. Because +of this his art was perfect. In it he declined to dissipate his energy +in any but its natural way. In that way he is as supreme as any master. +Attacked from another point his whole art seems but a cobweb of +beautiful ingenuity--sustained by evasions. Whistler, one thinks, would +have been equally happy and meteorically successful in any profession; +one can imagine what an enlivening personality his would have been in a +Parliamentary debate, and how fascinating. Any public would have +suited him. Art was just an accident coming on the top of many other +gifts. It took possession of him as his chief gift, but without it he +was singularly well equipped to play a prominent part in the world. As +things happened all his other energy went to forward, indirectly and +directly, the claims of art. Perhaps his methods of self-advancement +were not so beautiful as his art, and his wit was of a more robust +character. For this we should be very glad; the world would have been +too ready to overlook his delicate work--except that it had to feed his +inordinate ambition. At first it recognised his wit and then it +recognised his art, or did its level best to, in answer to his repeated +challenges. + +[Illustration: PLATE II.--NOCTURNE, ST. MARK'S, VENICE + +(In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq.) + +This picture was first exhibited in the winter of 1886 at the Royal +Society of British Artists. The painter's election as President of the +Society taking place just after the hanging of the exhibition. A +newspaper criticism at the time was to the effect that the only +note-worthy fact about the painting was the price, £630, "just about +twenty shillings to the square inch." The figure of an investment, we +may add, which was to improve beyond the wildest calculations.] + +It is easier to explain Whistler's personality than his work. In his +lifetime most people had recognised all the force of his personality, +but it was not so with his art. In this he is as a player of violin +music, or a composer after the fashion of the masters of music--his +relationship to the subject which suggests the motif, of course, could +not be quite so slight as theirs--but it was their standpoint that he +adopted and so approached his art from another direction than the +ordinary one. To a great extent he established the unity of the arts. +Without being a musical man, through painting he divined the mission of +music and passed from the one art almost into the other. And the effort +above everything else for self-expression was in its essence a musical +one too, as also the fact that he never allowed a line or brushmark to +survive that was not as sensitively inspired--played we might almost +say--as the touch of a player, playing with great expression, upon the +keyboard of his piano. This quality of touch--how much it counts for in +the art of Whistler--as it counts in music. It is one of the essential +things which we have to understand about his work, to appreciate and +enjoy it. + +Both painting and music are so different from writing in this, that the +thoughts of a painter and musician have to issue through their fingers, +they have to clothe with their own hands the offsprings of their fancy. +They cannot put this work out, as the writer does, by dictation to a +type-writer. It is not in the style he lays the ink that the poet finds +the expression, its thickness or its thinness bears no resemblance to +his soul, but the intimacies of a painter's genius are expressed in the +actual substance of his paint and in the touch with which he lays it. So +in painting the mysterious virtue arises which among painters is called +"quality," a certain beauty of surface resultant from the perfection of +method. And it is "quality," which Whistler's work has superlatively, in +this it approaches the work of the old masters, his method was more +similar to the old traditions than to the systems current in the modern +schools. And part of the remote beauty, the flavour of distinction which +belongs to old canvases is simulated by Whistler almost unconsciously. + +Mr. Mortimer Mempes has put on record the painful care with which +Whistler printed his etchings. The Count de Montesquieu, whom Whistler +painted, tells of the "sixteen agonising sittings," whilst "by some +fifty strokes a sitting the portrait advanced. The finished work +consisted of some hundred accents, of which none was corrected or +painted out." From such glimpses of his working days we are enabled to +appreciate that desire for perfection which was a ruling factor both in +his life and work. In art he deliberately limited himself for the sake +of attaining in some one or two phases absolute perfection; he strained +away from his pictures everything but the quintessence of the vision and +the mood. He worked by gradually refining and refining upon an eager +start, or else by starting with great deliberation and proceeding very +slowly with the brush balanced before every touch while he waited for it +to receive its next inspiration. So he was always working at the top of +his powers. Those pleasant mornings in the studio in which the +Academy-picture painter works with pipe in mouth contentedly, but more +than half-mechanically, upon some corner of his picture were not for +him. Full inspiration came to him as he took up his brushes, and the +moment it flagged he laid them aside. So that in his art there is not a +brush mark or a line without feeling. His inspiration, however, was not +of the yeasty foaming order of which mad poets speak, but spontaneity. +Spontaneous action is inspired. And this is why his work looks always as +if it was done with grace and ease, and why it seemed so careless to +Ruskin. However, such winged moments will not follow each other all day +long, and though they take flight very quickly, work at this high +pressure--with every touch as fresh as the first one--cannot be +indefinitely prolonged. Whistler's friends regretted that he should +suddenly leave his work for the sake of a garden party. It is more +likely that he turned to go to the garden party just when the right +moment came for him to leave off working and so conserve the result, for +it is the tendency of the artist in inspired moments to waste his +inspiration by allowing the work of one moment to undo what was done in +the one before it. + + + + +II + + +The wit of Whistler was not like the wit, let us say, of Sheridan, but +it was the result of intense personal convictions as to the lines along +which art and life move together. About one or two things in this world +Whistler was overflowing with wisdom, and upon those things his +conversation was always salt, his sayings falling with a pretty and a +startling sound. He talked about things which were much in advance of +his day. His was not the wisdom of the past which always sounds +impressive, but the greater wisdom of the future, of instincts not yet +established upon the printed page. By these he formed his convictions as +he went, referring all his experiences, chiefly artistic ones, back to +his intelligence, which as we know was an extraordinarily acute one. +Other people's ideas, old-fashioned ones, coming into collision with the +intensity of his own, produced sparks on every occasion, and this +without over anxiety to be brilliant on Whistler's part. It is so with +original minds. + +There is a difference between artistic work and other sorts of work. +Outside the arts, in other professions, what