Chelsea—The Royal Academy—“Portrait of His Mother”—“Carlyle”—Grosvenor Gallery—The “Peacock Room”—Concerning Exhibitions.
Chelsea—The Royal Academy—“Portrait of His Mother”—“Carlyle”—Grosvenor Gallery—The “Peacock Room”—Concerning Exhibitions.
After—possibly because—his “White Girl” was rejected at the Salon, he went to London and made his home at Chelsea, where he had as neighbors Carlyle, Rossetti, George Eliot, and others of note in art and literature.
Carlyle’s description of Chelsea as it was in 1834, when he and his wife moved there, is interesting,—for the place changed little before Whistler came. Writing to his wife concerning the house he had found, Carlyle said:
“The street runs down upon the river, which I suppose you might see by stretching out your head from the front window, at a distance of fifty yards on the left. We are called ‘Cheyne Row’ proper (pronouncedChainieRow), and are a ‘genteel neighborhood;’ two old ladies on one side, unknown character on the other, but with ‘pianos.’ The street is flag pathed, sunk storied, iron railed, all old-fashioned and tightly done up; looks out on a rank of sturdy oldpollarded(that is, beheaded) lime-trees, standing there like giants intawtiewigs (for the new boughs are still young); beyond this a high brick wall; backwards a garden, the size of our back one at Comely Bank, with trees, etc., in bad culture; beyond this green hayfields and tree avenues,once a bishop’s pleasure-grounds, an unpicturesque yet rather cheerful outlook. The house itself is eminent, antique, wainscoted to the very ceiling, and has been all new painted and repaired; broadish stair with massive balustrade (in the old style), corniced and as thick as one’s thigh; floors thick as a rock, wood of them here and there worm-eaten, yet capable of cleanness, and still with thrice the strength of a modern floor. And then as to rooms, Goody! Three stories beside the sunk story, in every one of them three apartments, in depth something like forty feet in all—a front dining-room (marble chimney-piece, etc.), then a back dining-room or breakfast-room, a little narrower by reason of the kitchen stairs; then out of this, and narrower still (to allow a back window, you consider), a china-room or pantry, or I know not what, all shelved and fit to hold crockery for the whole street. Such is the ground area, which, of course, continues to the top, and furnishes every bedroom with a dressing-room or second bedroom; on the whole a most massive, roomy, sufficient old house, with places, for example, to hang, say, three dozen hats or cloaks on, and as many crevices and queer old presses and shelved closets (all tight and new painted in their way) as would gratify the most covetous Goody,—rent, thirty-five pounds! I confess I am strongly tempted. Chelsea is a singular heterogeneous kind of spot, very dirty and confused in some places, quite beautiful in others, abounding with antiquities and the traces of great men,—Sir Thomas More, Steele, Smollett, etc. Our row, which for the last three doors or so is a street, and none of the noblest, runs out upon a ‘Parade’ (perhaps they call it), running along the shore of the river, a broad highway with huge shady trees, boats lying moored, and a smell of shipping and tar. Battersea Bridge (of wood) a few yards off; the broad river, with white-trowsered, white-shirted Cockneys dashing by like arrows in thin, long canoes of boats; beyond, the green, beautiful knolls of Surrey, with their villages,—on the whole a most artificial, green-painted, yetlively, fresh, almost opera-looking business, such as you can fancy. Finally, Chelsea abounds more than any place in omnibi, and they take you to Coventry Street for sixpence. Revolve all this in thy fancy and judgment, my child, and see what thou canstmakeof it.”[19]
“The street runs down upon the river, which I suppose you might see by stretching out your head from the front window, at a distance of fifty yards on the left. We are called ‘Cheyne Row’ proper (pronouncedChainieRow), and are a ‘genteel neighborhood;’ two old ladies on one side, unknown character on the other, but with ‘pianos.’ The street is flag pathed, sunk storied, iron railed, all old-fashioned and tightly done up; looks out on a rank of sturdy oldpollarded(that is, beheaded) lime-trees, standing there like giants intawtiewigs (for the new boughs are still young); beyond this a high brick wall; backwards a garden, the size of our back one at Comely Bank, with trees, etc., in bad culture; beyond this green hayfields and tree avenues,once a bishop’s pleasure-grounds, an unpicturesque yet rather cheerful outlook. The house itself is eminent, antique, wainscoted to the very ceiling, and has been all new painted and repaired; broadish stair with massive balustrade (in the old style), corniced and as thick as one’s thigh; floors thick as a rock, wood of them here and there worm-eaten, yet capable of cleanness, and still with thrice the strength of a modern floor. And then as to rooms, Goody! Three stories beside the sunk story, in every one of them three apartments, in depth something like forty feet in all—a front dining-room (marble chimney-piece, etc.), then a back dining-room or breakfast-room, a little narrower by reason of the kitchen stairs; then out of this, and narrower still (to allow a back window, you consider), a china-room or pantry, or I know not what, all shelved and fit to hold crockery for the whole street. Such is the ground area, which, of course, continues to the top, and furnishes every bedroom with a dressing-room or second bedroom; on the whole a most massive, roomy, sufficient old house, with places, for example, to hang, say, three dozen hats or cloaks on, and as many crevices and queer old presses and shelved closets (all tight and new painted in their way) as would gratify the most covetous Goody,—rent, thirty-five pounds! I confess I am strongly tempted. Chelsea is a singular heterogeneous kind of spot, very dirty and confused in some places, quite beautiful in others, abounding with antiquities and the traces of great men,—Sir Thomas More, Steele, Smollett, etc. Our row, which for the last three doors or so is a street, and none of the noblest, runs out upon a ‘Parade’ (perhaps they call it), running along the shore of the river, a broad highway with huge shady trees, boats lying moored, and a smell of shipping and tar. Battersea Bridge (of wood) a few yards off; the broad river, with white-trowsered, white-shirted Cockneys dashing by like arrows in thin, long canoes of boats; beyond, the green, beautiful knolls of Surrey, with their villages,—on the whole a most artificial, green-painted, yetlively, fresh, almost opera-looking business, such as you can fancy. Finally, Chelsea abounds more than any place in omnibi, and they take you to Coventry Street for sixpence. Revolve all this in thy fancy and judgment, my child, and see what thou canstmakeof it.”[19]
Between Whistler and Rossetti there sprang up a friendship that was singular, considering how diametrically opposite they were to one another in nearly everything. They had, however, this in common,—each was in search of a degree of the beautiful quite beyond the grasp of the ordinary mortal; but of the two, Whistler’s is incomparably the finer art, for it is the purer and more abstract, while Rossetti’s painting exhibited the literary bent very conspicuously,—it was inextricably involved with his poetry.
