III

“The chat then turned upon the subject of Sir William Allen’s painting of Peter the Great teaching the majiks to make ships. This made Jimmie’s eyes express so much interest that his love for the art was discovered, and Sir William must needs see his attempts. When my boys had said good-night, the great artist remarked to me, ‘Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination.’ I told him his gift had only been cultivated as an amusement, and that I was obliged to interfere, or his application would confine him more than we approved.”

The diary records the same year a visit to the old palace at Peterhoff, where “our Jimmie was so saucy as to laugh” at Peter’s own paintings.

When Major Whistler first went to Russia he left “Jamie” for a time in Stonington with his aunt, and the two older children, George and Deborah, in England.

After the death of Major Whistler, in St. Petersburg, in 1849, the wife and children returned to this country, and lived for a time in Connecticut.

Whistler wished to enter West Point, and he persuaded his half-brother to write Daniel Webster, to enlist his sympathy. The letter was dated February 19, 1851. It referred to the father’s career andservices and asked that James be appointed to the Academy.

He was appointed by President Fillmore, and entered July 1, 1851, registering from Pomfret, Windham County, Connecticut, where his mother was then living.

Whistler was so small in stature and physique that it is surprising he was received; the military record of his family was no doubt the controlling consideration.

He possessed all the pugnacity and courage required for a soldier, and the military spirit was strong in him, yet such was his bent towards art that his career at the Academy was not one of glory; but he became very popular with his comrades and probably led in all their mischievous pranks.

The official records show that at the end of the first year, in 1852, he stood forty-one in a class of fifty-two,—his standing in the different studies being as follows: Mathematics 47, English studies 51, French 9. At the end of his second year he stood number one in drawing, but was not examined in other studies, being absent with leave on account of ill health. In 1854 his standing was as follows: Philosophy 39, Drawing 1, Chemistry deficient. For his deficiency in chemistry he was discharged from the Academy on June 16, 1854.

A lady once asked him why he left the Academy, and he replied:

“If silicon had been a gas, madame, I should have been a soldier.”

On leaving West Point he took it into his head that Fate had intended him for a sailor, and he tried to enter the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but he could not get the appointment.

Through an old friend of the family, Captain Benham, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, he was employed as draughtsman in that department in Washington from November 7, 1854, to February 12, 1855, at one dollar and a half a day. In these days he signed himself James A. Whistler. His lodgings were in an old house still standing on the northeast corner of E and Twelfth Streets. He was always late to breakfast, and scribbled pictures on the unpapered walls. When the landlord objected, he said:

“Now, now, never mind; I’ll not charge you anything for the decoration.”

Neither time nor the rules of the department had any terrors for him. Even in those early days he was a law unto himself. In one instance the following entry appears against his name:

“Two days absent and two days deducted from monthly pay for time lost by coming late to office.”

To correct these dilatory habits Captain Benham conceived the brilliant idea of having a fellow-clerk of punctual habits call each morning for Whistler and bring him to the office on time. The captain believed that the example and influence of a more methodical companion would reform the erring one and get him to the office at nine o’clock; but itturned out quite otherwise, for Whistler proved so charming a host each morning that both were late.

At the end of a week the mentor reported that his efforts were wasted and unless relieved he, too, would acquire the obnoxious habit, for each morning Whistler managed to so interest him in the mysteries of coffee-making and the advantages of late breakfasts that it was impossible to get away.

Of him and his habits in those days a fellow-draughtsman,[1]who is still in the service, says:

“He was about one year younger than myself, and therefore about twenty years old at that time. He stayed but a little over three months, and I have not met him since, but retain a more vivid recollection of his sojourn than of that of many other draughtsmen who succeeded him and remained much longer. This may be partly for the reason that Captain Benham, who was then in charge of the office, told me that Whistler’s father had been a star graduate of West Point and a distinguished engineer, and requested me to be attentive to the new appointee; it may also be for the reason that there was something peculiar about Whistler’s person and actions quite at variance with the ordinary run of my experience.“His style of dress indicated an indifference to fashion which, under circumstances, might be changed into emancipation when fashion, for instance, went into extremes and exacted personal discomforts. I certainly cannot remember Whistler with a high-standing collar and silk hat, which was then the universal custom. Classical models seemed to be his preference, a short circular cloak and broad-brimmed felt hat gave him a finish which reminded one of some ofRembrandt’s celebrated portraits. Histout ensemblehad a strong tinge of Bohemianism which suggested that his tastes and habits had been acquired in Paris, or, more concisely speaking, in the Quartier Latin; indeed, he always spoke of Paris with enthusiasm. His manners were those of an easy self-reliance which conveyed the impression that he was a man who minded his own business, but that it would not be exactly safe to cross his paths.“At the time of his engagement as draughtsman at the office not the slightest doubt was entertained of his skill and ability to fill his post, and it was the principal concern of Captain Benham to get him sufficiently interested in his work to engage his serious attention. It was, however, soon apparent that he considered topographical drawing as a tiresome drudgery, and when he was put on etching views on copper plate, this occupation, although more congenial to his tastes, was yet too monotonous and mechanical and did not afford sufficient scope to his peculiar talent for sketching off-hand figures and to make him feel contented. Any odd moment he could snatch from his work he was busy in throwing off his impromptu compositions on the margins of his drawings or plate; odd characters, such as monks, knights, beggars, seemed to be his favorites. He was equally skilful with pen and ink, pencil, brush and sepia after the Spanish style, or dry point in the English, and often I was struck by the facility and rapidity with which he evolved his inventions, there never was the shadow of a dilemma or even hesitancy.“From the very start he never was punctual in attendance, and as time wore on he would absent himself for days and weeks without tendering any excuse. As far as I remember, nobody, except Captain Benham, cared to speak to Whistler about his irregularity, for the reason that it was certain that no thanks would be earned and that it would not have made the slightest difference in his habits. Howsoever that may have been, Colonel Porterfield, the clerk, was a strict accountant, and his monthly reports told the whole story.Thus in one month two days were deducted from Whistler’s pay for time lost in coming late to office, and in January, 1855, he was credited with but six and one-half days’ work, which reduced his scant pay to a mere pittance.“Under these circumstances three months were quite sufficient length of time for Whistler and the office to realize that the employment of Whistler as a draughtsman was an experiment destined to be a failure, and I do not think that a trace of ill feeling was retained when it was concluded by both parties to effect a separation and let each one go his own way.”