a man's personality is, +whilst it affects the way his work is accomplished, does not alter the +nature of that work. Immediately, however, the work becomes of such a +nature that the word art can be inserted, then the personal equation is +before everything to be considered. "Temperament" meets us at every +turn, in the touch of brush to paper, in the arrangement of the design, +in the subject chosen, in the way of viewing that subject, in the shape +that subject takes. Also we can be sure that a picture suffers by every +quality, either of mere craftsmanship or surface finish, that tends to +obscure individuality of touch and feeling. Outside the arts every job +must be finished, if not by one man then by another. A half-built +motor-car means nothing to any one, it cannot be regarded as a mode of +personal expression, but in art it is otherwise, no one can finish a +work for some one else, and as Whistler pointed out, "A work of art is +finished from the beginning." In such a saying Whistler showed the +depths from which his wit spilt over. His intuitiveness in certain +directions was almost uncanny, taking the place of a profound +scholarship, and this saying is a case in point. For however fragmentary +a work of art is, if it contains only a first impulse, so far as the +work there is sufficient to explain and communicate that impulse, it is +finished--finish can do no more. And of course this is not to say that +art should never pass such an early stage. All this depends on what the +artist has to say: sometimes we have to value above everything the +completeness, the perfection of surface with which a picture has been +brought to an end. Whistler's paradox sums up the fact that finish +should be inextricably bound up with the method of working and the +personal touch never be so "played out" that resort is made to that +appearance of finish which can always be obtained by labour descending +to a mechanical character. This may sound rather technical, but it is +not so really. + +[Illustration: PLATE III.--THE ARTIST'S STUDIO + +(In the possession of Douglas Freshfield, Esq.) + +In this Whistler stands in profile before his easel. The picture belongs +to Mr. Douglas Freshfield. There is another version, in a lower key and +less finished, in the Lane gift at the City of Dublin Gallery, from +which this was perhaps painted.] + +Here we may remark on all that is due to Whistler, as to Manet, for +disturbing the dust in the Academies, at one time so thick that the +great difference between art and mere craft seemed almost totally +obscured. + + + + +III + + +Whistler's life is at present a skeleton of dates on which this incident +occurred or that, and at which the most notable of his pictures +appeared. And this must remain so until an authoritative biography of +the painter has appeared. With whom the authority rests was made the +subject of a recent Law Case. Till such a work appears we can only deal +with his art and with the Whistler legend, the impressions, recorded and +otherwise, he left upon those who were brought into contact with him.[1] +These are strangely at variance--some having only met him cloaked from +head to foot in the species of misunderstanding in which, as he +explained, in surroundings of antagonism he had wrapped himself for +protection; others remembering him for his kindliness and his +old-fashioned courtesy. + + [1] Since going to press, "The Life of Whistler," by E. R. and + J. Pennell has appeared. + +Permitting himself sufficient popularity with a few to be called +"Jimmy," Whistler's full name was James Abbot McNeill Whistler, and the +initials gradually twisted themselves into that strange arabesque with a +wavy tail which he called a butterfly and with which he signed his +pictures and his letters. Born on 11th July 1834 at Lowell, +Massachusetts, he was the descendant of an Irish branch of an old +English family, and in his seventeenth year he entered the West Point +Military Academy, where after making his first etchings on the margins +of the map which he should have been engraving, he decided to devote his +life to art. He was twenty when he left America and he never returned to +it, so that as far as America is concerned infancy can be pleaded. +America has since bought more than her share of the fruits of his +genius, finding in this open-handed way charming expression for her +envy. He went to Paris to study art, where he was gay, and attracted +attention to himself by the enjoyable way in which he spent his time. It +was not until he was twenty-five that he arrived in London, and a +little later moving to Chelsea commenced work in earnest. + +A charming picture suggests itself of the painter escorting his aged +mother every Sunday morning to the door of Chelsea old church, as was +his habit, bowing to her as she enters and hastening back to the studio +to be witty with his Sunday friends. + +Whistler's first important picture, "At the Piano," issued from Chelsea. +It was hung in the Academy in 1860 and was bought by a member of the +Academy. He followed the next year with "La Mère Gerard," which belongs +to Mr. Swinburne. He sent a picture called "The White Girl," to the +Salon of 1863. It was, however, rejected. It was then hung at the +collection called the "Salon des Refusés," an exhibition held as a +protest against the Academic prejudices which still marked the Salon. +There it met with an enthusiastic reception which set Whistler off on +his career of defiance. In 1865 the painter went to Valparaiso for a +visit, from which resulted the beautiful Valparaiso nocturnes. Back +again in Chelsea, he devoted himself to the river there. He was then +living in a house in Lindsay Row. At this time he was greatly affected +by Japanese art, and one or two pictures show curious attempts to adapt +scenes of the life of the West to the Eastern conventions. This phase of +his art was beautiful, but he passed it on the way to work of greater +sincerity, and more clearly the outcome of his own vision. In 1874 the +first exhibition of Whistler's work was held at a Gallery in Pall Mall, +containing among other things "The Painter's Mother," "Thomas Carlyle," +and "Miss Alexander." It is interesting that the Piano Picture, painted +just as he emerged from his studentship, is of the flower of his art; he +did things afterwards of great significance, and did them quite +differently, but the Piano Picture does not seem a first work preparing +his art for future perfection, it is so perfect in itself. And here +perhaps we may observe another fact in connection with Whistler, that in +the last days of his life he painted with the same genius for the +beautiful as at the beginning; none of that deterioration had set in, +which so often comes in the wake of flattery and belated public esteem. +He was never betrayed by success into over, or too rapid, production. He +never succumbed to the delight of anticipating a cheque by every post +instead of bills. He found no difficulty in declining the most tempting +offers. Well, work that is held thus sacred by its own creator, should +tempt people to search for all that made it seem so valuable to him. +Whistler had an intense dislike of parting with his work. When a picture +was bought from him he was like a man selling his child. Sometimes he +would see somewhere a picture he had painted, he would borrow it to add +to or improve it, but he would keep it and live with it and gradually +forget all about its possessor. Whatever qualms attacked