One day he showed Whistler a sketch which Whistler liked, and he urged Rossetti to go on with it; but Rossetti became so infatuated with his conception that instead of finishing the picture he wrote a sonnet on the subject and read it to Whistler, who said:
“Rossetti take out the picture and frame the sonnet.”
Life in Chelsea in those days had its drawbacks.
Whistler’s utter lack of commercial instinct, his dislike for the dealers, the habit he had of falling out with any one who discussed money matters with him, and that reluctance to part with pictures whichwas a conspicuous trait through life, often involved him in trouble financially.
In 1879 E. W. Godwin designed and built for him a house in Tite Street. It was of white brick, and known as the “White House,” and is described as having been very artistic in so far as it was settled and furnished, but for some time only two rooms were in order. “Everywhere you encountered great packing-cases full of pretty things, and saw preparations for papering and carpeting, but somehow or other nothing ever got any forwarder. What was done was perfect in its way. The white wainscoting, the rich draperies, the rare Oriental china, the pictures and their frames, the old silver, all had a charm and a history of their own.”[20]
His powers of persuasion were such that it is said he once tamed a bailiff—temporarily in possession—to a degree of docility little short of amazing,—a favorite word of his.
“When the man first appeared he tried to wear his hat in the drawing-room and smoke about the house. Whistler soon settled that. He went out into the hall and fetched a stick, and daintily knocked the man’s hat off. The man was so surprised that he forgot to be angry, and within a day or two he had been trained to wait at table. One morning, when Mr. Whistler was shaving, a message was brought up that the man (he was always known in the house as ‘the man,’ as if he were the only one of his species) wanted to speak to him.“‘Very well, send him up,’ said Mr. Whistler. He went on shaving, and when the man came in said, abruptly, ‘Now, then, what do you want?’“‘I want my money, sir.’“‘What money?’“‘My possession money, sir.’“‘What, haven’t they given it to you?’“‘No, sir; it’s you that have to give it to me.’“‘Oh, the deuce I have!’ And Mr. Whistler laughingly gave him to understand that, if he wanted money, his only chance was to apply elsewhere.“‘Well, I think it’s very hard, sir,’ the man began to snivel; ‘I have my own family to keep, and my own rent to pay——’“‘I’ll tell you what I advise you to do,’ Mr. Whistler returned, as he gently pushed him out of the room: ‘you should do as I do, and have “a man” in your own house.’“Soon after this the man came and said that if he was not paid he would have to put bills up outside the house announcing a sale. And, sure enough, a few days after great posters were stuck up all over the front of the house, announcing so many tables, and so many chairs, and so much old Nankin china for sale on a given day. Mr. Whistler enjoyed the joke hugely, and hastened to send out invitations to all his friends to a luncheon-party, adding, as a postscript, ‘You will know the house by the bills of sale stuck up outside.’ And the bailiff proved an admirable butler, and the party one of the merriest ever known.”[21]
“When the man first appeared he tried to wear his hat in the drawing-room and smoke about the house. Whistler soon settled that. He went out into the hall and fetched a stick, and daintily knocked the man’s hat off. The man was so surprised that he forgot to be angry, and within a day or two he had been trained to wait at table. One morning, when Mr. Whistler was shaving, a message was brought up that the man (he was always known in the house as ‘the man,’ as if he were the only one of his species) wanted to speak to him.
“‘Very well, send him up,’ said Mr. Whistler. He went on shaving, and when the man came in said, abruptly, ‘Now, then, what do you want?’
“‘I want my money, sir.’
“‘What money?’
“‘My possession money, sir.’
“‘What, haven’t they given it to you?’
“‘No, sir; it’s you that have to give it to me.’
“‘Oh, the deuce I have!’ And Mr. Whistler laughingly gave him to understand that, if he wanted money, his only chance was to apply elsewhere.
“‘Well, I think it’s very hard, sir,’ the man began to snivel; ‘I have my own family to keep, and my own rent to pay——’
“‘I’ll tell you what I advise you to do,’ Mr. Whistler returned, as he gently pushed him out of the room: ‘you should do as I do, and have “a man” in your own house.’