“His style of dress indicated an indifference to fashion which, under circumstances, might be changed into emancipation when fashion, for instance, went into extremes and exacted personal discomforts. I certainly cannot remember Whistler with a high-standing collar and silk hat, which was then the universal custom. Classical models seemed to be his preference, a short circular cloak and broad-brimmed felt hat gave him a finish which reminded one of some ofRembrandt’s celebrated portraits. Histout ensemblehad a strong tinge of Bohemianism which suggested that his tastes and habits had been acquired in Paris, or, more concisely speaking, in the Quartier Latin; indeed, he always spoke of Paris with enthusiasm. His manners were those of an easy self-reliance which conveyed the impression that he was a man who minded his own business, but that it would not be exactly safe to cross his paths.

“At the time of his engagement as draughtsman at the office not the slightest doubt was entertained of his skill and ability to fill his post, and it was the principal concern of Captain Benham to get him sufficiently interested in his work to engage his serious attention. It was, however, soon apparent that he considered topographical drawing as a tiresome drudgery, and when he was put on etching views on copper plate, this occupation, although more congenial to his tastes, was yet too monotonous and mechanical and did not afford sufficient scope to his peculiar talent for sketching off-hand figures and to make him feel contented. Any odd moment he could snatch from his work he was busy in throwing off his impromptu compositions on the margins of his drawings or plate; odd characters, such as monks, knights, beggars, seemed to be his favorites. He was equally skilful with pen and ink, pencil, brush and sepia after the Spanish style, or dry point in the English, and often I was struck by the facility and rapidity with which he evolved his inventions, there never was the shadow of a dilemma or even hesitancy.

“From the very start he never was punctual in attendance, and as time wore on he would absent himself for days and weeks without tendering any excuse. As far as I remember, nobody, except Captain Benham, cared to speak to Whistler about his irregularity, for the reason that it was certain that no thanks would be earned and that it would not have made the slightest difference in his habits. Howsoever that may have been, Colonel Porterfield, the clerk, was a strict accountant, and his monthly reports told the whole story.Thus in one month two days were deducted from Whistler’s pay for time lost in coming late to office, and in January, 1855, he was credited with but six and one-half days’ work, which reduced his scant pay to a mere pittance.

“Under these circumstances three months were quite sufficient length of time for Whistler and the office to realize that the employment of Whistler as a draughtsman was an experiment destined to be a failure, and I do not think that a trace of ill feeling was retained when it was concluded by both parties to effect a separation and let each one go his own way.”

At that time Edward de Stoeckl was charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy. He had known Major Whistler in St. Petersburg, and he took a great fancy to his son.

One day Whistler invited him to dinner, and this is the account of what happened:

“Whistler engaged a carriage and called for his distinguished friend. As they drove on, Whistler turned to the diplomat and asked him if he would object to their stopping at several places on the way. M. de Stoeckl, amused at the unconventionality of the request, assented, and his young host then directed the coachman to a greengrocer’s, a confectioner’s, a tobacconist’s, and to several other tradesmen.“After visiting each of these he would reappear with his arms filled with packages, which he deposited on the vacant seat of the carriage. At last the two brought up at Whistler’s lodgings. After a climb up many stairs the representative of the Czar of all the Russias found himself in Whistler’s attic.“Quite out of breath, he was obliged to sit down, too exhausted to speak, during which time Whistler flitted hither and thither, snipping a lettuce into shape for the salad, drying the oysters, browning the biscuit, preparing the cheese,and in an incredibly short time setting a sumptuous repast before his astonished guest, who was delighted with the unique hospitality of the host.”

“After visiting each of these he would reappear with his arms filled with packages, which he deposited on the vacant seat of the carriage. At last the two brought up at Whistler’s lodgings. After a climb up many stairs the representative of the Czar of all the Russias found himself in Whistler’s attic.

“Quite out of breath, he was obliged to sit down, too exhausted to speak, during which time Whistler flitted hither and thither, snipping a lettuce into shape for the salad, drying the oysters, browning the biscuit, preparing the cheese,and in an incredibly short time setting a sumptuous repast before his astonished guest, who was delighted with the unique hospitality of the host.”

A comrade in office describes Whistler’s appearance in those days:

“He was very handsome, graceful, dressed in good taste, with a leaning towards the style of the artist in the selection of his clothing. His hair was a blue-black and worn very long, and the bushy appearance seemed to give one the impression that each separate hair was curled. Always at this time he wore a large slouch hat and a loose coat, generally unbuttoned, and thrown back so that the waistcoat was plainly seen.”

He never changed very much from that description, save that his hair became slightly gray, and one lock directly over the forehead turned completely white very prematurely. To this white lock Whistler took a great fancy, and it is visible in the portraits and drawings he made of himself. His hair was naturally very curly,—an inheritance from his father,—and out of the mass of black curls the white lock would spring with almost uncanny effect.

To the very end he was extremely fastidious in his dress. In the days when threadbare coats were a luxury he wore them spotlessly clean, and carried old and worn garments in such a manner that they appeared as if made for the occasion.

In his studio and while at work he was never mussy or untidy; he had more than a woman’s notion of neatness.

He was not only very careful of his clothes, but they must be buttoned and adjusted just so before he would make his appearance. On him a frock coat was never stiff and ungraceful, and somehow he managed to dissipate the dreary formality of evening dress. It was always a pleasure to see him enter a room; while on the street he was, in his earlier London days, exceedingly picturesque.

He was very particular concerning his hats. In the latter Paris days he always wore a most carefully-brushed silk hat with flat brim,—the Quartier-Latin type. This, with his monocle—for on the street he wore a monocle—and his long overcoat, made him an exceedingly striking figure.

One day he was in a shop, trying on a hat, when a dissatisfied customer rushed in, and, mistaking him for some one in charge, said:

“I say, this ’at doesn’t fit.”

Eyeing him critically a moment, Whistler said:

“Neither does your coat.”

Whistler was thoroughly imbued with the military spirit; and if he had not been a great artist he would have made a good officer. He was born to command, and possessed physical courage of a high order.

In stature and physique he was short and very slight,—could not have weighed more than one hundred and thirty pounds; but he was so perfectly proportioned that one did not notice his size except when in sharp contrast with others. Notwithstanding his inferiority in size and strength, he never inhis life had the slightest hesitation in striking a man—even at the risk of annihilation—if he deemed the occasion required it.

A good many years ago the editor of a gossipy sheet in London, called theHawk, printed some items of a personal nature which Whistler resented. Not knowing the editor by sight, Whistler took a friend to point him out in the foyer of one of the London theatres. Although the man was a giant compared with Whistler, the latter, without a moment’s hesitation, went up to him and struck him across the face with a cane, saying with each blow, “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk.”

The editor afterwards boasted that he immediately knocked Whistler down. Whistler claimed he slipped and fell; but, he said:

“What difference does it make whether he knocked me down or whether I slipped? The fact is he was publicly caned, and what happened afterwards could not offset the publicity and nature of this chastisement. A gentleman lightly strikes another in the face with a glove; the bully thinks the insult is wiped out if he knocks some one down—the ethics of the prize ring; but according to the older notions the gentleman knows that the soft touch of the glove cannot be effaced by a blow of the fist,—for if it could, superiority in weight would render the cad and the bully immune. The historical fact is that I publicly drew my cane across his face; no one cares anything about his subsequent ragings, or whether I slipped and fell, or whether he trampled upon me.”