his conscience +for this procrastination, it was no part of his genius to confess, +instead he would say "For years, this dear person has had the privilege +of living with that masterpiece--what more do they want?" At Whistler's +death, however, it was found that the circumstances under which a +picture had at any time been borrowed were methodically entered up, +with minute directions as to the return of one or two pictures, borrowed +thus, that were in his studio when he died. + +In Chelsea, Rossetti and Whistler were good friends, they shared a love +of blue china, in fact inventing the modern taste for certain kinds, +especially for what they called "Long Elizas," a specimen upon which +slim figures are painted,--"_Lange leises_"--tall damsels--as they were +called by the Dutch. One supposes that it is through Rossetti that he +came into contact with Swinburne, who was inspired to write the poem +called "Before the Mirror," by Whistler's picture "The White Girl," and +of which some of the verses were printed after the title in the +catalogue of the Royal Academy Exhibition. The first verse in itself +suggests a scheme of white:-- + + "White rose in red rose-garden + Is not so white; + Snowdrops that plead for pardon + And pine for fright + Because the hard East blows + Over their maiden rows + Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright." + +The poem was printed on gilded paper on the frame; this was however +removed on the picture going to the Academy, and in the catalogue the +two following verses were printed after the title:-- + + "Come snow, come wind or thunder + High up in air, + I watch my face, and wonder + At my bright hair; + Nought else exalts or grieves + The rose at heart, that heaves + With love of her own leaves and lips that pair. + + "I cannot tell what pleasure + Or what pains were; + What pale new loves and treasures + New years will bear: + What beam will fall, what shower, + What grief or joy for dower; + But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair." + +Later on, Swinburne did not allow the Ten o'clock lecture to go +unchallenged, and he subjects its glittering rhetoric to a not unkind +but cold analysis which, however, Whistler has the grace to print with +marginal reflections in "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies," the book +which contains the paradoxes which reflect so well his powers as a +thinker. It is doubtful whether Whistler in kinder circumstances would +have produced his brilliant theories. The irritation caused by +misconception, the necessity of justifying even his limitations to a +world which was apparently prepared to consider nothing else about him +at one time--these were the wine-press of his eloquence. He disliked the +rôle of teacher and apologised for it at the beginning of his "Ten +o'clock," and when, in later life, following the fashion, he started a +school, he relied upon the example of his own methods of setting the +palette rather than upon precept, with a little banter to keep good +humour in his class-room. A young lady protested "I am sure that I am +painting what I see." "Yes!" answered her master, "but the shock will +come when you see what you are painting." A student at the short-lived +Académie-Whistler has written that merely attempting to initiate them +into some purely technical matters of art, he succeeded--almost without +his or their volition--in transforming their ways of seeing! "Not alone +in a refining of the actual physical sight of things, not only in a +quickening of the desire for a choicer, rarer vision of the world about +them, but in opening the door to a more intimate sympathy with the +masters of the past." + +[Illustration: PLATE IV.--PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER + +(In the Luxembourg Galleries, Paris) + +This was first exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1872. For many years it +remained in the painter's possession. It left this country to become the +property of the French Government in the Luxembourg at the sum of £120. +In "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" Whistler writes of the picture as +an "Arrangement in Grey and Black." "To me," he adds, "it is interesting +as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care +about the identity of the portrait?"] + +The thing that strikes one in reading "The Gentle Art" is how badly +those who entered into combat with its author came off in the end, some +of them in what they consider their witty replies committing suicide so +far as their reputation as authorities on art went. Notable is the case +of the critic of _The Times_, replying "I ought to remember your +penning, like your painting, belongs to the region of chaff." We have +indicated the source of Whistler's success as a wit--at that source we +find the reason why he always scored when talking about painting. He is +playing something more than a game of repartee. His best replies are +crystallised from his inner knowledge. In them we get bit by bit the +revelation which he had received as a genius in his craft. + +It was the force of his personality that obtained for Whistler's evasive +art such recognition in his lifetime as in the natural course only +falls to fine painters of the obvious, whom every one delights to +honour. He had said that "art is for artists," and it is true that the +perfection of his own art is the pleasure of those who study it. It +reached heights of lyrical expression where life in completeness has not +yet been represented in painting; reached them perhaps because so +lightly freighted with elementary human feeling. His work so often +leaves us cold, and we turn seeking for art mixed further with the fire +of life and alight with everyday desire. + +But nature showed many things to this her appreciator--I write, her +intimate friend. As a moth which goes out from the artificial atmosphere +of a London room into the blue night, I think of the painter of the +nocturnes--yet always as a lover of nature, never more so than when his +subject is the sea. For he has a greater consciousness of the salt wet +air than any other sea painter, of the veil behind which all ships are +sailing and through which the waves break, the atmosphere which descends +so mystically and invisibly and yet which if not accounted for in a +canvas leaves ships with their sails set in a vacuum and the waves as if +they were crested with candle-grease. Is it not absence of this +atmosphere which has tortured us on so many occasions when with +everything quite real a picture has not brought us pleasure. Pleasure +comes to us always with reality in art, and the end of art is realism. +All is real even around a mystic, though his thoughts are out of our +sight. Whistler was not a mystic but above everything he wished to +suggest the atmosphere which is invisible except for its visible effect, +and I cannot help thinking his vision essentially abstract. + +He did not paint subject pictures. To make our meaning quite clear, let +us say such pictures as Frith's, or better still, as Hogarth's in which +we have the extreme. The art of Hogarth moved upon a plane lower down, +but there it had a strength unknown to Whistler, a careless and lavish +inspiration of life itself. He had to find speech for all sorts of +things in his art, beauty was but one of these, creeping in less as a +deliberate aim than as the accident of a nature artistic. Whistler in +painting desired to express nothing but his sense of beauty. For the +rest of his nature, he found expression altogether outside his art in +enthusiasm for life itself, its combats, difficulties, and its +opportunities for saying brilliant things at dinner. His dinner +conversation, I have been told, was like the abstract methods of his +etching, always cryptic, full of suggestion,--wonderful conversation, +full of short ejaculations which carried your imagination from one point +to another with hints that seemed to throw open doorways into passages +of thought leading right behind things. + +[Illustration: PLATE V.