“Soon after this the man came and said that if he was not paid he would have to put bills up outside the house announcing a sale. And, sure enough, a few days after great posters were stuck up all over the front of the house, announcing so many tables, and so many chairs, and so much old Nankin china for sale on a given day. Mr. Whistler enjoyed the joke hugely, and hastened to send out invitations to all his friends to a luncheon-party, adding, as a postscript, ‘You will know the house by the bills of sale stuck up outside.’ And the bailiff proved an admirable butler, and the party one of the merriest ever known.”[21]
The “White House” was finally sold, and it is said that when he moved out he wrote on the wall, “Except the Lord build the house, their labor is in vain that build it,—E. W. Godwin, R.S.A., built this one.”
Speaking of architects, the story is told that he was once dining, and dining well, at the house of a friend in London. Towards the end of the dinner he was obliged to leave the table and run up-stairs to write a note. In a few moments a great noise was heard in the hall, and Whistler was found to have fallen down the stairs. “Who is your architect?” he asked. His host told him. “I might have known it; the —— teetotaler!”
By the irony of fate the “White House” was afterwards occupied and much altered by the detested critic of theTimes,—detested possibly because he occupied and dared to alter the house,—and Whistler asked:
“Shall the birthplace of art become the tomb of its parasite?”
It was this critic who pronounced a water-color drawing of Ruskin by Herkomer the best oil portrait the painter had ever done,—a mistake Whistler never let the unlucky writer forget.
In those days he exhibited quite frequently at the Royal Academy.
Among the earliest pictures exhibited was “At the Piano.” It attracted the attention of the Scotch painter John Phillip, who wished to buy it. Whistler left the price to him, and Phillip sent a check for thirty guineas, which was entirely satisfactory, so far as any one knows.
Thirty thousand dollars has already been paid for one of his very early pictures, and for any one of a
half-dozen of his important canvases a bid of fifty thousand dollars may be had any day.
It is a question of only a few years when Whistler’s paintings will sell as high as Rembrandt’s. The great galleries of Europe have not yet entered the field, and many of the great private collections have no example of his work. A few Americans, but not many out of the large number of those who buy pictures regardless of cost, are already inquiring. When all these factors come into competition, as they will soon or late, prices will be realized that will make the dearest of English or French painters seem cheap.
In 1872 the portrait of his mother, an “Arrangement in Gray and Black,” was sent in to the Academy, and accepted only after a sharp controversy, wherein Sir William Boxall, R.A., gave the committee their choice between hanging the picture and accepting his own resignation as one of their number. “For,” said he, “it shall never be told of me that I served on a committee which refused such a work as that.” The picture was eventually placed with the “black-and-white” exhibit, drawings, engravings, etc., and apparently only the critics saw it. What they said Whistler has himself recorded.
Somebody has asked, Suppose Whistler had been taken up and made an A.R.A., and in due course an R.A.—what then?
The thing is well-nigh inconceivable; and even if an A.R.A., his innate dislike for sham and pretension in art and his sense of humor would have prevented him from becoming a full-fledged academician in a body wherein, as in all similar bodies, mutual appreciation, or at least mutual restraint from honest depreciation, is essential to existence.
Whistler would probably have accepted the first degree, the A.R.A., of the fraternity,—for all his life he was personally, but not in his art, singularly susceptible to the praise of his fellow-men; but he would have remained in the Academy about as long as he remained president of the British Society of Painters,—just long enough to overturn things generally, and then get out.
Once, when taken to task for referring to a painter who was only an A.R.A. as an R.A., he retorted that it was a difference without a distinction.
To the orthodox academicians his work was a mystery. Once, when dining in a restaurant in the West End, the waiter, having difficulty in supplying Whistler’s wants, said, “Well, sir, I can’t quite make out what you mean.”
“Gad, sir,” he cried, in tones of amazement, “are you an R.A.?”
It is not within the range of possibilities that the Royal Academy, or any other institution, would have had any perceptible influence on Whistler’s art,—onthatside he was indifferent to the influences which affect most men, to considerations of gain and popular appreciation.
In the account of a certain public sale the statement was printed that when one of his pictures wasput up it was loudly hissed. He sat down and wrote the editor acknowledging the compliment, “the distinguished though unconscious compliment so publicly paid. It is rare that recognition so complete is made during the lifetime of the painter.”
Another time he said, “There are those, they tell me, who have the approval of the public, and live.”
Long after he ceased to exhibit at the Academy a lady met him at one of the exhibitions, and expressed her surprise.
“Well, you know,” he answered, “one must do something to lend interest to the show,—so here I am.”
Years after, the Academy, while Leighton was president, invited him to send some of his pictures, and here is the account of what happened:[22]
“He was in Brussels. There came a telegram from him to me which was a cry of exultation:“‘My dear S.: The Lord hath delivered them into my hands. I am sending you by post their last dying confession.’“And so next morning the post duly brought a letter from Whistler inclosing the official proposal from the Royal Academy, signed by Mr. Eaton, secretary to that distinguished body, inviting Whistler to contribute to a loan exhibition then presently to be held. Whistler wrote:“‘Of course, I refuse. You know me too well to doubt that. Do they think they can use me after so long trampling on me? Do they think I don’t see what they want? Dothey think I need them? At last they perceive that they need me, but in the day of their extremity they shall ask in vain.’“I am quoting from memory, but I give the substance accurately. He inclosed his answer to the Academy, long since a public document, with permission to cable it if I liked to America. I telegraphed Whistler begging him to send no answer till my letter should reach him. He wired: ‘I do not understand, but I will wait till to-morrow.’ I wrote to him in the best ink, as Merimee said, at my command. I tried to point out that the Academy had offered him theamende honorable; that their invitation was an acknowledgment of their error, and was meant as an atonement; that if he sought to humiliate his enemies, no humiliation could be so complete as their public surrender, of which the proof would be the hanging of his works on their walls, and much else which I thought obvious and conclusive. And I begged him to remember that I had always thought him right, and always said the world would come round to him, and that now, as ever before, whether right or wrong, mine was the counsel of a friend. The answer came by wire early next morning: ‘Alas, my dear S., that you too should have gone over to the enemy!’ I believe if I had but besought him to consider that his acceptance would have been a service to art, and if he could himself have thought that it would be, he would have accepted. I never saw Whistler again, never heard from him; a friendship of twenty years came there and then to an end—on his side.”
