VIII

“All truths of color sink at once into the second rank. He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of color has neglected a great truth for a less one.“That color is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of objects will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The color of plants is constantly changing with the season, and of everything with the quality of light falling on it; but the nature and essence of the thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve of the petals, one groove of the stamens, be wanting, and the flower ceases to be the same.”[38]

“All truths of color sink at once into the second rank. He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of color has neglected a great truth for a less one.

“That color is indeed a most unimportant characteristic of objects will be farther evident on the slightest consideration. The color of plants is constantly changing with the season, and of everything with the quality of light falling on it; but the nature and essence of the thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be yellow or crimson; and if some monster-hunting botanist should ever frighten the flower blue, still it will be a dahlia; but let one curve of the petals, one groove of the stamens, be wanting, and the flower ceases to be the same.”[38]

“The most convincing proof of the unimportance of color lies in the accurate observation of the way in which any material object impresses itself on the mind. If we look at nature carefully we shall find that her colors are in a state of perpetual confusion and indistinctness, while her forms, as told by light and shade, are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The stones and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the boughs above; the bushes receive grays and yellows from the ground; every hairbreadth of polished surface gives a little bit of the blue sky or the gold of the sun, like a star upon the local color; this local color, changeful and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and modified by the hue of the light or quenched in the gray of the shadow; and the confusion and blending of tint is altogether so greatthat were we left to find out what objects were by their colors only, we would scarcely in places distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond them or the ground beneath them.”

“We shall see hereafter, in considering ideas of beauty, that color, even as a source of pleasure, is feeble compared to form. But this we cannot insist upon at present,—we have only to do with simple truth; and the observations we have made are sufficient to prove that the artist who sacrifices or forgets a truth of form in the pursuit of a truth of color sacrifices what is definite to what is uncertain and what is essential to what is accidental.”[39]

“It is, indeed, by this that the works of Turner are peculiarly distinguished from those of all other colorists,—by the dazzling intensity, namely, of the light which he sheds through every hue, and which, far more than their brilliant color, is the real source of their overpowering effect upon the eye, an effect soreasonablymade the subject of perpetual animadversion, as if the sun which they represent were a quiet, and subdued, and gentle, and manageable luminary, and never dazzled anybody, under any circumstances whatsoever. I am fond of standing by a bright Turner in the Academy, to listen to the unintentional compliments of the crowd,—‘What a glaring thing!’ ‘I declare I can’t look at it!’ ‘Don’t it hurt your eyes?’—expressed as if they were in the constant habit of looking the sun full in the face with the most perfect comfort and entire facility of vision. It is curious after hearing people malign some of Turner’s noble passages of light to pass to some really ungrammatical and false pictures of the old masters in which we have color givenwithoutlight.”[40]“What I am next about to say with respect to Turner’s color I should wish to be received with caution, as it admitsof dispute. I think that the first approach to viciousness of color in any master is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow. I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her favorite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone to her color, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of Rubens is yellow and black, and that on this, concentrated in one part of the picture and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally by the great colorists nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples.”“Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is, it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in light and shade; and, were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his forms or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black and white to the end of his life.”[41]

“What I am next about to say with respect to Turner’s color I should wish to be received with caution, as it admitsof dispute. I think that the first approach to viciousness of color in any master is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow. I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues, never, or very rarely, using red without it, but frequently using yellow with scarcely any red; and I believe it will be in consequence found that her favorite opposition, that which generally characterizes and gives tone to her color, is yellow and black, passing, as it retires, into white and blue. It is beyond dispute that the great fundamental opposition of Rubens is yellow and black, and that on this, concentrated in one part of the picture and modified in various grays throughout, chiefly depend the tones of all his finest works. And in Titian, though there is a far greater tendency to the purple than in Rubens, I believe no red is ever mixed with the pure blue, or glazed over it, which has not in it a modifying quantity of yellow. At all events, I am nearly certain that whatever rich and pure purples are introduced locally by the great colorists nothing is so destructive of all fine color as the slightest tendency to purple in general tone; and I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colorists of the present day by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and the intermediate grays, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples.”

“Powerful and captivating and faithful as his color is, it is the least important of all his excellences, because it is the least important feature of nature. He paints in color, but he thinks in light and shade; and, were it necessary, rather than lose one line of his forms or one ray of his sunshine, would, I apprehend, be content to paint in black and white to the end of his life.”[41]

For practical purposes truths of form are more essential than ‘truths’ of color; to mistake the size, shape, solidity, and texture of anything is far more disastrous than to mistake its color. The color-blind get on very well in the world, often without knowing their defect; but a person who was form-blind would not get on at all.

The correct appreciation of form is of such vital importance that two senses are brought to bear,—the sense of touch—the parent sense—as well as the sense of sight; and without the co-operation of the sense of touch, sight would be comparatively helpless in recognizing solidity, texture, contours, etc. In the appreciation of form touch gets on very well without sight, while sight could not get on at all without touch; but, happily, a sense so precious is never completely lost.