--LILLIE IN OUR ALLEY + +(In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq.) + +This study in brown and gold was made about the time (1865) when the +Little Rose of Lyme Regis was painted, one of the most beautiful +portraits of an English child. The latter picture unfortunately left +these shores and is now in the Boston Museum, U.S.A.] + +He had a remarkable regard for purity of speech, as became the painter +of such spiritual types of womanhood. It would seem that women liked +him, and readily apprehended in his art his sensitive view of life. At +table he drank but little and was a slender eater. When alone he would +sometimes forget all about his meals, or eat scarcely anything; in later +years, feeling the necessity of taking care of himself he would guard +against his indifference by always seeking companionship when away from +his house. His nervous disposition forced him to content himself with +little sleep, his active brain keeping him awake conceiving witticisms +and planning the battle for the morrow. + + + + +IV + + +It would be incomplete in any memoir of Whistler to omit the most +thrilling battle of his life. To all adventurers there comes at last the +event which knocks all their venturousness out of them or is the +beginning of a triumphant way. Whistler had been before the footlights a +long time, but it was his contact with Professor Ruskin which brought +him into the full lime-light, which he was so much prepared to enjoy. +Ruskin paid him the only tribute strength can pay to strength when it is +not on the same side--with a prophetic instinct that as regards picture +exhibitions Whistler's art was the sign of a coming, and licentious, +freedom from the old rules of the game. He saw in Whistler's work the +end of old fair things, the laws of those old things all set aside. In +reading the so well-known criticism of Whistler one has a feeling that +after all Ruskin has only half expressed his feelings in it--however it +resulted in the famous libel action. Whistler received one farthing +damages, which sum he afterwards magnanimously returned to his eminent +critic, as his contribution towards the subscription set on foot to pay +Ruskin's legal expenses. + +Ruskin's criticism was as follows:-- + + "For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of + the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works + into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so + nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and + heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to + hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint + in the public's face." + +The case came on in the Court of Exchequer Division before Baron +Huddleston on November 15, 1878, Whistler claiming £1000 damages. "The +labours of two days, then, is that for which you ask two hundred +guineas!" asked the Attorney-General representing Ruskin. "No," replied +Whistler, "I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime." "Do you think now +that you could make _me_ see the beauty of that picture?" asked the +Attorney-General. "No!" he replied. "Do you know I fear it would be as +hopeless as for the musician to pour his notes into the ear of a deaf +man." In resuming the Attorney-General said: "Let them examine the +nocturne in blue and silver, said to represent Battersea Bridge. What +was that structure in the middle? Was it a telescope or a fire-escape? +Was it like Battersea Bridge? What were the figures at the top of the +bridge? And if they were horses and carts, how in the name of fortune +were they to get off?" + +Mr. W. P. Frith, R.A., was examined and in his evidence said that in his +opinion Mr. Whistler's pictures were not serious works of art. In the +margin of the account of the trial in "The Gentle Art" Whistler quotes +from that painter's "It was just a toss up whether I became an artist or +an auctioneer," and adds, "He must have tossed up." There was a time +when policemen had to keep the crowd away from Frith's Margate Sands. +There was a time when Whistler's pictures were hissed when they were put +on the easel at Christie's? If the attitude towards these so different +kinds of art is changed, it is the resolution Whistler showed in life as +well as in his art that changed it. And have we not in the above +interchange of points of view at the court the whole vexed question--the +issue around which the battle of Whistler's life always raged? Whistler +explained to the court that his whole scheme was only to bring about a +certain harmony of colour. He tried to dispel the illusion that the +painter's craft forms itself upon the desire to communicate a story. It +may be so with the literary craft, but there is no life in the drawing +or painting that is not inspired by the delight of the artist in the +mere outside of things. Where there is the expression of that delight, +there may be the expression of much beside, of the spiritual meanings +behind all beauty--though Whistler did not take this flight in his +reply. He himself tried to limit the meaning of art almost as narrowly +as Ruskin. He had this advantage over Ruskin, that whatever he said +about painting was from the inside knowledge of his genius in painting. +Ruskin's genius was always approaching that subject from the outside. We +could not on any account dispense with what was said at any time by +either of them. It was impossible for them to see each other except as +enemies across a wide gulf, all speech with each other drowned by the +rapids of misunderstanding. The gulf is nearly bridged. In viewing art +in its relation to life no one wrote more profoundly than Ruskin, but he +failed in knowledge of the beautiful and inner mysterious delights of +the craft of painting. Whilst exalting the mission of painting, he +degraded its craft, he seemed to fail in appreciation of the fact that +at its highest this is as mystical as inspired--and as unaccountable as +the craft in Shelley's lyrics. The number of rules he laid down, the +gospels he preached upon them reveal always the irritating scholiast +and pedant. How eloquently Whistler expresses his irritation in the Ten +o'clock lecture! + +In his account of the trial in "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies," +Whistler fills the margin with quotations from Ruskin so dexterously +opposed to the matter in hand as seemingly to discredit for ever +Ruskin's writings upon art and the mode of thought therein. But at the +bidding of Whistler, and those who boast his opinions second hand, we +cannot abjure all this order of thought. One passage which Whistler +quotes: "Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety will indeed always express +themselves throughout, in brown and grey as in Rembrandt" is not without +its bearing on his own art--which has since then quite altered the +meaning of the word grey. And despite the perhaps unfortunate naming of +Rembrandt one divines