“He was in Brussels. There came a telegram from him to me which was a cry of exultation:
“‘My dear S.: The Lord hath delivered them into my hands. I am sending you by post their last dying confession.’
“And so next morning the post duly brought a letter from Whistler inclosing the official proposal from the Royal Academy, signed by Mr. Eaton, secretary to that distinguished body, inviting Whistler to contribute to a loan exhibition then presently to be held. Whistler wrote:
“‘Of course, I refuse. You know me too well to doubt that. Do they think they can use me after so long trampling on me? Do they think I don’t see what they want? Dothey think I need them? At last they perceive that they need me, but in the day of their extremity they shall ask in vain.’
“I am quoting from memory, but I give the substance accurately. He inclosed his answer to the Academy, long since a public document, with permission to cable it if I liked to America. I telegraphed Whistler begging him to send no answer till my letter should reach him. He wired: ‘I do not understand, but I will wait till to-morrow.’ I wrote to him in the best ink, as Merimee said, at my command. I tried to point out that the Academy had offered him theamende honorable; that their invitation was an acknowledgment of their error, and was meant as an atonement; that if he sought to humiliate his enemies, no humiliation could be so complete as their public surrender, of which the proof would be the hanging of his works on their walls, and much else which I thought obvious and conclusive. And I begged him to remember that I had always thought him right, and always said the world would come round to him, and that now, as ever before, whether right or wrong, mine was the counsel of a friend. The answer came by wire early next morning: ‘Alas, my dear S., that you too should have gone over to the enemy!’ I believe if I had but besought him to consider that his acceptance would have been a service to art, and if he could himself have thought that it would be, he would have accepted. I never saw Whistler again, never heard from him; a friendship of twenty years came there and then to an end—on his side.”
In 1897 a circular was mailed to him, addressed, “The Academy, England.” At the post-office they added “Burlington House,” where it was declined. Finally the circular reached him, bearing the endorsement, “Not known at the R. A.” He gave it to the press, saying, “In these days of doubtful frequentation, it is my rare good fortune to be able to send you an unsolicited, official, and final certificate of character.”
The fact was, mail addressed simply “Whistler, England,” would reach him.
The Grosvenor Gallery, opened in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay, offered an opportunity to many a man who either would not or could not exhibit at the Academy.
It was here that some of Whistler’s best things were shown,—the portraits of Irving as Philip II.; Miss Rosa Corder; Miss Gilchrist, the actress; the Carlyle; Miss Alexander; and Lady Archibald Campbell, commonly known as “The Lady with the Yellow Buskin,” and many of his famous nocturnes.
Whistler had a very peculiar laugh,—demoniacal his enemies called it,—and it is said that while his portrait was being painted, Irving caught this laugh and used it with effect in the part of Mephistopheles,—but then, who knows?
The story of the painting and the naming of “The Yellow Buskin” is worth repeating.
Lady Archibald Campbell was an exceedingly handsome woman, and Whistler expressed the desire to paint her portrait. She graciously consented, and the sittings began.
In those days Whistler was looked upon in London as little less than a mountebank in art, and one day, putting it as nicely as she could, she said:
“My husband wished me to say that he—he appreciated the honor of your inviting me to sit for a portrait, but that—that he did not wish to be understood as committing himself in any way, and the picture must not be considered a commission.”
“Dear me, no,” said Whistler, as he painted away; “under no circumstances. Lord Archibald need give himself no uneasiness,—my compensation is in your condescension. We are doing this for the pleasure there is in it.”
The portrait was finished, exhibited as “La Dame au Brodequin Jaune,”—and duly ridiculed.
Lady Campbell’s friends expressed surprise that she should have permitted so eccentric an artist to do so ugly a thing. But time went on; the picture made a profound sensation and won its way.
Some time after, Whistler met Lady Campbell in London, and she said to him:
“My dear Mr. Whistler, I hear my portrait has been exhibited everywhere and become famous.”
“Sh—sh—sh!” with finger on lips. “So it has, my dear Lady Archibald; but every discretion has been observed that Lord Campbell could desire,—your name is not mentioned. The portrait is known as ‘The Yellow Buskin.’”It is now in the Wilstach collection, in Philadelphia.
Whistler preferred to exhibit his work under conditions which he controlled. As early as 1874 he gave a special exhibition in London, and in the years 1880, 1881, 1883, 1884, and 1886 he exhibited
either prints or paintings in the rooms of the Fine Arts Society.
He always occupied the place of honor with the International Society at Knightsbridge.
Occasionally he would use the galleries of dealers, but not often, and then only upon his own terms.
While living at Chelsea he had Carlyle as a near neighbor, and of his own notion he painted the portrait that now hangs in Glasgow.