Again, when an artist went up to him in the Hogarth Club in London and called him a liar and a coward, Whistler promptly slapped his face.

So far as controversies with opponents were concerned, he was courageous to the point of indifference; but, as already noted, in crossing busy streets and making his way through the hurly-burly of city life he was as careful, not to say timid, as a woman; he had many superstitions which influenced his actions.

One afternoon he said to a sitter:

“To-morrow, you know, we won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see, it’s Friday; and last Friday, you remember, what a bad time we had,—accomplished nothing. An unlucky day anyway. We’ll take a holiday to-morrow.”

The military spirit clung to him through life, and he was ever in the habit of referring to his experience at West Point as if it were the one entirely satisfactory episode in his career. He called himself a “West-Pointer,” and insisted that the Academy was the one institution in the country the superiority of which to everything of its kind in the world was universally admitted.

“Why, you know, West PointisAmerica.”

Though living in Paris at the time and the sympathy of all France was with Spain, he lost no opportunity for upholding the United States in the war. He could see no flaw in the attitude or the diplomacy of this country, and was especially eloquent over the treatment of Admiral Cervera after his defeat.

On the other hand, such was his ingrained dislike for England that he lost no opportunity for declaimingagainst her war in South Africa. He delighted in berating the English and in prodding any English sympathizer who happened in his way.

One day a friend from this side, of Irish birth, but who sided with England, was in his studio, and the discussion waxed warm until the visitor said:

“I’ll be dashed if I’ll talk with you, Whistler. What do you know about the matter? Nothing at all.”

After a short silence, Whistler said:

“But, I say, C——, do you remember how the Boers whipped the Dublin Fusileers?”

Whereupon the air became sulphurous.

The friend afterwards remarked:

“There was nothing in the malicious innuendo anyway, for, you know, those regiments are recruited from all quarters, and there may not have been a single Irishman in the Fusileers at the time of the fight.”

Whistler held some extraordinary opinions concerning the Dreyfus case, the outcome of his strong military bias.

It did not matter to him whether the accused was guilty or not, the prestige of the army must be maintained, even at the sacrifice of the innocent,—the view which led the military section of France to such violent extremes against Dreyfus,—and Whistler resented the assaults upon the army as treachery to the most sacred institution of the state.

To the civilian this military bias which leads men in all countries to such extremes in judgments and actions is incomprehensible. The attitude of themilitary mind towards the ordinary problems of life, towards the faults and failings of men, towards petty transgressions and disobediences, towards rank, routine, and discipline, towards the courtesies and sympathies and affections which are the leavening influences of life, cannot be understood by the lay mind. The soldier’s training and occupation are such that he does not think, feel, and act as an ordinary man; his standards, convictions, and ethics are fundamentally different; so different that he requires his own territory, his own laws, and his own tribunals. With the soldier the maxim of ordinary justice that it is better that ten guilty should go free than one innocent be condemned is reversed.

By birth, by tradition, by association, Whistler was thoroughly saturated with this spirit; and it affected his conduct and his attitude towards people throughout his life. It accounts for much of the impatience, the arrogance, the intolerance, the combativeness, the indifference to the feelings of others with which he is charged, or rather overcharged, for much of what is said is exaggeration.

No man can be reared in an atmosphere of authority and blind obedience to authority without losing something of that give-and-take spirit which softens life’s asperities.

Therefore, in any estimate of Whistler’s character and of his conduct towards others, the influence of these very unusual early associations and conditions must be taken into account and due allowance made.

An American—The Puritan Element—Attitude of England and France—Racial and Universal Qualities in Art—Art-Loving Nations.

OfWhistler’s innate and aggressive Americanism this is the place to speak.

English in origin, the family became Irish and then American. In blood he was doubly removed from England, first by Irish progenitors, then by American, and in his entire make-up, physical and intellectual, he was so absolutely un-English that to the day of his death he was an object of curious observation and wondering comment wherever he went, in even so cosmopolitan a city as London.

There was nothing he loved better than to surprise, mystify, confuse, and confound the stolid Briton. And though he lived most of his life in Chelsea and came back there to spend his last days, he was from the very beginning and remained until the end a stranger in a strange land, a solitary soul in the midst of an uncongenial, unsympathetic, unappreciative, unloving people.

So little does England care for him or his art, or, more truly, so prejudiced is the nation against him as an impertinent interloper, who for more than ageneration disturbed the serenity of her art household, that the National Museum has no example of his work. Needless to say, if he had been English, or had come from the remotest of England’s outlying possessions, English paperdom and English officialdom would have claimed him as their own, condoned his eccentricities, and bought his works with liberal hand.

During the days of his greatest poverty and distress, when even France turned stupidly aside from things she soon came to worship, and England was jeering clumsily, and all nations repudiated him,—our own the loudest of all,—he really seemed to be “a man without a country,” and, beyond question, the injustice, the bitterness of it all entered deep into his soul and remained. But whatever the folly, the blindness, the stupidity of a country, though it seek to cast off a child so brilliant he is not understood, the ties remain; however strained, they cannot be broken. Nothing that America can do suffices to make an Englishman or a Frenchman or a German out of an American,—the man himself may take on a foreign veneer, but beneath the surface he belongs where blood and birth have placed him.

He was infinitely more of an American than thousands who live at home and ape the manners of Europe. He came from a line of ancestors so distinctively and aggressively American that he could not have turned out otherwise had he tried.

He was not even an Anglo-American or a Franco-American, but of all the types and races which go to make the American people he was in blood, appearance, alertness, combativeness, wit, and a thousand and one traits, an exceedingly refined illustration of the Irish-American; and because of his Irish blood, with perhaps some Scotch on his mother’s side, he was never in sympathy with anything English, but was now and then somewhat in sympathy with many things French, though the points of sympathetic contact were so slight and superficial that he could not live contentedly for any length of time in Paris. In his art, his convictions, and his conventions he was altogether too profound, too serious, too earnest—one might with truth say, too puritanical—to find the atmosphere of Paris altogether congenial. His great portraits might have come from the studio of a Covenanter, but never from a typical Paris atelier.

The Puritan element which is to be found in every American achievement, whether in war, in art, or in literature, though often deeply hidden, is conspicuous in Whistler’s work, though he himself would probably have been the first to deny it; and it is this element of sobriety, of steadfastness, of undeviating adherence to convictions and ideals that constitutes the firm foundation of his art, of his many brilliant and beautiful superstructures of fancy.