that Ruskin is here speaking in the light of the +highest intuitive knowledge. + +It must be remembered that in prose, which may accept its motif from +anything, from art if it likes, Ruskin could sometimes lose himself as +completely as Whistler often did in the beauty of his own art. And with +the waters of beauty closing over their heads, one was as deaf and blind +as the other. That trial was Ruskin's Waterloo. If there is one thing +that would make me doubt that Whistler was a great man, it is the fact +that he never had a Waterloo, but perhaps that is reserved for those who +have been successful right from the beginning. The light air with which +Whistler carried his own early troubles is misleading as to their +extent. Without the thread of coarser stuff that crossed his otherwise +over-refined nature some such sadness of fate might have awaited him as +awaited Meryon, the French etcher, for possessing motives too far in +advance of those accepted by his time. For really at first no one hardly +seemed to have understood the delicate order of things that Whistler was +trying to do, especially in his later etchings, in which everything is a +symbol counting upon our imagination; everything a pleasure to its +creator and nothing a labour; every line one of nervous impulse, the +whole etching an inspiration of such impulsive threads. In what +loneliness he must have possessed his abnormal delicacy of perception. +He hugged to himself the delusion that a knowledge of his craft enabled +artists to understand him--but it is common for artists of abundant +gifts not to have the necessary refinement of sense, and after all +artists are not so numerous that these appreciators will be many. But in +the wide world outside the studios there are many people thus delicately +attuned, their numbers to be increased when Whistler in his subtlety of +vision is less ahead of the world in point of evolution. He brought +recognition to himself before his time by strident challenges, +aggressive at every point and scornful--as they could not have been had +the real nature of his superiority dawned on him at the first. In the +first Thames etchings he has not received his revelation: they do not +show his hand quite so conscientiously, nervously, awaiting its +inspiration for every movement. + +[Illustration: PLATE VI.--NOCTURNE, BLUE AND SILVER + +(In the possession of the Hon. Percy Wyndham) + +Painted at Westminster, looking towards Lambeth. On the back of the +picture is a card bearing the artist's signature and the butterfly, with +title "Westminster, Blue and Silver, J. McNeill Whistler, 2 Lindsay +Houses, Old Chelsea." This places the date of its execution about 1866.] + +Nothing can make us realise the great significance of the Whistler +influence in art more than the contrast between the esteem in which +his etchings are now held and the early criticisms of them which he +collected and scornfully embodied in his book. These are indeed the most +depressing reading--and Whistler's quaint termination to those pages, +"they roar all like bears," does very aptly express the feeling of +desolation that must overcome any one who appreciates the spirit of his +etchings. When praise is forthcoming it is only for the early etchings +at the expense of those later ones in which he conceived such an +inspired use of the needle. By the criticisms in this book we know the +exhausting struggle and how right it was that a life, the first half of +which had been spent thus, should have no "Waterloo," but end with +rest--and with honour, accorded to this "Merlin," so evidently great, if +only a few knew why. + +It was 1878, the year of the Ruskin trial, that he started working in +lithography as a medium, being initiated into the technicalities by Mr. +Thomas Way. In the "Fair Women" Exhibition held by The International +Society, which is open whilst I write, there are some lithographs by +Whistler, which suggest purity of type and the charm of beautiful +womanhood in a manner that puts to flight the claims of many a famous +canvas in the gallery. It is the most delicate of all mediums; it suited +his touch and the sensitive order of his perceptions. + +After the Ruskin case Whistler left London for Venice for about a year; +upon his return he exhibited at the Fine Art Society the first series of +Venice pastels, and a little later at the same gallery fifty-three +pastels of Venice. He also held exhibitions at the Dowdeswell Gallery in +1883, Etchings in 1884 in "Notes, Harmonies, and Nocturnes," in 1886 all +the time still continuing to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery some of +his most famous portraits, nocturnes, and marines. + + + + +V + + +On 31st December 1884 the following amusing letter appeared in _The +World_, signed with the well-known butterfly. "Atlas, look at this! It +has been culled from the _Plumber and Decorator_, of all insidious +prints, and forwarded to me by the untiring people who daily supply me +with the thinkings of my critics. Read, Atlas, and let me execute +myself. 'The "Peacock" drawing-room of a well-to-do shipowner, of +Liverpool, at Prince's Gate, London, is hand painted, representing the +noble bird with wings expanded, painted by an Associate of the Royal +Academy, at a cost of £7000, and fortunate in claiming his daughter as +his bride, and is one of the finest specimens of high art in decoration +in the kingdom. The mansion is of modern construction.' + +"He is not guilty, this honest Associate! It was I, Atlas, who did this +thing--alone I did it--I 'hand painted' this room in the 'mansion of +modern construction.' Woe is me! I secreted, in the provincial +shipowner's home, the 'noble bird with wings expanded'--I perpetrated in +harmless obscurity, 'the finest specimen of high-art decoration'--and +the Academy is without stain in the art of its member. Also the +immaculate character of that Royal body has been falsely impugned by +this wicked _Plumber_! Mark these things, Atlas, that justice may be +done, the innocent spared, and history cleanly written." + +Whistler's picture "La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine" had been hung +by Mr. F. R. Leyland in his mansion at Prince's Gate, and Whistler could +not reconcile himself to its appearance against the valuable Spanish +leather on the walls. He was to correct this by treating a little of the +wall; meanwhile Mr. Leyland went down into the country. When he returned +it was to find that Whistler was painting over the whole of the room. +Much money had already been spent on the original leather scheme, and +Whistler had quickly effaced all appearance of its intrinsic worth, but +he was in the rapid process of creating the famous Peacock Room. +Dissension took place as to terms under the circumstances, and Whistler +finished the room with a panel of two peacocks fighting, emblematic of +the quarrel. Mr. Leyland was considered one of the most discriminating +patrons of his time. Just previous to the above events the interior of +the house had been reconstructed and decorated in accordance with +designs by Norman Shaw and Jekyll. The leather had been the latter +architect's scheme for the room where the "Princesse du Pays de la +Porcelaine" was hung. The walls were fitted with shelves designed for +the display of blue china. Whistler painted all the window shutters with +gold peacocks on a blue ground, and a panel at the end of the room, +which had been reserved for a picture commissioned from him; into this +panel he put the fighting peacocks, whose eyes were real jewels, the one +a ruby and the other a diamond. It was found possible to move all the +decoration without injury and some time after the original owner's death +this was done, the purchaser taking it to America. Before it left +England it was set up temporarily for the purpose of its exhibition at +Messrs. Obach's Gallery. The picture "The Princesse du Pays de la +Porcelaine," the key-note, was however missing from the scheme, having +found another purchaser. + +The room was the finest example of a less known side of Whistler's art. +His designs sprung straight from himself, they had no connection with +any European tradition. He accepted in their entirety the conventions, +the arrangements and devices of the Japanese designers. Yet his designs +could not have been created by any of the great artists of Japan. There +is too much vitality about them, and these peacocks which belong to a +pattern and are conventionalised to the last degree, have a more +startling reality than any peacock painted in a modern picture. No one +knows how Whistler came to know so much about peacocks. A duffer can +paint the bird until he comes to the neck--and then we have to turn to +photographs for the reality that gives us pleasure, it eludes all modern +genius. So for the most part, fortunately, peacocks are left severely +alone. The dancing of the _première danseuse_ at the Empire, perfected +with ardent years of study, is a less recondite theme of movement than a +peacock raising its head. It is a delight, to all those who love it, +beside which all dancing pales, more gracious and stately in movement +than the accumulated grace of many women. That is how it must always +seem to those who really know it. Whistler arrived at perfect +understanding by the instinctive route on which he never went astray. + +After the peacock-room incident the wildest legends were afloat about +the whole matter, one of them that the architect had been driven mad by +the sight of what had happened to his leather, and that later he was +found at home painting peacocks blue and gold all over the floor. + + + + +VI + + +In 1885 Whistler's lecture on art was given in London, Oxford, and +Cambridge; to suit the convenience of Londoners who liked to linger over +dinner, he fixed the hour of delivery rather later than usual. This was +the famous "Ten o'clock lecture"--so vague and shadowy in its facts at +the beginning, so brilliant at the end, and dispelling the æsthetic fog +in which the æsthetes elected to dwell. It is significant of the slight +heed given to Whistler's real beliefs that characteristics of his +appearance were at one time satirised in W. S. Gilbert's "Bunthorne," +confusing him as was common with the æsthetic craze. In "The Ten +o'clock" his scorn is eloquent enough of the weird cult "in which," +as he says, "all instinct for attractiveness--all freshness and +sparkle--all woman's winsomeness--is to give way to a strange vocation +for the unlovely--and this desecration in the name of the Graces!" But +for all that the principles which governed in L'art nouveau which +followed and may be said to be a part of the movement, are prominent in +those two "arrangements" of his own, the portrait of Carlyle and the +portrait of his Mother. + +[Illustration: PLATE VII.--PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE + +(In the Corporation Art Galleries, Glasgow) + +This portrait is in the possession of the Glasgow Corporation, the only +public body in these islands whose appreciation of the painter was not +belated. In spite of protests, to their credit the purchase was made, +and direct from the artist for £1000. The picture was first seen at the +artist's exhibition in 1874, and was painted in the same period as the +"Portrait of My Mother."] + +No doubt the fame of an _objet d'art_ can last for ever with +connoisseurs, if rare enough in itself and rare in the skill displayed, +and many a painting is destined to live on these same grounds. But there +is a destiny too for the spirit of a picture of which all this valuable +perfection is but the outward shrine. Where human experience rises to +intensity of expression in art it is born into life anew and less +perishably. It is thus that the picture of Whistler's Mother is by +common consent enthroned above the level of criticism, what we say for +and against it being only as water lapping at the foot of a cliff. +Incorporate with the traditions of a race it is acknowledged a classic, +and of a classic one may speak as one does of life, with freedom as to +how it affects oneself. I have challenged the effect of this picture +upon myself. The trail of the age seems over it, the self-consciousness +which is like a blight upon modern arts and crafts. Instead of its +figure being painted in some such accidental contact with its +environment as would naturally occur, we have an _arrangement_. In +rearranging things thus for itself, art is at least one remove farther +away from things as they are, and as things as they are reflect the +influences that brought them together, art must come closer to life by +the interpretation of this reflection than by its alteration. There must +be an arrangement in every picture, but the improbability of this one, +outside of a studio, spoils the picture for me. The figure is placed in +position as we should place a piano. It is not very likely that a lady +would sit at right angles to the wall with no fire in front of her, no +work-table, no books. These thoughts rise unbidden when I look at the +picture--but Whistler begs us in a printed letter to consider it as an +_arrangement_. Incidentally, he says it is interesting to him as a +portrait of his mother. Yet he misunderstood when he thought the +artist's rights extended beyond his creations to the attitude in which +one should approach them, and the picture is famous for the beautiful +rendering of the lady and to us only incidentally interesting as an +arrangement. One does not escape the music of the outline of the figure +in the picture, the balance of all parts of the design, the refreshing +convention in comparison with other conventions. Only conventions +perhaps are best left for portraits where the traditional environment +connected with the high social status or office of the sitter, supplants +in our imagination the more everyday aspect of their life. The +unnaturalness of the photographer's art may require concessions from +every one; though even here as in painting, the art which conceals art +must save the situation; and Whistler managed this gracefully enough in +all his other portraits. + +It was Gainsborough who was haunted by the smile of a woman. It is +Whistler who represents her movement as she turns into the room, his art +seeming to show a consciousness that the body that turns thus, the grace +of the clothes, are but a temporary habitation of swiftly passing +spirit. + +In his early piano picture the trembling white dress of the child +surprises him into the representation of stuff itself; later his art +passes to an almost ecstatic obliviousness to the quality of things +themselves and he surrenders the representation of their surface +qualities for a fluid, musical, all-embracing quality of paint in which +the artist can render his theme as a virtuoso, ever striving to overtake +some almost impossible inflection of tone. And as his art becomes thus +abstract, as it assumes such a mission as music, he finds musical terms +for the names of his pictures to give the public the clue. + +His water-colours are executed with an extremely pleasant touch of +brush to paper in which he himself delighted, and here, as also in the +case of etching, he made the most of the particular qualities of the +medium and as ever was careful not to out-step the limitations which an +appreciation of those qualities imposed. They do not do much more than +register the incident of colour which interested him in any particular +scene. It was to register his pleasure in that, rather than to make a +full record of surrounding country that he made his water-colours, and +the spectator will understand them only by the responsiveness of his +imagination to artistic suggestion. + +By the process of what is termed in the language of art "suggestion" +(that is, interpretation by thoughtful, economical, and expressive +touches instead of a photographic imitation) all merely mechanical +labour is eliminated and there is a consequent spiritualising of the +whole method by which the artist makes his communication to our +imagination. He infers that we have advanced beyond an understanding +merely of the capital letters of art, and that this autographic +handling of the brush or etching needle is as intelligible to us as the +characteristic penmanship of our friends and as charming. + + + + +VII + + +The second great public event in Whistler's career was his election in +1886 to the Presidency of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk +Street, which made exciting history at the time. Whistler was just one +of those people who want everything in the world arranged after some +secret pattern of their own. They make the best reformers. But what +could be a more strange spectacle than the revolutionary Whistler in the +presidential chair of the staidest of art societies? The desire for +advertisement overcoming the scruples of older members, Whistler's +election as a member took place just before their winter exhibition in +1884. _The Times_ of the 3rd of December 1884 recorded the fact that +artistic society was startled by the news that this most wayward of +painters had found a home among the men of Suffolk Street--of all +people in the world. + +His humour did not forsake him in this new environment. Mr. Horseley, +R.A., lecturing before the Church Congress, attacked the nude models, +especially and in particular at the Royal Academy Schools. Shortly after +this, in sending a pastel of a nude to the Society of British Artists, +Whistler attached the words "Horseley soit qui mal y pense," and was +only prevailed upon to remove them by the fear of older members that the +attack upon an Academician might lead up to a libel case with the Royal +Academy. The Royal Academy students at the time used to drape the legs +of the chairs and tables when Mr. Horseley visited the schools. That was +in 1885. It was the following year that Whistler was elected President +of the Society for which he got a Royal Charter, and to which by his +methods--as President--he brought fame for ever as the R.B.A. + +Many of the electors who had supported his membership had concluded that +he was not likely to take much part in the workings of the Society. +However, he came to the meetings and to their surprise took an interest +in the proceedings, proffering advice, intruding new ideas, not often +welcomed by the older artists. He invited some of the members to one of +his famous Sunday breakfasts at his studio in Tite Street, and regaled +them with his theories of art. They were influenced by his personality +and the character of the elections altered, men of the newer movements +were elected, and they soon formed a small but very energetic and loyal +group around Whistler, finally acquiring sufficient power to elect him +as we have shown into the President's chair. After that the meetings of +the Society were exhilarating in the extreme, and Whistler talked with +extreme brilliance to the members, and somehow got his way until their +Gallery was hung with one line of pictures upon a carefully chosen +background. + +But the opposition became too strong from members who wished to run the +exhibition on its old lines, and certainly the funds were suffering from +these very high ideals. His opponents "brought up the maimed, the halt, +and the blind," "all except corpses, don't you know!" as Whistler put +it, the oldest members, the fact of whose membership had up to that time +lingered only perhaps in their own memory, and thus effected his +out-voting at the next election. Whistler congratulated them, for, as he +explained, no longer was the right man in the wrong place. "You see," he +said, referring to the group of his followers who resigned with him, +"the 'Artists' have come out and the 'British' remain." + +It was the first time in England that pictures had been so artistically +arranged. No pictures were badly hung, no member had anything to +complain of as far as that went. But they were disturbed at the loss of +probable sales which they calculated the empty spaces on the walls might +be taken to signify. + +On the night of the election which ended the Whistler dynasty there was +great excitement, and the younger members let off steam by playing in +the passages during the counting of the votes. + +[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--IN THE CHANNEL + +(In the possession of Mrs. L. Knowles) + +In this impression of grey sea-weather we have the colour equivalent of +that expressive economy which Whistler practised with his line; and the +butterfly touch--like a butterfly alighting.] + +The Society had come into existence with aims of its own. An order of +art was represented which had to be represented somewhere. A great +amount of capable work for which the Academy had not room was on view +here, representative of the everyday activity of London studio life. It +was amusing to think of Whistler as the President of this Society as it +was constituted in those days--and absurd. He could have nothing in +common with its homely aims. But it was an advertisement for the Society +and for him, he probably did not share the illusions of his followers +that he was in the right place. + +When in after years the leaders of the modern movement formed themselves +into the International Society, in 1898, through the organisation of Mr. +Francis Howard, it was inevitable and natural that Whistler should be +the President, but at the British Artists it was simply a case of cuckoo +and the sparrow's nest. With his success, the original element of the +Society must have gone elsewhere leaving him in possession of their +building. + +It was fitting that Sir Joshua Reynolds should be the President of an +Academy whose theories he embraced but exposited with greater genius. +But Whistler's theories had no relation whatever to the body of which he +was thus made the head, and he did not surpass in everything as Sir +Joshua; the significance of his genius resting rather with the fact that +it is epochal. + +However, as all this affair happened just at the time when paradox was +coming into vogue, there was that much only about it that was fitting. +After these events Whistler, who was invited on to the Jury of the "New +Salon" then forming, left for Paris. + + + + +VIII + + +In 1892 the painter returned and held an exhibition at the Goupil +Gallery, and from the date of this exhibition everything altered in his +favour. For years he had found it impossible to sell his pictures