These two extraordinary beings were quite congenial. The dogmatic old philosopher, then past seventy-five, sat day after day to the eccentric painter, who was nearly forty years his junior, as patiently as if he were a professional model, and the sittings were long and tedious.
One day, as he was leaving, quite exhausted, he met at the door a little girl in white, and he asked her name.
“I am Miss Alexander,” she said, primly, “and I am going to have my portrait painted.”
The sage shook his head in commiseration, and muttered, as he passed on:
“Puir lassie, puir lassie!”
If proof were required of the underlying sincerity and earnestness of Whistler in those days when the world refused to take him seriously, this long and intimate association with Carlyle would be more than sufficient.
They were neighbors. Carlyle had every opportunity of seeing Whistler on the street and in hisstudio. Seemingly two beings could not be less sympathetic, and yet the philosopher who had so few good words for any one, who was the implacable foe of sham and falsehood, who was intolerant of the society of others, who cared little for art and less for artists, freely gave his time and society to the most unpopular painter in England.
In truth there was a good deal in common between the two,—in the attitude of the one towards literature and what his fellow-writers were saying, and in the attitude of the other towards art and what his fellow-painters were doing. Each stood in his own sphere for the highest ideals, and no doubt each recognized in the other the quality of sincerity in his profession.
Poor Carlyle! your name should never be mentioned without an anathema for the scavengers who dealt with your memory. If they are not suffering the torments of the damned, the mills of the gods have ceased to turn.
Froude prefaced the Life of Carlyle with a long protestation that it contained the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; which, it seems, according to even his notions, was a lie; for in the secrecy of his closet he prepared a pamphlet containing the revelations of the Jewsbury creature,—the expert opinion of “an ill-natured old maid,” as Mrs. Carlyle called her,—to the effect that Carlyle should never have married; and this pamphlet, containing the salacious tittle-tattle between himself and
this old maid, is given the world as presumably his last instalment of revelations, though no one knows how much similar stuff the Jewsbury creature, a romancer by profession, may have left pigeon-holed for still further harm.
And the answer to it all is that Carlyle, in spite of the old maid’s opinion, was married; and what is more to the point, remained married forty years, with no more of differences and dissensions, even accepting all the Froude-Jewsbury tattle, than any good wife will have with any good Scotchman; and during their long married life she was a help and an inspiration to her husband, and after her death she was mourned as few wives in the history of mankind have been mourned.
A depth beyond the imagination of Dante must be found for the Froude-Jewsbury combination.
As the portrait neared completion, Carlyle took a good look at it one day, seemed pleased, and said:
“Weel, man, you have given me a clean collar, and that is more than Meester Watts has done.”
The portrait was begun and ended as a labor of love, and for nearly twenty years it remained unsold.
After Carlyle died some citizens of Glasgow, from purely patriotic motives, and with no appreciation whatsoever of the painting, thought it should be purchased, and a public subscription was started.
When the amount first talked of—quite a small sum—had been nearly subscribed, Whistler learned that the subscription paper expressly disavowed allapproval of himself and his art, whereupon he promptly more than doubled the price, to the dismay of the canny Scots, who wished to buy the portrait without the art; and when they hesitated, he again raised the price, to their utter discomfiture, and the picture was not purchased until 1891.
It is now owned by the corporation of Glasgow, and hangs in the public gallery surrounded by a mass of lesser works which completely dwarf its great proportions and render adequate appreciation impossible.
It is worth while to visit Glasgow to see this portrait, but until the authorities have the good judgment to give it a room, or at least a wall to itself, the journey will prove an exasperation.
The hanging of pictures is a “lost art;” and most of the art of pictures is lost in the hanging.
A picture is painted in a certain environment of light, color, and tone,—and to Whistler this environment was a vital consideration. For the time being the canvas is the one conspicuous thing in the studio, of even greater importance than subject or model. From this environment of creation, and with which it is in perfect harmony, it is violently forced into conjunction with great squares of atrocious gilt frames and expanses of clashing canvases.
A gallery of pictures is the slaughter-house of art; annual exhibitions are the shambles of beauty.
So far as galleries are concerned, the advantage is usually with the dealer, for he knows the value ofarrangement and shows his best things more or less detached. One by one the gems of his collection are presented to the customer and time given for appreciation.
There are but two uses to which a painting can be put with any sense of the fitness of things: it may be used decoratively alone or in connection with one or two others which harmonize and which are distributed to produce a perfect effect; this is the noblest use to which a painting of any kind can be put, the production of an effect in which the painting, however great, is but an element in a perfect whole.
Another and commoner use is the enjoyment of a picture by itself, as one reads a poem or listens to music, more or less oblivious to all surroundings. It is obvious that this sort of enjoyment implies the subordination of all surroundings to the painting, or the poem, or the music, the arrangement of the environment so as to secure the greatest possible freedom from intrusive and distracting sights and sounds,—in short, as regards painting, the reproduction in a sense of the atmosphere of the studio where the picture was created, or of the place, altar, or chapel for which it was intended; and it means most emphatically freedom from sharp contrast with pictures by other men and of other times, schools, and conditions, however good, which will clash precisely as would two orchestras playing different pieces in the same hall.
One can imagine Whistler and Carlyle—painter and philosopher, two masters, each in his vocation—in the studio, and the growing portrait, a thing of beautythere, a bond of union between two men so divergent, and one can imagine how beautiful the portrait would be anywhere if by itself amidst harmonious surroundings, whether used as the chief ornament of a dignified hall or placed in a more neutral atmosphere for study and appreciation. But one cannot imagine more destructive surroundings than those of a public gallery, the walls of which teem with writhing, wriggling things in huge gilt frames and glaring colors.