Ruskin constantly uses the phrases, “truths of form,” “truths of color,” and it is apparent that by these phrases he really means fidelity to natural effects. With him a drawing, be it of a stone, a leaf, a tree, a mountain, is nottrueunless it corresponds to the thing in nature; nor is a light or a shadow or a colortrueunless it corresponds to the effect in nature.

Now, so far as art is concerned, those so-called “truths” are of the least importance.

Suppose a musician were to talk of “truths of sound,” meaning thereby the more or less faithful imitation of the songs of birds, the rippling of waters, the roll of thunder. Every one wouldknow that his art was of the most primitive character.

“Truths of sound,” in the sense that Ruskin speaks of “truths of form” and “truths of color,” are not tolerated in music. To attain certain effects, dramatic in character, imitations of sounds in nature are sometimes introduced, but sparingly, and unless with great skill the effect is disagreeable to even the uneducated ear, and if pressed too far it becomes grotesque.

One art is like unto another, and what are really “truths” in one are “truths” in another. It is immaterial whether the sense of hearing, sight, or touch is appealed to; it does not matter whether it is a composition of sound, of color, of line, or of form that is under consideration, the fundamental principles of the art are the same; and one of the fundamental propositions is: imitation is fatal to pure art.

It is the business of art to improve on nature, to take the raw materials nature furnishes—her forces, her forms, her lines, her colors, her lights and shadows, her sounds, her odors, her flavors—and produce from them harmonious and agreeable effects unknown to nature.

Whistler has said:

“The imitator is a poor kind of creature. If the man who paints only the tree or flower or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait-painting to put on canvas something morethan the face the model wears for that one day,—to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; in arrangement of colors to treat a flower as his key, not as his model.”[42]

Art begins with “truths,” in the Ruskin sense, and flowers in “harmonies,” in the Whistler sense. It begins with the concrete, with imitation, with fidelity to natural effects, and it develops by a process of abstraction until it attains the chaste perfection of a Greek temple or a Beethoven symphony.

Nature is never left entirely behind, and some arts are more dependent upon her than others; but, generally speaking, the more abstract the art the higher it is; the purer and freer it is from imitation or suggestion of natural effects, the nobler its attainment. Because poetry and music are almost entirely independent of nature and natural effects, do they as arts, from one point of view, outrank sculpture and painting.

Ruskin, of course, was by no means blind to these considerations, and when he talked of “truths of form” and “truths of color” he did not mean literal imitation, but he did mean the fidelity of a draughtsman, of a man whose eye and mind were on the thing or effect before him; and his great work is one long attempt to show that Turner in his brilliant and fanciful compositions was still clinging close tonature, that he painted rocks and trees and clouds and sunlight as they really were, and more beautifully than any man before or since.

All of which goes to show that Turner was not a colorist in the sense Whistler was.

The one used color as a means, the other as an end. To the one color, like line, or like black and white, was incidental to his composition—the composition, the conception, the dream, the fancy,—in short, the subject, being all important. To the other harmonies in color was the end in view, almost to the exclusion in some of the nocturnes of line and of form.

To Ruskin, even more than with Turner, color was simply a means to an end,—the more perfect imitation of nature; hence his utter lack of sympathy for Whistler’s work.

To pure color arrangements Ruskin was blind. He demanded a relation and significance beyond the mere color harmony. Lines or waves of color placed side by side arbitrarily, and with no more relation to nature than so many notes of music, had no meaning for him, whereas for Whistler they meant practically all there is to the science and art of color.

To Ruskin the blue hair of a Greek statue would have seemed absurd and childish; to the Greek it would have been simply a color-note in the place where it was needed to perfect the color-scheme.

So utterly wanting is the sense of color-music in the modern world that we like our sculpture ineither ghastly marble, or, still more perversely, with the yellow hues and dirt and dinginess wrought by time and the elements, whereas those who created the greatest sculpture known subdued all garish qualities by the use of gold and bronze and color, not imitatively, but arbitrarily, to please a highly cultivated fancy.

From descriptions of Ruskin’s home, “Brantwood,” it is clear that he had no craving for harmonious effects about him. Discords did not disturb him; he could return with no sensations of discomfort from the keen appreciation of natural beauties to rooms which would be intolerable to any one like Whistler with an instinct for proportion and color.

The house had “a stucco classic portico in the corner, painted and grained and heaped around with lucky horseshoes, highly black-leaded.” The incongruity of the painting and graining—so contrary to all Ruskin’s teachings—and black-leaded horseshoes surprised even his friendly biographer.

His own room “he papered with naturalistic fancies to his own taste,” and on the walls were “a Dürer engraving, some Prouts and Turners, a couple of old Venetian heads, and Meissonier’s ‘Napoleon,’”—a typical collector’s conglomeration.

The walls of the dining-room were painted “duck-egg,” whatever that color may be, and covered with an even more heterogeneous collection of pictures,—“the ‘Doge of Gritta,’ a bit saved from the greatTitian that was burnt in the fire at the Ducal Palace in 1574; a couple of Tintorets; Turner and Reynolds, each painted by himself in youth; Raphael, by a pupil, so it is said; portraits of old Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin and little John and his ‘boo hills.’”