Only a Puritan at heart could have painted the“Carlyle,” “His Mother,” and that wonderful child portrait, “Miss Alexander.”

Only a Puritan at heart could have painted the mystery of night with all his tender, loving, religious sympathy.

Only a Puritan at heart could have exhibited as he did in everything he touched those infinitely precious qualities of reserve, of delicacy, of refinement, which are the conspicuous characteristics of his work.

Concerning his refinement some one has very truly remarked:

“He so hated everything ugly or unclean that, even in the club smoking-rooms (where one may sometimes hear rather Rabelaisian tales), he never told a story which could not have been repeated in the presence of modest women. His personal daintiness was extreme. Threadbare coats on him were never shabby. He had to wear too many threadbare garments, poor fellow! for, inasmuch as he put the integrity of his art before everything else, he never stooped to make those ‘pretty’ things which would have brought him a fortune, without doubt. He was abstemious in his living, simple in all that he did,—his exquisite, sure taste preventing him from extremes, gaudiness, or untidiness.”

And when he lent his support, some eight years ago, to the school kept by Carmen Rossi, who as a child had been one of his models, he would not tolerate the study of the nude by mixed classes, and, in fact, introduced many rules and restrictions which were considered by even American pupils as “puritanical” in the extreme, and which the French could not understand at all.

He never painted any large and aggressive nudes, such as abound in French art, such as, in a way, may be said to characterize French art and mark its attitude towards life; but he made many drawings in water-color and pastel, and painted some oils, all, however, exquisitely refined, the element of the nude being in every instance subordinated to the artistic scheme and intention. Many of these drawings have never been exhibited. When seen they will go far towards demonstrating the puritanical element in Whistler.

In his intolerance towards the methods, convictions, and ideals of others he exhibited some of the spirit of the Puritan zealot who knows no creed but his own.

Concerning his Americanism, one who knew him says:[2]

“Upon the known facts of Whistler’s career I do not touch. I wish only to underline his Americanism, and to offer you one or two personal memories. He was ‘an American of the Americans,’ say the American papers, and who shall venture to dispute their dictum? Not I, certainly. Nor would anybody who knew Whistler personally. I knew him for many years in London and in Paris. I have many letters from him on art and other matters, some of which ought to be printed, for his letters to friends were not less works of art than those which he composed more carefully for print. I have books and drawings which he gave me. I mention these things as evidence that I may fairly say something about him, at least on the personal side. And Iknew on what terms he lived with the so-called art world in England, and what his own view of the matter was.”

And an English writer said, some ten years ago:[3]

“It should not be forgotten in America that Mr. Whistler is an American of Americans. It may therefore be appropriately asked, What has America done for him? It has treated him with—if possible—even more ignorance than England; this, of course, coming from the desire of the Anglomaniac to out-English the English.”

And there are others whose testimony will be forthcoming some day to show how wholly and absolutely American he was to the very core and centre of his being, and in his attitude towards all countries and peoples of Europe.

It is true he said many harsh, bitter, and cutting things concerning the press and people of this country, that he frequently exhibited in the English sections of art exhibitions in preference to those of his own country; but for all these things there were many good reasons, and we have but ourselves to blame.

He was so much of an American that a single word of ridicule from this side cut deeper than pages of abuse from the other. To the scoffings of England he turned a careless ear, and replied with flippant, but pointed, tongue; while the utter lack of support and appreciation from his own country was ever referred to with a bitterness that betrayed his real feelings. He could not understand how the American people could desert a countryman battling alone against all England. As he frequently said:

“It did not matter whether I was in the right or in the wrong,—I was one against the mob. Why did America take the side of the mob,—and—and get whipped?”

America was blind to his merits until long after he achieved fame in every country of Europe; and it is undeniably true that the press here truculently echoed the slurs of the critics on the other side throughout that long period of controversy. It is a lamentable fact that up to the day of his death he was misunderstood, or accepted as an eccentric in many quarters of the land that now claims him as her bright particular star in the firmament of art. Notwithstanding all these things, he remained so conspicuously an American that every Englishman and every Frenchman with whom he came in contact recognized him as a foreigner; neither would have thought of mistaking him for a fellow-countryman; he was as un-English and un-French as an Italian, or a Spaniard, or—better—as an American.

The “White Girl” was rejected at the Salon in 1863; the “Portrait of my Mother” was accepted by the Royal Academy and obscurely hung in 1871, only after a bitter discussion, in which the one member of the committee who favored it, Sir William Boxall, a friend of Whistler’s family, threatened to resign unless it was accepted.

This same great portrait—it is said on good authority—was offered in New York for twelve hundred dollars and found no buyer.

When exhibited in London, language failed to express the full measure of the scorn and contempt the English press—from the ponderousTimesdown to the most insignificant fly-sheet—had for this wonderful picture; but no sooner had the French government purchased it for the Luxembourg than all was changed, and with delightful effrontery theIllustrated London Newssaid:

“ModernBritish(!) art will now be represented in the National Gallery of the Luxembourg by one of the finest paintings due to the brush of anEnglish(!) artist,—namely, Mr. Whistler’s portrait of his mother.”

The italics and exclamation marks are Whistler’s own, and his denial of British complicity is complete.

Aside from Whistler’s personality, his art finds its only congenial place in the midst of American art.

That his pictures will not hang in any conceivable exhibition of British art without the incongruity being painfully perceptible goes without saying, and none knows this better than English painters themselves.

Of all the various manifestations of art with which Whistler’s has come in sharp contrast, English painting has been the slowest and most stubborn in yielding to influences from the far East; whereas of all painters of the nineteenth century Whistler was the very first to recognize the wondrous qualities of Chinese and Japanese art and absorb what those countries had to teach concerning line and color; and in so far as the painters of England, and more conspicuously those of Scotland, have learned aught of the subtleties and refinements of the East, they have learned itthrough Whistler, and not direct.

In other words, Whistler has been absolutely immune to English influences; there is not the faintest trace in any of his works, etchings, lithographs, or paintings. In temperament, mood, fancy, and imagination, in what he saw and the manner that he painted it, he was as far removed from any “English School” as Hokusai himself.

On the other hand, England for some time has not been immune to his influence, and things after—a long way after—Whistler appear at every exhibition. What is known as the “Glasgow School”—that body of able and progressive painters—long ago frankly accepted him as master.

Of English painters dead and living he had a poor—possibly too poor—opinion. He frequently said, “England never produced but one painter, and that was Hogarth.” In mellower moments he would say not unkind things of certain qualities in other men; towards the living painters who appreciated his art he was oftentimes generous in the bestowal of praise. But it was impossible for Whistler to say a thing was good if he did not think so; andhe would exercise all his ingenuity to get out of expressing an opinion when he knew his real opinion would hurt the feelings of a friend. Towards strangers and enemies he was often almost brutal in condemning what was bad,—as when a rich man took him over his new house, dwelling with pride and enthusiasm on this extraordinary feature and that, at each of which Whistler would exclaim, “Amazing, amazing!” until at the end of their tour of the rooms and halls, he at last said, “Amazing,—and there’s no excuse for it!”