And the painters, who ought to know better, but who encourage these great collections and exhibitions, who live for them, work for them, slave for them, are more to blame for the existence of these heterogeneous conglomerations than the public, who do not know better, but walk helplessly about amidst endless rows of staring canvases, dimly conscious that all is not right.
Pictures of equal merit do not necessarily hang together. A Velasquez and a Raphael, each supremely beautiful in the place for which it is intended, produce an inharmonious effect if placed side by side.
A rabble, with men or pictures, is a throng composed of more or less incongruous and unsympathetic units.
With the exception of the few instances, as inthe Turner room in the National Gallery in London, where the works of one man are grouped for the express purpose of comparison and study, every collection of pictures is a rabble, and as a whole—ugly.
Nor does the grouping of the works of one man in one room produce a beautiful effect, a beautiful room; not at all, for they are grouped for a scientific rather than an æsthetic purpose, for the purpose of study and comparison in a room which is, as it should be, otherwise barren and neutral.
One or, at most, two fine pictures are all any ordinary room will stand, and to produce an effect wherein nothing overwhelmingly predominates, but everything finds its place and remains there, requires genius different from but of the same high order as that of the painter, and that sort of genius has been lacking in the Western world for some centuries.
So low has the once great art of painting fallen that it has helplessly relinquished its original field of great achievement, the adornment of buildings inside and out, and that has become a separate trade so incompetently followed that the phrase “interior decorator” is one of reproach.
And yet little as the commercial “interior decorator” knows about decoration, it is safer to trust to his fustian stock of burlaps, wall-papers, imitation leathers, metals, lustres, and illuminations than follow the guidance of the painters themselves,—for, with rare exceptions, they know nothing beyond thenarrow confines of their frames, and their own houses and studios resemble curiosity-shops.
The art of decoration, which implies the co-operation of architect, sculptor, and painter as a unit, has not been practised since the sixteenth century, and not in any high degree of perfection since three hundred years before.
With the disintegration of the union among the arts, each has accomplished endless detached and isolated perfections, but nothing that is really worth while in the sense that a Greek temple or a Gothic cathedral was worth while,—for nothing so chaste and perfect as the former or so sublime and beautiful as the latter has been done since each of the three constructive arts began to work in jealous independence of the others.
Rossetti and Whistler were both friends of the wealthy and eccentric ship-owner F. R. Leyland, of No. 50 Prince’s Gate. He was a collector of things rare and beautiful, a “patron” of art and artists, a musician, and altogether a character one associates with Romance rather than with London.
It was for him that Whistler painted the famous “Peacock Room,” under the following circumstances:
Leyland had bought the “Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” and one day Whistler went to see it in place. He found it in a dining-room which was richly decorated with costly Spanish leather and a heavy ceiling of wood, a place altogether too sombrefor his bright and brilliant “Princess,” and he protested against the discord.
“What would you do?” asked Leyland.
“Paint the room.”
“What! paint that beautiful Spanish leather?”
“Most assuredly,—if this is to be the boudoir of the ‘Princess.’”
Whistler was told to go ahead and make the room harmonize with the painting.
He started in and covered every inch of wall surface, even the insides of the shutters, with a wonderful scheme of decoration in blue and gold, the brilliant coloring of the peacock, making a color-effect rich beyond description.
Unhappily, nothing had been said concerning the price, and that finally named by Leyland seemed to Whistler quite inadequate; but he made no complaint and went on with the work. The trouble came when Leyland paid in pounds instead of in guineas. That was more than Whistler could stand.
All professional men in England being paid in guineas, he would not permit art to be dealt with as merchandise. He felt, therefore, that he had been robbed of his shillings, and the whole affair, which from the beginning had been a matter of pleasure rather than of profit with him, was placed on a commercial footing. Considering the time spent, the surface covered, the work done, the price fixed by Leyland was quite inadequate. Then, to pay in scantpounds, instead of full guineas, that was, in truth, adding insult to injury.
The work was not quite complete, and he took his revenge by painting his “patron” in the guise of a peacock, with his claws on what might be mere decoration, or, as any one might fancy, a pile of guineas. The likeness was not immediately perceptible, but, with a hint, the world soon saw it, and laughed.
Leyland has been dead a long time, and the house has passed from his family, but the “Peacock Room” is still in existence, and the curious visitor is occasionally, but not often, admitted. The “Princess” no longer hangs at one end, for long ago she went to Scotland, and will soon find her way to America; but the two peacocks are at the other end,—one the personification of the grasping “patron” and the other bearing a faint though perceptible likeness to the defiant painter with the white lock.
The shelves, which were once filled with the rarest of blue-and-white china, are now given over to books, and altogether the place is but a melancholy reminder of former beauty. But the decoration is in good condition, and could the walls and ceilings be removed and the “Princess” restored, the original effect would be reproduced.
The construction of the room was not Whistler’s, so he worked under great disadvantages in dealing with architectural features, particularly the ceiling, which he did not like; so the room, if ever removed, would not represent his ideas of proportion andconstruction. It would simply show how he made the best of a difficult situation.
The architect who designed the room and looked upon the house as his stepping-stone to fame, when he saw the—to him—desecration, was completely unbalanced, went insane, and died not long after.