His study was “papered with a pattern specially copied from Marco Marziali’s ‘Circumcision’ in the National Gallery, and hung with Turners.” There was a crimson arm-chair and a “polished-steel fender, very unartistic,” his biographer remarks; “red mahogany furniture, with startling shiny emerald leather chair-cushions; red carpet and green curtains.” This is the sort of room wherein Ruskin worked and wrote. It simply illustrates the truth that it is one thing to write and talk about color and a far different thing to reallyfeelcolor.

It is the custom to call every man who paints in high key or uses brilliant colors a colorist, as Ruskin called Turner and Rubens colorists; but it is not the mere use of color that makes a man a colorist, but the use he makes of it, the object he has in mind in using it.

The mechanical draughtsman and the architect may use on their plans and designs all the known colors, but no one would think of calling either a colorist.

In painting still-life a man may exhaust the palette and yet be no colorist. In painting portraits one man may require his sitters to dress in bright colors,another in sober blacks, grays, or browns, with the result that one set of portraits fairly dazzle the beholder, while the other scarce attracts attention; and yet the former may not be the work of a colorist while the latter may.

The determining factor is the attitude of the painter towards color. If he uses color imitatively, or as incidental to drawing, or as a means to some end other than the production of color harmonies, he is not a colorist; but if his delight is in color, if he uses color for the sake of color, for the sake of charming the eye, as the ear is charmed by music, then he is a colorist.

No hard and fast line of demarcation can be drawn, since every painter is something of a colorist; but between the two extremes of the painter on one hand who uses color imitatively or as incidental to drawing and the colorist who produces and delights in pure color schemes and harmonies there is a wide interval.

Whistler, in his love of color, approached the latter extreme; but it was only when he practised decoration that he could indulge his fancy without limitations. When he brought the Leyland dining-room into harmony with his “Princess of the Land of Porcelain” by the use of blue and gold, line and form—though somewhat apparent—were virtually negligible quantities; and when he arranged the reception-room of the house in Rue du Bac, and his own studio, the only considerations were the color-effects.

In his “White Girl” of 1863 Whistler began in a large way his symphonies in color; and while in pictures like the “Thames in Ice,” “The Music Room,” and “At the Piano” he painted along more conventional lines, these departures were infrequent and in themselves exhibited his predilection for color. It was simply impossible for him to paint any picture without making the color harmony a prime object.

Not long after the “White Girl,” which was “Symphony in White, No. I.,” followed the other experiments in white, known as Symphonies Nos. II. and III.

Then came—the chronological order is not important—the Japanese group, “The Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” “The Gold Screen,” “The Balcony,” the “Lange Leizen,” and others, in which the figures and accessories, though still prominent, were made subordinate to the brilliant color schemes. The compositions were still obvious, but the color incomparably more so.

Then the “Nocturnes,” in which detail and composition were refined away, and little remained but color-effects so exquisite that they seemed, and still seem, beyond the power of brush, and more like some thin glazes and enamels than paintings on canvas.

As music in color the “Nocturnes” and certain of the “Harmonies” and “Symphonies,” wherein detail is as nothing and the color everything, are Whistler’s most exquisite—the word is used advisedly—achievements. Others will equal his portraits before they equal his “Nocturnes.”

As a still further step towards pure color composition he had in mind for years a series of pictures, pure creations of fancy, somewhat suggestive of the Japanese group, but less realistic—just color-music. Happily, the sketches are in existence, and afford some indication of the color-dreams that floated through the great painter’s imagination. They show how musical color is when freed from entangling associations and used broadly and decoratively.

We have, then, the following phases, rather than “periods,” in his mastery of color:

1. That wherein composition and detail predominate, though color is the motive.

2. That wherein composition and detail are still conspicuous, but are subordinate to the color scheme.

3. That wherein composition and detail are practically lost in the effort to produce subtle color harmonies.

4. That wherein the sole object is color-music, quite regardless of other considerations.

This progress from the, so to speak, tentative use of color in connection with more or less conventional composition to the triumph of color and suppression of composition is abundantly illustrated in his works. It would not be difficult to arrange an exhibition of four groups of about three canvases each, which would illustrate each phase. Such anexhibition would do more to enlighten the public regarding his work than any number of exhibitions of a large number of pictures gathered and grouped in the usual way.

Regarding the use of flat tones he is reported to have once said:

“House-painters have the right idea about painting, God bless them.”

How far removed from Ruskin, who said:

“Hence, wherever in a painting we have unvaried color extended even over a small space, there is falsehood. Nothing can be natural which is monotonous; nothing true which only tells one story.”

To Ruskin nature was all in all; to Whistler color was of first consideration. The one looked at color to find natural effects; the other looked at nature to find color-effects.

Whistler chose intuitively those scenes and those hours of the day when he would be least hampered by rigid requirements of line and form.

He frequently painted the sea under strong light; but under any light water presents itself in broken lines and large masses.

He was a master of line in the high sense that with a few lines he could render not only the character but the characteristics of whatever was before him. He was a master of form,—even as Ruskin uses the term,—since he could, when the conditions required it, express the most subtle contours in terms of light and shade and color; but he caredless for the bald realities of sunlight than for the shadows of dusk and the mysteries of night.