Of his attitude towards others a friendly writer said:[4]

“He was not a devotee of Turner, but he yielded to no man in appreciation of certain of the works of that painter. He was not lavish of praise where his contemporaries were concerned. Though he could say pleasant things about them in a rather vague way,—calling some young painter ‘a good fellow,’ and so on,—words of explicit admiration he did not promiscuously bestow. The truth is, there was an immense amount of stuff which he saw in the exhibitions which he frankly detested. Yet conversation with him did not leave the impression that he was a man grudging of praise. It was rather that a picture had to be exceptionally good to excite his emotions. One point is significant. It was not the flashy and popular painter that he invited to share in the gatherings for which his Paris studio was noted: it was the painter like Puvis de Chavannes, the man who had greatness in him.”

That he had nothing in common with English art, the English were quick to assert, until his fame made him a desirable acquisition, when on this side, and that within the last few years, a disposition to claim him—very much as the business-like empire seizes desirable territory here and there about the globe—has begun to show itself; and, unless America is alert, Whistler will yet appear in the National Gallery as—to quote again the words of theIllustrated News—“An English artist.”

As regards the French, they are disposed to claim Whistler on three grounds:

First. That he was a student there,—with a master who taught him nothing.

Second. That France acknowledged his genius by the purchase of the portrait of his mother,—twenty years after it was painted, and seven after it was exhibited in Paris.

Third. That he lived for a time in Paris.

Three reasons which would annex to France about every American artist of note, for most of them (1) studied in France, (2) are represented in the Luxembourg, and (3) have lived in Paris much longer than Whistler.

As for those first few years in Paris, even the French concede that Gleyre was entirely without influence upon Whistler’s subsequent career.

As regards the recognition of his genius, France was exceedingly slow. The portrait of his motherwas exhibited in London in 1871, and purchased for the Luxembourg in 1891, though it had been awarded a medal at the Salon some seven years before.

France no more taught Whistler to paint than it taught him to etch. His masters were older and greater than the art of France. Before he was twenty-five he had absorbed all and rejected most that France had to teach. At twenty-eight he painted a picture which, scorned by the Salon, startled all who visited the “Salon des Refusés,” and then—still under thirty—he shook the dust of France from his feet, obliterated every vestige of her influence from his art, and started out to make his way alone and unaided in the domain of the beautiful.

In 1865 he again stirred the critics with that novel creation of color “The Princess of the Land of Porcelain.” Nothing of the kind had ever been seen in either French or any other art. It was the application of Western methods to Eastern motives; it was plainly a study primarily in color, secondarily in line, not at all in character. It was the first great step taken by the Western world towards abstract art.

“The Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” the “Lange Leizen,” the “Gold Screen,” the “Balcony”—all early pictures—are all one and the same in motive; they are his first attempts in a large way to produce color harmonies, to subordinate everything to the color composition.

Of Whistler and American art in those days an unnamed correspondent has written from Paris:[5]

“It would puzzle the analysis of a competent critic to find what Whistler owed to Gleyre; and the young American openly professed to have profited by the counter example of Gustave Courbet, who was the realist of that day. From the first triumph of Courbet in 1849, Gleyre had shrunk back into his shell and no longer exhibited at the annual salons.“From the start Whistler was an independent; and when, after six years of work in the studios, he offered a picture for the judgment of the official Salon, the jury promptly refused it. Whistler was not discouraged, and hung the painting in the outlaws’ Salon des Refusés. It created a stir that was almost enthusiasm, and the name of his ‘Fille Blanche’—White Maiden—was still remembered when four years later a few American painters demanded a section for their work at the Universal Exposition of 1867. I have looked up a criticism of the time, and imagine it will be found more interesting now than when it was written.“‘The United States of America are surely a great country and the North Americans a great people, but what little artists they are! The big daubs which they exhibit, under pretence of “Blue Mountains,” “Niagara Falls,” “Genesee Plain,” or “Rain in the Tropics,” show as much childish arrogance as boyish ignorance. People say that these loud placards are sold for crazy prices in Philadelphia or Boston. I am willing to believe it, but I cannot rejoice at it.’“This is laid on with no light brush, and some of us can recall the American painters of that remote age who were so mishandled. But the remaining paragraph of the lines given to American art may surprise those who look on Whistler as only a contemporary.“‘M. Whistler seems to me the only American artist really worthy of attention; he is our old acquaintance of the Salon des Refusés of 1863, where his “Fille Blanche” had asuces d’engouement(a success of infatuation!). He is truly an American, as understood by the motto, “time is money.” M. Whistler so well knows the value of time that he scarcely stops at the small points of execution; the impression seized as it flies and fixed as soon as possible in swift strokes, with a galloping brush—such is the artist and such, too, is the man.’“Velasquez was already in the air, but Japanese art, to which Whistler afterwards allowed himself to be thought indebted, was not yet spoken of. Thus the young American artist was the precursor of movements which years afterwards came to a head, and which for the most part he has outlived. In view of this, the closing verdict of the official critic of 1867 is worth noting, the more so as it shows the reward already attributed to the American’s industry in another branch of art. ‘While waiting for M. Whistler to become a painter in the sense which old Europe still attaches to the word, he is already an etcher (aquafortiste), all fire and color, and very worthy of attention, even if he had only this claim to it.’”

“From the start Whistler was an independent; and when, after six years of work in the studios, he offered a picture for the judgment of the official Salon, the jury promptly refused it. Whistler was not discouraged, and hung the painting in the outlaws’ Salon des Refusés. It created a stir that was almost enthusiasm, and the name of his ‘Fille Blanche’—White Maiden—was still remembered when four years later a few American painters demanded a section for their work at the Universal Exposition of 1867. I have looked up a criticism of the time, and imagine it will be found more interesting now than when it was written.

“‘The United States of America are surely a great country and the North Americans a great people, but what little artists they are! The big daubs which they exhibit, under pretence of “Blue Mountains,” “Niagara Falls,” “Genesee Plain,” or “Rain in the Tropics,” show as much childish arrogance as boyish ignorance. People say that these loud placards are sold for crazy prices in Philadelphia or Boston. I am willing to believe it, but I cannot rejoice at it.’

“This is laid on with no light brush, and some of us can recall the American painters of that remote age who were so mishandled. But the remaining paragraph of the lines given to American art may surprise those who look on Whistler as only a contemporary.