If opportunities had offered, Whistler would have been a great decorator, for such was his susceptibility to color that he could not tolerate discordant effects about him. It was ever his habit to decorate his studio, his house, or any rooms he occupied to suit his exceedingly fastidious taste.
He did not “decorate” in the sense the term is accepted nowadays. In truth, the casual visitor to his studio or to his house would depart under the impression there was no decoration at all, for neither figures nor patterns made the walls attractive, yet from floor to ceiling every square inch was a matter of extreme solicitude. He would mix colors and apply them with his own hands until the room was in harmony.
Even the great barn of an attic which was his studio in Paris was painted by him, so that from its dark—not black—rich oak floor, along base-boards and walls, to sloping roof, the effect was such as he sought as an environment for his pictures,—a brown, a grayish brown, a soft and singular shade of brown, hard to describe, difficult to see, but delightful tofeelin its sober and retiring neutrality,—and that is the best color, the best tone, against which to hangWhistler’s paintings in any general exhibition, for it remains quietly and unobtrusively in the background, and at the same time the silvery quality in it gives it life.
When London laughed at his “Yellow and White” exhibition of etchings it did not know that a master of color was giving an object-lesson in interior decoration.
Who can recall without a feeling of restful satisfaction the delightful reception-room of that later home in Paris, at 110 Rue du Bac? So simple that, really, there was not a conspicuous feature about it, and yet every detail had been worked out with as much care as he bestowed on a painting.
This feature of Whistler’s art, this susceptibility to color and line in surroundings will be referred to again in the discussion of his exquisite color-sense.
For the present it is sufficient to point out that he was something more than a painter of easel pictures; that instinctively he was akin to those great masters who combined their efforts with those of the architect in the endeavor to produce beautiful results.
A sympathetic writer has said:
“Although he was in no way a spendthrift, he would make every sort of sacrifice to his art. Had he been given more opportunity, there seems no reason to doubt that he would have made other rooms even more beautiful than the famous ‘Peacock’ dining-room. But, frankly, the public did not care for his work enough to buy much of it from him at anything like a fair price; so that he was obliged to limit himself to comparatively small surfaces, easel pictures, overwhich collectors will soon begin to wrangle, we dare say, now that the clever hand which created them can work no more, and the big, kind heart which gave this man the courage to fight through fifty years against ‘la bêtise humaine’ is cold and still.”[23]
“Although he was in no way a spendthrift, he would make every sort of sacrifice to his art. Had he been given more opportunity, there seems no reason to doubt that he would have made other rooms even more beautiful than the famous ‘Peacock’ dining-room. But, frankly, the public did not care for his work enough to buy much of it from him at anything like a fair price; so that he was obliged to limit himself to comparatively small surfaces, easel pictures, overwhich collectors will soon begin to wrangle, we dare say, now that the clever hand which created them can work no more, and the big, kind heart which gave this man the courage to fight through fifty years against ‘la bêtise humaine’ is cold and still.”[23]
In showing his work to visitors he exercised all the reserve and discretion of the Japanese, who places before his guests but one kakemona during that most formal and elaborate of social festivities, the “Tea Ceremony,” or who, under pressure of repeated requests, takes from its little box and unfolds from its many silken wrappings one, just one, of his precious bits of porcelain. No more on the same day, lest the surfeited guests fail in appreciation.
If in his studio, Whistler would first turn to the wall every picture and arrange the few pieces of furniture so that nothing should attract the vagrant eye, then he would place the one picture he wished seen on the easel in the best of light, without, however, letting it be seen until frame and glass were carefully wiped, when, stepping back on a line with his visitor, he, too, would enjoy his work as if he saw it for the first time. He would never exhibit anything he was tired of, and he never tired of anything he exhibited. This appreciation of his own work, his enthusiasm over what he had done, was often misunderstood by people accustomed to the false modesty of artists who stand dumb while others vainlystrive to see in their work the beauties which they of all people can best make known.
If time permitted he might bring forth two, or even three, pictures, but rarely more, and always each by itself. If some visitor, presuming on his good nature,—and he was indulgent in the extreme to those he liked,—insisted on placing the pictures side by side for comparison, as is the custom in shops, he was as uneasy and unhappy as would be a poet if several persons insisted on reading aloud before him several of his poems at the same time,—for what is a picture but a poem, mute to the ear but clarion-voiced to the eye?
In public exhibitions of his works he had the same sense of the eternal fitness of things.
First of all, the room must be properly lighted, and Whistler’s paintings require a soft light. In his studio the skylight was well arranged with shades, so he could keep the light soft and constant; and frequently he would draw the shades so as to make the room quite dark, and then view portrait and sitter as they loomed up in shadow.
“Some students planned to call on him one New Year’s morning. A friendly student, not at all sure that Whistler would like it, gave him a little tip as to the surprise party.“‘Tell them that I never receive callers,’ he exclaimed, excitedly. The student explained that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about it.“‘Are you sure they mean well?’ he inquired, anxiously. And on being reassured, ‘Well, tell them I never receive visitors in the morning.’“The students called in the afternoon, and found awaiting them a most genial and delightful host. He told stories and showed them his palettes to prove that he practised what he preached, and pictures and sketches were exhibited to them never seen by the public, among the surprising ones being some allegorical studies. He served them with champagne and fruits and cakes, and was most solicitous as to their enjoyment. One of them asked him how he arranged his subjects so as to produce the low tone noted in his pictures. He posed a visitor, pulled over the shades so as to shut out all light, save from one window, and there before them was a living Whistler ‘arrangement’ ready to recede behind a frame, as he says all portraits should do.”