He has himself said:

“The sun blares, the wind blows from the east, the sky is bereft of cloud, and without all is of iron. The windows of the Crystal Palace are seen from all points of London. The holiday-maker rejoices in the glorious day, and the painter turns aside to shut his eyes.“How little this is understood, and how dutifully the casual in nature is accepted as sublime, may be gathered from the unlimited admiration daily produced by a very foolish sunset.“The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The desire to see for the sake of seeing is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified, hence the delight in detail.“And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us,—then the wayfarer hastens home; the working-man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure cease to understand, as they have ceased to see; and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master,—her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her.”[43]

“How little this is understood, and how dutifully the casual in nature is accepted as sublime, may be gathered from the unlimited admiration daily produced by a very foolish sunset.

“The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The desire to see for the sake of seeing is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified, hence the delight in detail.

“And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us,—then the wayfarer hastens home; the working-man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure cease to understand, as they have ceased to see; and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master,—her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her.”[43]

And it was his habit to paint when the studio was filled with gloom and lengthening shadows crept across the floor; when it was so dark the dull eyeof sitter or chance visitor could scarce distinguish the figure on the canvas.

This “painting in the dark,” as some have called it, was a singular trait. He would paint with increasing force and effect as the room became darker and darker, until it seemed as if the falling of night was an inspiration.

Once a sitter asked him how it was possible to paint when it was so dark.

“As the light fades and the shadows deepen all petty and exacting details vanish, everything trivial disappears, and I see things as they are in great strong masses: the buttons are lost, but the garment remains; the garment is lost, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the picture remains. Andthatnight cannot efface from the painter’s imagination.”

People never could understand his attitude towards nature. When he spoke of the “unlimited admiration daily produced by a very foolish sunset,” and how “the dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top,” he at once puzzled and irritated the lay mind, for is not the sunset beautiful? and the traveller on the highest peak of greater interest than the mountain?

When a lady one day rushed up to him and enthusiastically exclaimed:

“Oh, Mr. Whistler, I have just been up the river, and it reminded me so much of your pictures.”

And he replied:

“Indeed! Then, Nature is looking up,”—people resented it as vanity.

But it was not vanity. It was simply his attitude towards nature and art.

If some one had said to Mendelssohn, “I have just been in the woods and heard sounds that were just like some of your “Songs without Words,” Mendelssohn would have been surprised, and might well have replied, “Then, the birds are doing better.”

Concerning nature, Whistler said:

“That nature is always right is an assertion artistically as untrue as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right; to such an extent, even, that it might almost be said that nature is usually wrong. That is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.“This would seem, to even the most intelligent, a doctrine almost blasphemous. So incorporated with our education has the supposed aphorism become, that its belief is held to be part of our moral being; and the words themselves have, in our ear, the ring of religion. Still, seldom does nature succeed in producing a picture.”[44]

“This would seem, to even the most intelligent, a doctrine almost blasphemous. So incorporated with our education has the supposed aphorism become, that its belief is held to be part of our moral being; and the words themselves have, in our ear, the ring of religion. Still, seldom does nature succeed in producing a picture.”[44]

One should never confound art with nature; they are antithetical terms. There is no art in nature; there should be no nature in art. And what is art is not nature, and what is nature is not art.

Nature is the raw material, art is the finished product; and art should no more resemble naturethan a cave resembles a house. And to the extent that art slavishly imitates nature is it of the cave-dwelling variety.

There is no color that is not found in nature. There is no combination of colors a hint of which cannot be found in nature. But it is the business of art to take the colors, accept the hints, and produce combinations and effects not found in nature.

It is not the business of the artist to paint anything as it is, but everything ashesees it.

Yet the public demand that a tree shall be reproduced astheysee it,—that the picture shall be a substitute for the reality. Why not go to the window and look at the tree? For, as atree, with its quivering leaves and the infinite play of light and shadow, it is more beautiful than any realistic photograph, drawing, or painting possibly could be. But to see the reflection of the tree in the depths of a human soul one must turn to art, to poetry, to music, or to painting. The reflection may not at all resemble the reality any more than Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” resembles the bird or the song of the bird; but it will be far more interesting and far more beautiful because a human expression.

The child’s mud-house and the boy’s snow-man are of greater concern to humankind than all the plains and mountains of the earth.

The Royal Society of British Artists—In Paris once more—At Home and at Work.

InJune, 1886, Whistler was elected president of the Royal Society of British Artists.

Prior to that time he had exhibited in the rooms of the society in Suffolk Street, and he was no doubt elected to give life to a moribund association. He succeeded beyond the wildest anticipations of the most sanguine members.

He rearranged the exhibitions by excluding sufficient of the unworthy to leave ample space on the walls for the proper exhibition of such pictures as were accepted.

When the Prince of Wales, now King Edward, visited the galleries for the first time, Whistler, as president, received him. And when the prince said he had never before heard of the society and asked its history, Whistler, with the grace of a courtier, replied:

“It has none, your Highness. Its history dates from to-day.”