“‘M. Whistler seems to me the only American artist really worthy of attention; he is our old acquaintance of the Salon des Refusés of 1863, where his “Fille Blanche” had asuces d’engouement(a success of infatuation!). He is truly an American, as understood by the motto, “time is money.” M. Whistler so well knows the value of time that he scarcely stops at the small points of execution; the impression seized as it flies and fixed as soon as possible in swift strokes, with a galloping brush—such is the artist and such, too, is the man.’

“Velasquez was already in the air, but Japanese art, to which Whistler afterwards allowed himself to be thought indebted, was not yet spoken of. Thus the young American artist was the precursor of movements which years afterwards came to a head, and which for the most part he has outlived. In view of this, the closing verdict of the official critic of 1867 is worth noting, the more so as it shows the reward already attributed to the American’s industry in another branch of art. ‘While waiting for M. Whistler to become a painter in the sense which old Europe still attaches to the word, he is already an etcher (aquafortiste), all fire and color, and very worthy of attention, even if he had only this claim to it.’”

Before France cared very much for Velasquez, before it so much as knew there was an island called Japan on the art map, Whistler was playing with the blacks and grays of the master of Madrid and with the blues and silvery whites of the porcelains of the Orient.

And it was he,—Whistler,—the American, who turned the face of France towards the East, and made her see things in line and color her most vagrant fancy had never before conceived.

Searching the shops of Amsterdam, he found theblue-and-white china which gave him inspiration to do those things beside which the finest art of France is crude and barbaric.

Not very long ago a French writer said, “There is not, as yet, an American school of painting, but there are already many American painters, and great ones, who will in time form a school.”

Let us hope not.

A friend—a painter—once called Whistler’s attention to several very good things by Alfred Stevens. Whistler looked at them a moment, then said, “School, school, school,” and turned away.

In that, or any other restrictive or regulative sense of the word, let us hope there will be no “American school;” but so long as there are American painters there will be American paintings; and the greater the work the more completely will it reflect the man, and the greater the man the more surely and subtly will it reflect his nationality.

The phrase “American painters” means something more than Americans who paint, and “American paintings” implies the transmission to the work of something of the painter’s individuality, which includes as an important element his racial and national characteristics.

In other words, American painters, regardless of where they are trained, where they work, and what they paint, must produce American paintings; they cannot wholly eliminate their individuality and nationality; they cannot become so completely Frenchor English as to absolutely obliterate every trace of their American origin, and their works, though English, French, or Italian to the last degree, will still exhibit traces of American origin. So true is this, that the paintings of men who have lived longest abroad and tried hardest to paint after the manner of others find their most congenial surroundings amidst American art.

So long as we have American paintings we shall have an American “school” in the sense that all American paintings taken together, whether few or many, whether good or bad, will be distinguished and distinguishable from the paintings of every other country. In that sense America has, and always has had, a “school” of painting, though for a long time the school was little more than a kindergarten.

America has no centre like Paris, or Rome, or Florence, where a large body of men and women are gathered from the four quarters of the globe to study art. In that sense America has no “school;” but that sort of a “school” is about the worst thing that can happen to a country. These great centres for the diffusion of art are usually fatal to the development of native art; the presence of a horde of foreigners, each with his own peculiarities and characteristics, some with the effeminacy of the South, others with the brutal force and overpowering virilty of the North, stifles national initiative and produces sterile cosmopolites.

Paris, with its salons, exhibitions, competitions, medals, prizes, and innumerable incentives towards commercial, blatant, and vicious art, is the curse of French art, and pretty soon France will have no art that is really hers.

The atmosphere of Paris is one of strenuous striving after effect, of mighty endeavor to make an impression; it encourages facility, dash, bravura, eccentricities, and experiments of all kinds. From the depths of our hearts let us be thankful that America has no “school” of that kind, and earnestly hope that American artists residing temporarily within that atmosphere will be affected as little as was Whistler.

Paris is an æsthetic Babel.

The art of Greece was suffocated when the entire coast-line of the Mediterranean came to study the Acropolis.

Turning to the entire body of American painters, at home and abroad, we find that they constitute at the present day the one “school” that has already given to the world the greatest artist since the days of Rembrandt and Velasquez,—and greater than either in some respects, as we shall see,—and also the greatest of living portrait-painters, not to mention a half-dozen more who are recognized internationally as masters in their chosen fields; the one “school” that contains more of sobriety, more of sanity, more of youthful vigor and virility, more of indomitable energy and perseverance, more of promise and assurance of mighty achievement than all the schools of all the other nations taken together.

If the world is destined to see the modern equivalent of ancient Athens, it will be somewhere within the confines of North America.

The countries of the Old World have had their opportunities, and the tide of progress in its circuit of the globe is already lapping the shores of the Western continent.

In temperament the typical American lies about midway between the stolidity of the Englishman and the volatility of the Frenchman. He has much of the dogged perseverance of the former, with a large element of the facility and versatility of the latter; he is steadfast in the pursuit of his ideals, and at the same time quick to adopt new and improved methods for attaining his ends; he has an Englishman’s tenacity of conviction and much of a Frenchman’s brilliancy of expression. As compared with an Englishman the American appears more than half French; as compared with a Frenchman he seems essentially English. It is this combination of earnest convictions, profound belief in self and country, sobriety, perseverance, tenacity of purpose, stolid endurance, with inventiveness, originality, irresistible impulsiveness, dash and brilliancy in execution, that assures to the future of North America the noblest of human achievements.

For the present the strength and resources of the country are absorbed in the production of wealth; but soon the people will tire of this pursuit, and theaccumulated wealth of nation, States, cities, and individuals will turn to the encouragement of things beautiful in not only art and literature, but in the long-neglected handicrafts,—the crafts that make instead of destroying men.

At the World’s Exposition of 1893, in Chicago, Whistler’s paintings hung, where they rightfully belonged, in the American section. Though far and away superior to anything in the entire section, and conspicuous above everything near for their exquisite beauty, still it cannot be gainsaid that of all the sections of that exhibition the American was the only one which would contain Whistler’s work without the contrast being so marked as to be absolutely destructive. That they could not hang with entire fitness among the English pictures even the English would admit; that their sober harmonies were distinctively at variance with the brilliant and superficial qualities of the French pictures was apparent to even the unpractised eye. “The Yellow Buskin” and “The Fur Jacket,” to mention no others, could hang in only one place, and that was where they were put,—in the main hall of the American section, flanked and confronted by American work.

Not that the pictures about them equalled in merit,—that is not the question; but they were sufficiently akin to constitute an harmonious environment.

Art is simply a mode of expression, and the highest, truest, noblest art is the reflection of thebest there is in a people. It follows, therefore, that the art of any race or people must exhibit the racial characteristics. A painting, for instance, belongs first to the man who painted it and bears on its face so many marks of his individuality that not only he but others recognize it as his. Secondly, the painting belongs to the race or people with which the artist is identified, for the very traits which distinguish him as an American, or an Englishman, or a Frenchman from all other nationalities inevitably make themselves felt in the work, and distinguish it not only specifically from all other canvases, but generically from the work of other peoples, schools, epochs, eras, etc.