except +to a circle of wealthy patrons. The prejudice excited against his work +after the issue with Ruskin had closed all other markets for him. He had +remained the "impudent coxcomb" in so many people's minds, and his +challenge to the omnipotence of Ruskin had not been forgiven him. A ban +was upon his works. He said that for nearly twenty years the Ruskin case +affected his sales. But fame he desired more ardently, and this he +had,--like Prometheus,--and of a kind that would keep till the day came +when it could be changed for a quantity of money. When the Goupil show +was open he found this day was already upon him, and the Americans +coming over, began to buy his works, and early acquaintances who had +acquired them at small prices, themselves sold out, of course much too +soon. That was the time when a purchase for the nation should have been +made. + +Later he toured through France and Brittany until he settled again in +Paris in the Rue de Bac, having married Mrs. E. W. Godwin, the widow of +the eminent architect, builder of the White House in Tite Street, +Chelsea, which had been Whistler's former home. In the old days in the +White House he had furnished one or two rooms elaborately, and others, +perhaps for lack of funds to make them perfect, hardly at all. It was +then he collected the blue china with Rossetti as a friendly rival. This +was the house in which he instituted his famous Sunday breakfasts, and +to which everybody used to come who was distinguished. The +breakfast-time was twelve o'clock, cook permitting. On one occasion, +through some untoward circumstances in the kitchen, it was not placed +upon the table until nearly three. Mr. Henry James was there that day, +and has been heard to speak of it since, and how he took a walk to bring +him nearer breakfast-time. But all this had to be given up after the +expenses of the Ruskin Trial, and the blue china was "knocked down." +Whistler wrote a characteristic letter to _The World_ in 1883 upon the +alterations then being made in the White House by his successor, one of +"Messieurs les Ennemis" a critic. In those days his wit and vivacity had +already made him a host of acquaintances, and distinguished men were +glad to count him as one among themselves,--whilst reserving their +opinion on his painting. But now things were very different, and he was +referred to as "the Master"--and the house in the Rue de Bac thoroughly +furnished, partly from designs made by his gifted wife. + +He came to England in 1895 and painted at Lyme Regis, painting "The +Little Rose of Lyme Regis"--which shows that his art is purely +English--though he had said that one might as well talk of English +Mathematics as of English Art. For in this little girl's face something +there is that is only found in English Art. She descends directly from +the beautiful tradition of Walker and Sir John Millais. In December he +exhibited a collection of lithographs at the Fine Art Society's Gallery. +He was again in London in 1896. About this time he painted upon a small +scale an almost full-length portrait called "The Philosopher." It was of +the artist, Holloway. Holloway died on the 5th March 1897, and in the +sadness of the attendant circumstances the kindness of Whistler will +always be remembered. + +There were qualities in Holloway's art of which Whistler was +appreciative, and a characteristic story can be connected with this. +There is a picture of the sea in the National Gallery at Milbanke called +"Britain's Realm," by John Brett, R.A. It had great success in its year, +at the Academy. Everybody went to see it, and it was eventually bought +for the Chantry Bequest. It had figured also in an exhibition of +sea-pieces at the Fine Art Society. Whistler happened to be at this +exhibition when somebody very enthusiastic over the picture brought him +up to it expecting him to admire it also, but Whistler glanced at it +through his eye-glass, turned and emphasising his words with a very +significant gesture towards the representation of sea--as if knocking at +a door--said with his sardonic Hé, Hé,--"Tin! if you threw a stone on to +this, it would make a rumbling noise," and turning to a picture by +Holloway said--"_This_ is art!" + +Also in this year Whistler was very preoccupied with the art of +lithography. His wife was ill, and they were staying at the Savoy Hotel. +Whistler used to sit at the window all day looking out upon the river, +and in these circumstances he made one of the best series of +lithographs. With the recovery of Mrs. Whistler they moved up to +Hampstead, where he said "he was living on a landscape." At the same +time he was renting a studio in Fitzroy Street, at No. 8, now called the +Whistler Studios. In choosing it, Whistler had said, "After all, this is +the classic ground for studios," and he had as neighbour a tried friend. + +On May the 7th, 1896, Mrs. Whistler died, and she was buried on the +14th. The next day he came down to the studios and walked with his +friend. They took lunch in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road. +Whistler spoke of the strangeness of fatality. He had postponed his +wife's funeral a day to escape the 13th, the 14th was her birthday. They +sat on, Whistler in the deepest depression, and to divert him his +companion, Mr. Ludovici, pointed to a print exactly over his head. It +was of Frith's Margate Sands! + +After the death of his wife, Whistler lived much in retirement, though +travelling a little. He returned to Chelsea, and died there in his 70th +year in July 1903. His life added as richly to its associations as the +lives of his two great contemporaries Rossetti and Carlyle, both of whom +are commemorated upon the embankment of the river close to the places +where they lived. There is now a movement well on foot to place a +memorial there to Whistler, to be designed by that other artist, +Monsieur Rodin, who on so different a scale has been inspired by the +same half mystic motives. To appeal to us, not with fairy tales, but +with art imaginative in its deference to our imagination. + +Whistler was without excessive, spendthrift, creative power. In many +ways his art was slight. Yet even so, not because it is empty, but +because it outlines for us so much that is only visible to thought, +though thought always in relation to external beauty. + +And the indefiniteness of his art, the grey of its colour, they are +emblematic of the times, as the plain red and blue of Titian belonged to +those days, and are resemblant of the plainer issues that then divided +men's thoughts. + +Admitting all his own limitations to himself Whistler admitted none of +them to other people, and to those who divined his weaknesses at certain +points he seemed somewhat of a charlatan. Perhaps in the near future his +fame will again seem to suffer, from the strict analysis of the +pretensions put forward in his name, but if so, only to triumph again as +the true character of his achievement comes to be distinguished. + +He was such an instinctive artist that the explanation of his art must, +to some extent, have remained hidden from himself, and Art fixing his +place among her masters, will remember that great limitation in some +ways is always the price of a new and instinctive knowledge in others. + + +The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London + +The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whistler, by T. Martin Wood + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41492 *** |