Two years of so revolutionary a president were all the ancient association could stand. As has been well said:[45]

“That Suffolk-Street episode was, perhaps, the oddest of an odd career. The most mediocre and middle-class of all the artistic societies of London was in low water, and the thought occurred to some revolutionary members to make Whistler president. It was like electing a sparrow-hawk to rule a community of bats. Some of the bats moved out, some followers of the sparrow-hawk came in; but the interesting new community did not last long. The suburban ladies, who had been the support of the Society of British Artists, were shocked at the changes. They found no pleasure in the awning stretched across the middle of the room, the battened walls, the spaced-out ‘impressionist’ pictures, and the total absence of the anecdotes and bright colors which they loved. A few hundred visitors of another sort came, and were charmed, but the commercial test of success was not satisfied. Before long Whistler ceased to be president, and the society, under a more congruous chief, ‘relapsed to its ancient mood.’”

When he failed of re-election many of his friends resigned.

“It is all very simple,” he said. “The ‘Royal Society of British Artists’ has disintegrated,—the ‘Artists’ have come out, the ‘British’ remain.”

When interviewed to obtain his explanation of the “state of affairs:”

“The state of affairs?” said Mr. Whistler, in his light and airy way, raising his eyebrows and twinkling his eyes, as if it were all the best possible fun in the world; “why, my dear sir, there’s positivelynostate of affairs at all. Contrary to public declaration, there’s actually nothing chaotic in the whole business. On the contrary, everything is in order, and just as it should be,—the survival of the fittest as regards the presidency, don’t you see; and, well—Suffolk Street is itself again! A new government has come in; and, as Itold the members the other night, I congratulate the society on the result of their vote: for no longer can it be said that the right man is in the wrong place. No doubt their pristine sense of undisturbed somnolence will again settle upon them after the exasperated mental condition arising from the unnatural strain recently put upon the old ship. Eh? what? ha! ha!”

He painted a signboard for the entrance to the galleries,—a lion and a butterfly,—a “harmony in gold and red,” with which, he says, “I took as much trouble as I did with the best picture I ever painted.”

But his successor in office clothed the golden lion “with a coat of dirty black,” and effaced the butterfly entirely; whereupon he called the society to task for destroying the work of a fellow-artist, and the entire episode appears in the “Gentle Art” as only he could tell it.

In 1887 he married the widow of E. W. Godwin, the architect of the “White House,” and not long after they went to live in Paris, at 110 Rue du Bac.

The narrow passage-way that leads from the street to where they lived is, like thousands of others in Old Paris, just an archway between two shops, unpromising and uninviting.

Passing through, one finds a small paved court immediately in the rear, and on three sides of this court the entrances and windows of the apartments and houses opening therefrom.

The court itself is not without interest. On oneside there is an old bronze fountain, long since dry; about the walls a sculptured frieze, much the worse for wear; everything of by-gone days,—the very architecture, in all its details, of another generation.

Whistler’s entrance was on the ground floor, just across the little court. On a memorable day the bell was answered by a solemn-faced English servant,—possibly more than ordinarily solemn-faced, because that particular morning he was in great disfavor, and was subsequently discharged for a cumulation of shortcomings which would have exhausted the patience of an ordinary man thrice over. But Whistler—all impressions to the contrary, notwithstanding—was a man of infinite patience with sitter and servant,—the work of the latter being considerably lighter than that of the former. Under only the greatest provocation would he discharge either.

Passing through the door, one went down several steps into the small hall, and through that into the reception-room.

This room was a revelation of the personality of the artist,—simple, dignified, harmonious; it was restful and charming to the last degree. The details were so unobtrusive that it is difficult to recall particular features. The floor was covered with a coarse, dark-blue matting; the panelled walls were in pure white and blue, while the ceiling was in a light shade of blue. The room stood firmly on its feet, unlike so many in even the best of houses, which have floors so light and walls so dark that everything is topsy-turvy.

Color seeks and finds its level; light floors, with darker walls and ceilings, reverse the natural order of things, and compel people to live on their heads.

The few pieces of furniture were of an old pattern, graceful almost to fragility, and covered with some light stuff which harmonized with the tone of the walls.

There were but two pictures in the room, one at each end, both sketches by Whistler, “harmonies” or “arrangements” in color rather than compositions. The “key” being blue, the pictures blended with the walls, as all pictures should, as if part of the original scheme of decoration.

When a visitor, who was fascinated by the color of these two studies, asked the painter if he would part with them, he said:

“God bless me, no! I am going to do something big some day from those. Pretty, eh?”

His studio was filled with just such “notes” and “jottings” of schemes in color and composition, and from each it was his intention to work out something more important and complete; but such was the fertility of his imagination that no man could hope to carry even a fraction to finished conclusions.

Near the fireplace, at one end of the room, was a little old-fashioned table covered with writing-materials,—paper of the smallest size, a dainty ink-stand, and several quill pens. This was the table of controversy, the battlefield of disputation, the veritable mount of irony, while the ink-well wasthe fountain of exquisite sarcasm, and the quill pens the scalpels which laid bare the vital recesses of unlucky opponents.