A man may change his allegiance and live in foreign lands, but he cannot change his blood. If a Chinaman, he will remain a Chinaman, no matter where he lives; if an American, he will remain an American, though, like many of our mess-of-potage citizens, he may remain a bastard American in the endeavor to become an adopted Englishman.

The finer the art the more universal its qualities. And yet there is no poem and no picture that is absolutely without the marks of its master; and the marks of the master mean the marks of his race,—in fact, the racial indications are inversely in number to those of the individual; the deeper a man buries his personality in his work the stronger the indications of his race. Shakespeare so lost himself that his personal characteristics nowhere appear in hisgreat plays, and a conception of the poet’s personality could not be formed from a reading of the lines—so universal was his genius; yet his poetry is essentially and everlastingly English,—far more conspicuously English than the poetry of lesser men who sing about England and things English. It is more English than Chaucer, more English than Spencer, more English than Browning, Tennyson, or Swinburne; it breathes more fully and more truly the spirit of the English people in their greatest days than any poetry ever uttered by the English tongue.

The greater the man, the more completely does he express his people. It takes a great race to produce a great man; and once produced, he is everlastingly linked with his tribe.

But greatness implies the suppression of the petty, including all petty resemblances; therefore, a man by the universal qualities of his genius may seem to belong to the world, whereas in truth he is but the expression of the best there is in his countrymen.

Rembrandt suppressed all provincialisms and seemed to etch and paint for mankind rather than for a limited public in Holland; and yet to the last he was simply the greatest of Dutch artists. And because he was so essentially and truly Dutch he is one of the world’s great artists; in the chorus of the world’s proud voices there is no mistaking his accent.

Velasquez is at the same time the least Spanish of painters and the most Spanish of artists. Suppressing all eccentricities of time and place, he rose to universal heights, and the world claims him as its own; and yet his fame depends upon the fact that he was from first to last a Spaniard,—a Spaniard in precisely the sense that Cervantes was the expression of inarticulate forces behind him. Deriving more or less help from his contemporaries, and from this quarter and that, from the visit of Rubens and from his own journey to Italy, he, after all, was the achievement of the Spanish people in painting. He was not an Italian, he was not a Frenchman, he was not a Dutchman,—he was a Spaniard of the Spaniards, as Shakespeare was an Englishman of the English.

Having wandered far afield in the endeavor to point out the intimate connection between, first, a man and his work,—which connection every one admits,—and, secondly, between the race and the work,—a connection which is not so readily perceived,—let us return to Whistler, whose work furnishes proof positive of what has been said.

It is commonly taken for granted that if a man lives and studies and works abroad for many years he loses his individuality and becomes in some mysterious manner the offspring of the country where he works. It is assumed that American painters residing in Rome become more or less Italian; that those residing in Paris become more or less French;that those residing in London become more or less English; while those who move restlessly from place to place become more or less of characterless cosmopolites. All of which is true inversely to the real strength and genius of the artist. A weak man is swerved by this influence and that and—chameleon like—takes on the hues of his surroundings, but a strong man simply absorbs and assimilates without in the slightest degree losing his individuality. Unhappily, many American artists residing abroad possess so little stamina, so little of real character, so little of genius, that they are—like topers—dependent upon the daily stimulus afforded by the manifold art activities about them; they never get out of school, but remain helplessly dependent upon teachers and copy-books. The annual Salon, like a college commencement day, is their great incentive; their petty exhibitions are so many field-days necessary to sustain childish enthusiasm.

Happily, all do not yield to those influences, and no two yield in precisely the same degree,—the extent to which individuality is lost depending upon the weakness of the man. A poor, weak, wishy-washy American quickly falls into the habit of painting pictures after the manner of those about him, and his mannerisms out-Herod Herod; others, with more character, yield less to their environment; while the chosen few simply absorb whatever of good they find, and without yielding a jot of their individuality, without swerving to the right or to the left, go on producing after their own fashion thingswhich belong to them and the race that produced them.

For more than forty years Whistler was the conspicuous example of the last-named class,—a class so small that it included besides himself—no others.

Great as certain of our American artists residing abroad undoubtedly are, good as many of these surely are, creditable on the whole as all are to American art, there is not one whose work does not betray the influences of his environment; there is not one who has not sacrificed something of his originality, something of his strength, something of his native force and character on strange altars, saving and excepting, always, Whistler.

The most that men have ventured to say is that he was influenced by Velasquez, though he himself has said he never visited Madrid,—a statement many insist cannot be true; others say he has been influenced by Japanese art,—but Velasquez and the art of Japan are far from French or English art of the nineteenth century; and the assertion that he was influenced by either is a confession that he lived unscathed amidst his surroundings.

Back of the art of Japan is the purer art of China; and to that source must we go if we seek the factors that influenced Whistler, for he loved the porcelain and pottery of China long before they were collected by the museums and amateurs of Europe.

“When no one cared for it,” he said, “I used to find in Amsterdam the most beautiful blue-and-white china. That was a good many years ago; it is all gone now.”

Old Delft did not inspire him with any enthusiasm. “Crude, crude, crude.”

This art of China, as reflected and elaborated in that of Japan, influenced him,—of that there can be no doubt,—and he recognized what was good in Japanese art before others gave it any attention.

The art of Velasquez had its due weight, for he loved the work of the Spanish master; and if he never visited Madrid, perhaps it was because he feared falling too much under its influence. But he went frequently to the Louvre, and invariably to the little “Infanta,” which he would look at long and earnestly, and to Titian’s “Man with the Glove,” which was a favorite, and to certain Rembrandts, and to Franz Hals, and a few, a very few others,—the gems of the collection,—ignoring completely the pictures which commonly attract, never once glancing up at the huge canvases by Rubens and his pupils; in fact, so far as he was concerned the walls might have been bare save for a half-dozen masterpieces; and these he really did love. There was no mistaking his attitude towards them. It was one of reverential affection. He appreciated a really good thing, whether he or some one else had done it, and he hated above everything sham and pretence and foolish display. To him a picture the size of one’s hand, if well and conscientiously done, was just as important as a full-length portrait.

The Italian masters influenced him, for he oftenspoke of them, of the wonderful effects they obtained with such simple materials and such straight-forward methods; their mastery of color influenced him, and he sought, so far as possible, to discover the pigments and the methods they used.

Those are the factors which helped to make Whistler,—the purest art; he was not influenced by what went on about him, or by what was said about him. So little did he care what others were doing or how they did it that his very brushes and pigments were different; and his methods were so peculiarly his own that no one painted at all like him, and his fellow-artists looked on in amazement.