“Some students planned to call on him one New Year’s morning. A friendly student, not at all sure that Whistler would like it, gave him a little tip as to the surprise party.
“‘Tell them that I never receive callers,’ he exclaimed, excitedly. The student explained that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about it.
“‘Are you sure they mean well?’ he inquired, anxiously. And on being reassured, ‘Well, tell them I never receive visitors in the morning.’
“The students called in the afternoon, and found awaiting them a most genial and delightful host. He told stories and showed them his palettes to prove that he practised what he preached, and pictures and sketches were exhibited to them never seen by the public, among the surprising ones being some allegorical studies. He served them with champagne and fruits and cakes, and was most solicitous as to their enjoyment. One of them asked him how he arranged his subjects so as to produce the low tone noted in his pictures. He posed a visitor, pulled over the shades so as to shut out all light, save from one window, and there before them was a living Whistler ‘arrangement’ ready to recede behind a frame, as he says all portraits should do.”
It is a pity to ever subject his pictures to the trying light of the usual gallery, and it is a still greater pity to exhibit them at night in competition with foot-lights and foyer. His work should not be made the attraction for either a “five-o’clock tea” or a dress rehearsal. People who will not go during the day are not worth inviting.
The fact that people are content to view the best paintings of all time by artificial light, and even profess to find a “softness” and “charm” lacking by day, is but additional evidence of that want of susceptibility and fine feeling which characterizes the modern world, artists and laymen alike. For no picture that was painted by daylight should be seen at night, if all its beauties are to be felt.
A room for the exhibition of his pictures should be of precisely the right tone, and this is a matter of no little difficulty.
When president of the Society of British Artists, in 1886, his arrangement of the rooms was criticised as being “tentative,” because he had left the battens on the walls; whereupon he wrote that in the engineering of the light and the treatment of the walls and the arrangement of the draperies everything was intentional; that the battens were meant to remain, “not only for their use, but as bringing parallel lines into play that subdivide charmingly the lower portions of the walls and add to their light appearance; that the whole combination is complete.”
There is a hint to all managers of exhibitions.
To summarize the foregoing suggestions:
The tone of the walls should be such as to keep them in the background.
The monotonous blankness of the walls may be broken by unobtrusive lines, not arbitrarily for effect, but justifiably for use and effect.
Only such draperies should be used as are absolutely necessary to reduce vacancies or to soften harsh lines, and these should lose themselves in the tone of the room.
Floor should be low in tone, the rich, dark brown of old oak keeping its place under foot best of all.
If the room is large and a few chairs and benches are admitted, they should be of wood, plain and for service alone, as becomes a room that is arranged but for one purpose,—namely, the exhibition of certain pictures,—and they should be painted or stained in tone to correspond with the room.
The light should be under absolute control, and kept quite soft, diffused, and constant throughout the day.
The room should be closed at night, or at least the people fully warned by notices in catalogue and elsewhere that if they have any real desire to see and understand the pictures they will come during the day.
The pictures should be well spaced, so that each may, to a certain degree, be studied by itself, for each is as complete a work as a piece of music.
In short, in an exhibition of pictures, or of anything else, everything should be subordinated to the things exhibited; nothing should be permitted to obtrude upon the attention to their disadvantage; the work of the decorator and furnisher on such an occasion is perfect when it is unnoticed.
For black-and-whites, experiments in color may be made, but for paintings which are compositions in color the background should be neutral,—silent like the background of music.
As every one knows, green and red, side by side, accentuate and help each other; therefore, pictures in which the prevailing tone is green are helped by a red or crimson background, while pictures in which the prevailing tone is red are helped by a green background.
The foregoing is elementary and a matter of common observation, and the walls of art galleriesand exhibitions are frequently covered with either a shade of green or a shade of crimson; but in placing pictures no discrimination is exercised,—landscapes and marines in which green predominates are placed side by side with portraits and interiors in which red frequently predominates on the same green or red background, to the advantage of one set of pictures and the detriment of the other.
So far as color-effect is concerned, the pictures themselves go very well side by side, the red of the life pieces helping the green of the nature pieces, andvice versa; but if the background is permitted to assert itself, if the pictures are spaced on the wall, any background which accentuates the one class does so at the expense of the other.
If pictures in which the prevailing tone is green are to be placed on the same wall with pictures in which red predominates, the background should be neither red nor green, but, theoretically, a gray, which is neutral and helps all colors in contrast; practically, however, a grayish hue of brown, because pure gray requires a greater expanse of wall between each picture than the exigencies of an exhibition or of a typical picture gallery permit, while the element of brown permits the wall to assert itself a little more positively between the frames, and, at the same time, the quality of neutrality is almost as well preserved.
The stronger the tone of the background the nearer together pictures may be placed; the weaker and more neutral the background the wider thespacing must be,—a pure gray requiring the widest spacing of all backgrounds, a deep crimson the narrowest. In other words, it requires a wide expanse of gray to support a little color, while a very little crimson will carry a very large expanse of color in the way of gilt frames and strong landscapes and marines.
Wide frames, whether of gold or dark wood, enable green walls to carry green pictures and red walls to carry red pictures without the pictures suffering so much; the frames intervene, and the immediate contrast is between canvas and frame instead of canvas and wall. But the secondary contrast is there and is felt precisely in proportion to the extent of the spacing between the pictures, and the pictures suffer accordingly.