It was the habit of the painter, in his idle moments, to sit at this little table, with a small cup of coffee and a cigarette, and write those barbed and pointed notes which, like so many banderillas, irritated to frenzy the bulls they were aimed at.

The far side of the room opened into one of those quaint old gardens so often found tucked away in the midst of crumbling buildings on the ancient thoroughfares. Its narrow confines were enlarged to the eye by winding, gravelled walks and vistas of flowers and bushes; the rickety seats, half hidden by the foliage, invited the loiterer to repose, and the high wall beyond suggested the gloomy confines of some convent or deserted monastery.

“A picturesque spot. Once at dusk there came the tinkle of a far-off bell, as if for vesper prayers; the years rolled back, and visions of other days flitted along the garden paths; stately dames in rich brocades, with powder, patch, and high coiffure, and gallant courtiers with graved and jewelled blades, whose whispered vows were no more stable than the sound of rustling leaves.”

Here of a Sunday afternoon Mrs. Whistler frequently served tea, and in this garden he made some of his best lithographs.

At home Whistler was the most delightful of—guests. The cares of hospitality sat lightly upon him.

To the caller who had come at the appointed hour, and had waited for thirty or forty minutes, he would apologize so delightfully for the “unpardonable delay,” that a prince could take no offence, much less an ordinary visitor, who could profitably spend the time in studying the harmonious surroundings.

It is difficult to describe the charm of his manner, so different from the notion of it that prevails generally.

He was far more easy of approach than most celebrities; and once within the charmed circle, he was the most agreeable and companionable of living men.

He would make the diffident feel instantly at ease, and he would exert himself to interest even the stupid visitor, but he would not encourage him to come again.

His own talk was so bright that it was unnecessary for any guest to say much,—a capacity for listening appreciatively being the best qualification. Still, he did not monopolize the conversation. He himself was one of the keenest listeners that ever sat at a dinner-table; nothing escaped him. And if by chance some one said a good thing, he was the first to applaud it.

In company it was impossible to draw him into serious discussion. If the attempt were made, it usually led to a monologue on his part on some branch of the topic under discussion,—a monologue so extravagant, so funny, so irresistible in its humorand denunciation that the entire company would turn and listen with delight.

No one who has ever heard his comparison of the Englishman who carries his tub and sponge on the top of the coach to parade his cleanliness with the French who had vast public baths before England was discovered can ever forget the inimitable wit and humor and—underlying truth of it all. Again, his description of the Germans,—a people that call a glove a hand-shoe. Well, it is idle to even call to mind these things; they will never be heard again, and no report could do them justice.

A lady, after visiting him, said, “He is like no other human being; a creature of moods and epigrams, but perfectly delightful. I feel as if I’d been conversing with a flash of lightning in a brown velvet coat.”

No man could draw him out of malice aforethought. It was fatal to say:

“Mr. Whistler, do tell that story of the——” etc.

Of that sort he was no story-teller at all, and if persistently urged, would close up like a clam; but, if left to himself, he would take part in any conversation that might be started, and would soon take the lead, not obviously or offensively, but naturally, and say things that would make the professed wit dumb with envy. He would say things he had said, or even printed, before, if the subject warranted it. He might even go a bit out of his way to drag in a good thing which he thought would fit; but for themost part his talk was the spontaneous utterance of the occasion.

He was known to every “chef” and “maître d’hôtel” in London and Paris,—for, while he ate and drank most sparingly, he was exceedingly fastidious.

He did not care greatly for the large caravansaries like the “Ritz,” where people go to perform in public astounding gastronomic feats; but he knew every place in Paris where a really good dish was to be had at a moderate price, and every such place gave him the best it had.

Nearly every sketch, drawing, or portrait of Whistler gives some phase of his many-sided personality, but not one—not even those by himself—gives anything like an adequate conception.

He was a man most difficult to place on canvas. He could not be grasped and held long enough. He himself tried it, but with only moderate success. Others have tried it and failed completely,—that is, failed to portray him at his best; for that matter, no one who has ever drawn or painted him did so when he was at his best, for those moments came only in the seclusion of his own studio, when, alone with model or sitter, he worked absolutely oblivious to everything but his art. No man is at his best when posing for photograph, sketch, or portrait, and Whistler was farther from being an exception to this rule than most others. He knew too well what a portrait should be to feel the indifference which is essential to a perfectly natural pose. Consequently,while few men were better known by sight in Paris and London, scarce any one knew him as he was,—the most profoundly serious, conscientious, and consistent artist of his day and generation.

As has been stated, he was always exceedingly particular about his dress,—as finicky as a woman. In his early London days he carried a long, slender wand, like a mahl-stick, for a cane, and was conspicuous wherever he went, not only on account of his diminutive size, but also by his stick and dress.

An attendant at an exhibition once wished to relieve him of his cane, but he exclaimed:

“Oh, no, my man! I keep this for the critics.”