The wave of impressionism which submerged all Paris in the very midst of his career left him unaffected,—for his art was an older and truer impressionism, an impressionism that did not depend upon the size of brushes or the consistency of pigments.

A visitor once said to him:

“Mr. Whistler, it seems to me you do not use some of those very expensive and brilliant colors which are in vogue nowadays.”

“No.” And he diligently worked away at his palette. “I can’t afford to,—they are so apt to spoil the picture.”

“But they are effective.”

“For how long? A year, or a score of years, perhaps; but who can tell what they will be a century or five centuries hence. The old masters used simple pigments which they ground themselves. I tryto use what they used. After all, it is not so much what one uses as the way it is used.”

Much of the foregoing argument concerning the Americanism of Whistler and his art may seem to be contradicted by his own express utterances.

For did he not say in his “Ten o’Clock”?

“Listen! There never was an artistic period.”

“There never was an art-loving nation.”

And he pointed out how the man who, “differing from the rest,” who “stayed by the tents with the women and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd, ... who took no joy in the ways of his brethren, ... who perceived in nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire, this dreamer apart, was the first artist.”

“And presently there came to this man another—and, in time, others—of like nature, chosen by the gods; and so they worked together; and soon they fashioned, from the moistened earth, forms resembling the gourd. And with the power of creation, the heirloom of the artist, presently they went beyond the slovenly suggestion of nature, and the first vase was born, in beautiful proportion.”

And the toilers and the heroes were athirst, “and all drank alike from the artist’s goblets, fashioned cunningly, taking no note the while of the craftsman’s pride, and understanding not his glory in his work; drinking at the cup, not from choice, not from a consciousness that it was beautiful, but because, forsooth, there was no other!”

“And the people questioned not,and had nothing to say in the matter.”

“So Greece was in its splendor, and art reigned supreme,—by force of fact, not by election,—and there was no meddling by the outsider.”

Again he says:

“The master stands in no relation to the moment at which he occurs a monument of isolation, hinting at sadness, having no part in the progress of his fellow-men.”

Those are the propositions which called out the reply—positive and intemperate—from Swinburne,[6]and so estranged the two, and which to this day have proved huge stumbling-blocks in the paths of those who try to understand Whistler.

For the world does believe that there have been “artistic periods,” that there have been “art-loving nations,” that in some mysterious manner the master does stand in “relation to the moment at which he occurs.”

And the world is right; though it does not necessarily follow that Whistler was wrong in the particular views he had in mind when he uttered his epigrammatic propositions.

In one sense it is undoubtedly true that the master does seem to stand apart, “a mounment of isolation,” that he does seem to happen without any causal connection with either parents or country,time or place,—for who could have foretold the greatness of Shakespeare from an acquaintance with those obscure individuals his father and mother, or from a knowledge of Stratford and its environs? Who could have predicted the triumphs of Napoleon from a study of his Corsican forbears, or the strange genius of Lincoln from his illiterate progenitors and humble surroundings, or the elemental force of Walt Whitman from his ancestry and American conditions?

No one; and yet there is the profound conviction that each of these men, like every great man,—prophet, king, statesman warrior, poet, or painter,—appeared, not miraculously, but as the inevitable result of irresistible forces; that the brilliant man is, after all, the son of his parents and the child of his times.

In the mystery of generation two stupidities fused in the alembic of maternity produce a genius.

The occasion does not create, but calls forth its master. Every war has its great general, every crisis its great leader, and in the world of art great artists respond to meet the requirements of the hour.

The bent of a nation determines the occupations of her sons,—towards war and conquest, towards peace and industry, towards things artistic or things commercial, all as the case may be.

It is not the birth of the poet that turns the nation from commerce to poetry; it is rather the imperceptible development of the nation itself in the direction of the ideal that calls into activity—not being—the poet.

Neither race nor nation can by its fiat create a poet; but it can by its encouragement stimulate his activity and rouse him to his best. It could not create a Keats; but it might have urged him on to even greater heights than he attained,—for who can doubt that his clear, pure crystalline song was stifled for lack of appreciation?

Now and then a genius, such as Carlyle, such as Whistler, such as Whitman, asserts himself in spite of all rebuffs, for each of these men pursued his chosen path regardless of all revilings; but, so susceptible is genius to encouragement and discouragement, that, for the most part, it droops before the withering blast of adverse criticism, and only those of hearts so strong and wills so stubborn that opposition inflames them to greater efforts make headway against the world.

It was no one genius that made the monuments and literature of Greece, the art of China and Japan, the paintings of Italy, the Gothic cathedrals of France and England; it was the demand for all these things and their appreciation by those who could not do them that called forth and encouraged the doers.

The first artist may neglect the chase and the field and remain by the tents idly tracing strange designs upon gourds; but unless those who till thesoil and bring in the food see his decorated gourds and like them, and prefer them to the plain ones which abound, and are willing to give him food and shelter for his work, he will not remain by the tents very long, and his artistic career will be foreshortened by necessity.

But if the toilers and the hunters like the decorated gourds, and the demand for them increases, others of the tribe who have talent for designing and decoration will join the master and imitate his work, and every now and then a pupil will prove a genius and surpass the “first artist,” and art will grow and art-products will multiply, but only so long as the rest of the tribe are willing to work and toil and to exchange the necessaries of life for paintings and carvings and pottery; and the greater the demand, the keener the desire of the people for decorated things in preference to those that are plain and cheap, the larger will be the chance of uncovering now and then a genius, until, as with the Greeks, the effective demand for things beautiful, for poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, becomes so great that we have an artistic people and an art-epoch,—that is to say, a people that is only too glad to encourage and support a large number of artists of every kind, and an era when of a given population an unusually large percentage is devoted to the service of the beautiful.

The master doesseem—as Whistler says—to come unbidden; but he will not remain long, and otherswill not follow in his footsteps, unless he arouses at least sufficient appreciation to give him life.

The future of art—of literature, of the drama, and of all the handicrafts—in America depends not upon the coming of a genius, but upon the growth of an effective and irresistible demand for good things; when that demand is sufficiently imperative, a Phidias, an Angelo, a Shakespeare will respond, for genius is latent everywhere.

The sudden degradation of the arts in Japan within the memory of man was not due to the disappearance of the talent and genius which for nearly a thousand years had been steadily—almost methodically—producing things beautiful, but it was due to the suppression of the feudal system, of those great lords who from the beginning had been the sure patrons of art and supporters of artists, and to the throwing open of ports to the commerce of the world and the introduction of the commercial spirit.

The genius for the creation of beautiful things remains,—for a people does not change in the twinkling of an eye,—but the talent is no longer in demand, or, in many cases, is diverted to the more profitable pursuits of the hour.

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