The following, by a London correspondent, is a very good description, though of late years he had abandoned the cane and his hair was somewhat grayer:

“They say Whistler is fifty-six. But years have nothing to do with him. He is as young in spirit, as lithe in body, as dapper in ‘get-up’ as he was twenty years ago.“Is there another man in London with such vitality as Whistler has,—I care not what his age,—another so dainty, another so sprightly in wit? Do you see that dapper gentleman coming along Cheyne Walk, silk hat with very tall crown and very straight brim; habit apparently broadcloth (frock coat), fitting to perfection a supple figure; feet small as a girl’s,—an American girl’s; hands delicately gloved in yellow; in the right hand a lithe, slim wand, twice as long as a walking stick; glass in eye; black moustache and slight ‘imperial;’ black hair with wavy threads of gray here and there? The dainty gentleman lifts his hat, and you see above his forehead the slender, white lock—the white plume as famous asthat of Navarre. This is our friend Whistler, the inimitable, truly called ‘the master.’ You may meet him in the early morning, or at a private view in the afternoon, at an evening party, two hours before midnight or two hours after it; and you will find him as fresh in spirit, as dainty, as lively, as witty at one time as at another.”

“They say Whistler is fifty-six. But years have nothing to do with him. He is as young in spirit, as lithe in body, as dapper in ‘get-up’ as he was twenty years ago.

“Is there another man in London with such vitality as Whistler has,—I care not what his age,—another so dainty, another so sprightly in wit? Do you see that dapper gentleman coming along Cheyne Walk, silk hat with very tall crown and very straight brim; habit apparently broadcloth (frock coat), fitting to perfection a supple figure; feet small as a girl’s,—an American girl’s; hands delicately gloved in yellow; in the right hand a lithe, slim wand, twice as long as a walking stick; glass in eye; black moustache and slight ‘imperial;’ black hair with wavy threads of gray here and there? The dainty gentleman lifts his hat, and you see above his forehead the slender, white lock—the white plume as famous asthat of Navarre. This is our friend Whistler, the inimitable, truly called ‘the master.’ You may meet him in the early morning, or at a private view in the afternoon, at an evening party, two hours before midnight or two hours after it; and you will find him as fresh in spirit, as dainty, as lively, as witty at one time as at another.”

Some one once gave him an American umbrella,—one of those that when rolled tightly are as small as walking-sticks. He was delighted with it, and used it as a cane. One day, coming out of the studio with a friend, and while hurrying to the cab-stand a few blocks away, it began to drizzle, and his friend, who had no umbrella, said:

“Hurry and put up your umbrella or we’ll get our hats wet.”

He fumbled a second at the umbrella, then hurried on.

“But I would get my umbrella wet.”

It was commonly said Whistler was unapproachable. In his studio, when at work, yes; in his home, no.

A note of introduction from any approved correspondent would almost invariably bring a favorable response. But not every correspondent was approved; or if so at one time, did not necessarily remain so indefinitely, and a note from the wrong—perhaps wronged—source was no commendation at all. On the whole, a frank application from a stranger for permission to call was quite as likely as not to prove successful, such a note in itself being a tribute.

But at the studio it was very different. He had no reception-days or hours, as many painters have. He had no use for the social rabble in his workshop.

One warm afternoon, when hard at work, the bell rang. Brush in hand, he went to the outer door at the head of the six flights of steep, slippery oak stairs, and found there Mr. C——, whom he knew,—a man who had little to do but bother others,—and Lady D——, a distinguished and clever woman, both out of breath from their long climb.

“Ah! my dear Mr. Whistler,” drawled C——, “I have taken the liberty of bringing Lady D—— to see you. I knew you would be delighted.”

“Delighted! I’m sure; quite beyond expression; but,”—mysteriously, and holding the door so as to bar their entrance,—“my dear Lady D——, I would never forgive our friend for bringing you up six flights of stairs on so hot a day to visit a studio at one of those—eh—pagan moments when”—and he glanced furtively behind him and still further closed the door—“it is absolutely impossible for a lady to be received. Upon my soul, I should never forgive him.”

And the lady looked daggers at her confused cavalier, as Whistler bowed them down the six flights of oaken stairs and returned to resume work on the portrait of a very sedate old gentleman, who had taken advantage of the interruption to break for a moment the rigor of his pose.

In those days and for many years the Paris studiowas at No. 86 Notre Dame des Champs. Whistler said one day, “Only the French have any taste in the naming of streets.”

The six steep flights of polished oak stairs no doubt shortened his life by many years. As long ago as 1894 he was accustomed to take a long rest on a settee at the head of the third flight, and again on reaching the top. Later he would have his luncheon served in the studio to avoid the fatigue of going down and coming back. He was by no means an old man, and looked the picture of health, cheeks ruddy, eye bright; but he would get out of breath, and his heart gave him trouble,—startled him at times with its eccentricities and warnings.

A blunt friend, frightened at seeing him one day almost collapse on reaching the studio, said:

“I tell you, Whistler, those stairs will be the death of you; and I’ll be hanged if I am coming here any more with you, for you’ll die on my hands, and that would get me into a nice mess. Why don’t you have a studio on the ground floor?”

“When I die—I will.”

But while casual callers met with scant courtesy at the studio, he was, as has already been noted, exceptionally cordial to all who were sincerely interested in his work, and would spend hours and hours of days that were precious in showing pictures to people who really could not understand them,—for that matter, who did understand them?—but who were honest in their expressions of approval,and this, too, with no thought of selling anything he had; in fact, nothing chilled the enthusiasm of the moment so much as the suggestion of a purchase; he became immediately a different being, and one by one his treasures would be turned to the wall.

The studio was a large barn-like room at the very top of the high building. There was a small entryway, which had a glass door opening out upon a balcony, high up over the street, and another door which opened into the studio proper.

A huge skylight lighted this great attic, but only in part, for the room was too big to be well lighted from any one opening.

The old oak floor was quite dark, and in places where he worked it was polished by use, for when entirely absorbed he had the habit of moving back and forth so quickly as to slide a pace or two.

The tone of the studio was brown, not a deep or muddy brown, but a brown that seemed tinged with gray.

The base-board that stretched a narrow line about the big room was a deeper shade than the wall, and so nice were the gradations of tone, that floor, base-board, wall, and raftered ceiling blended together as one harmonious whole, all of which was the work of Whistler.

The furniture amounted to nothing: a table near the far side, where he lunched, an old sofa against the wall under the skylight, two or three old French chairs, his easel and palette. There was a highstove near the door,—one of those French complications intended for the generation of a maximum of heat with a minimum consumption of precious coal. Like most labor-saving devices, it required some skill for its management, and Whistler was not a mechanic.

One cold day it was only too apparent the stove needed encouragement, and the sitter suggested that the damper be opened,—in fact, started to open it himself, when Whistler, greatly alarmed, exclaimed:

“God bless me! but you must not touch that; the last time I meddled with it, the fire went out. There is only one man in Paris who understands that stove.”

“Well, where is he?”

“Dear me, I discharged him to-day. How unlucky.”

“Then, we must seize the stove by the horns and take our chances on the consequences.” And throwing the damper wide open, there was soon a blazing fire.

For work outside, Whistler used a very small palette of the usual form; in his studio he carried no palette whatsoever, but used in lieu thereof a rectangular table that resembled a writing-desk. The top sloped slightly; at the left were tubes of colors, at the right one or two bowls containing oil and turpentine, with which the colors when mixed were reduced so thin that they would run on the sloping top of the table.

He relied upon innumerable coats of thin color to secure the desired effect rather than upon one or two coats of greater consistency. This made the work long and tedious as compared with the modern mode of taking the pigments as they squirm from the tubes and pasting them while yet alive on the canvas; but it has undoubtedly given his pictures a permanency and durability far beyond that of others.

He seldom began to arrange his palette until the model or sitter was in pose; and ten or fifteen minutes were not infrequently spent in getting palette and brushes to suit him. To a model paid by the hour this delay was of no concern, but to the unpractised sitter, whose limit of endurance and patience did not exceed an hour, the time spent in setting the palette seemed unduly long and altogether wasted. But all that was a part of the refinement of Whistler’s art.

So susceptible was his color-sense that he could not mix colors to suit him unless canvas and sitter were before him precisely as they would be when he began to paint. The arrangement of the colors on the palette was but preliminary to placing those same colors on the canvas, therefore the sitter was as essential to the one process as the other.

Once inside his studio, Whistler seemed to lose all the eccentricities of manner by which he was known to the world. He doffed his coat, substituted for his monocle a pair of servicable spectacles, and was ready for work.

If it were a full-length portrait, he placed the canvas near his palette and his sitter in pose about four feet to the other side of the easel. For observation he stood about twelve feet back towards the doorway,—very close, in fact, to the refractory stove. The light fell slanting on the right of the portrait and sitter, over the painter’s left shoulder, and this light he would modify each day according to the amount of sunshine and the effect he desired.

He then selected two or three small brushes with handles about three feet in length, stood back about twelve feet, took a good look at both sitter and canvas, then stepping quickly forward, and, standing as far from the canvas as the long handles and his arms permitted, he began to rapidly sketch in the figure with long, firm strokes of the brush. The advantage of long handles was obvious,—they enabled him to stand back quite a distance and sketch directly from his sitter. Except for this first sketch, he used ordinary brushes with ordinary handles.

There was nothing eccentric or unusual in his methods or in what he worked with. Probably no painter in all Paris used simpler means to arrive at great results. It is quite likely that no other painter of to-day—judging entirely from appearances of modern canvases—could achieve any satisfactory results with materials so elemental.

To make the sketch required possibly thirty minutes. To the casual observer there was often more of a likeness in the first sketch than at any timeafter,—which simply goes to show the power of line devoid of color and also the easy task of the caricaturist.

The sketch finished, the long-handled brushes were discarded and work began in earnest. With one or more, sometimes a handful of brushes,—for they would accumulate without his realizing it,—he would again stand back and carefully scrutinize sitter and canvas until it seemed as if—and no doubt it was so—he transferred a visual impression of the subject to the canvas and fixed it there ready to be made permanent with line and color; then quickly, often with a run and a slide, he rushed up to the canvas and, without glancing at his sitter, vigorously painted so long as his visual image lasted, then going back the full distance he took another look, and so on day after day to the end.

In life-size work he seldom stood close to the canvas and painted direct from his sitter.

He has laid down the proposition:

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