  Although remarkably sure, efficient and successful in various branches of art, Whistler has to be ranked primarily as a figure painter. In these efforts centre his greatness. He is, however, only a figure painter in a modified sense. We look in vain for large and elaborate compositions. He achieved his fame as a portrait and single figure painter. It is strange that a man who had the science of painting at his finger ends should limit himself to single figures. Perhaps he knew his limitations, or, the limitation of his peculiar view-point as to what painting should be and could accomplish. Possibly he went too far in his elimination. Who can say? An artist must be true to his own convictions, and the public and critics must accept, and, in time, learn to appreciate them. Analysis of an artist's work is interesting only as far as it helps one to find the right view-point for contemplation. Whistler, of course, had no use for ordinary portraiture, as it has been practised for centuries. He felt, no doubt, that the time for idealization as well as realistic interpretation of likenesses had passed. No painter can surpass Van Dyke in the elegant delineation of men and women, or Franz Hals in the representation of instantaneous expression. Whistler wanted a characteristic attitude that expressed in a simple pose or movement an entire personality. But the purely technical problem fascinated him even more, to express himself forcefully in black and dull colours, to paint broadly and yet so delicately that no brushwork became visible, and to create the illusion of atmosphere and space around the human form. His first picture of importance (started in 1859), "At the Piano," was also the first true Whistler, not only the Whistler we admire and cherish to-day but the Whistler who has exercised an influence on modern painting and who will live as one of the prominent figures in the history of art. I have rarely seen a modern interior treated with more charm and simplicity. A woman, apparently Lady Haden, in a quaint black old-fashioned gown, is seated at the piano, from which she seems to elicit some vague melancholy chords, while a little AT THE PIANO. In his earlier career Whistler occasionally made use of more elaborate accessories, as in his "Little White Girl," "The Princess of the Porcelain Land," and the "Woman in White." The latter I consider one of his weakest compositions. The figure is rather stiff and too high up in the picture. The carpeted floor looks as though it were sloping. The bottom of the dress is too distinct. The Whistler developed slowly. Only gradually he learned to avoid detail as much as possible, and only occasionally accentuated it here and there, as a note of contrast to the larger planes. The years 1870-90 were the most active and important years of his career. Nearly all his portraits, those of Frederick Leyland, Florence Leyland, Miss Alexander, Rose Corder, Sarasate, Sir Henry Irving as Philip II, The Fur Jacket, Lady Archibald Campbell, The Artist's Mother, Carlyle, Theodore Duret, Mme. Cassatt, Mrs. Huth, Lady Meux, etc., were painted in that period. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York All these later pictures were painted under the ban of Velasquez. In Whistler's paintings Velasquez's art was revived and rejuvenated. He repeats the same inspirations but in an etherealized, modernized and individualized manner. Whistler was triumphantly himself. There is much conjecture as to how Whistler acquired his knowledge of Velasquez. Joseph Pennell claims that Whistler never went to the Prado in Madrid. Duret tells us, that during a trip to Spain in 1882, he intended to go to Madrid, but on the way was fascinated by the scenery around Guethary (north of Biarritz) to such an extent that he prolonged his stay until it was time to return, without having crossed the Pyrenees. Others, with a quizzical mien, say that he might have gone without letting anybody know of it. It is hardly credible that he did not see the "Dwarfs," the "Spinners," the "Mercury and Argus," the "Maria Theresa," "La Meninas," "Æsop," the "Menippus" and the "Surrender of Breda." However it really matters little. He had seen the portraits of the Hermitage at an early age, and was thoroughly acquainted with the various portraits of Philip II at the London National Gallery. In this age of handbooks one can study Gozzoli in a New York garret. Of course a trip to Florence might prove profitable, but the right man, with the proper amount of imagination, knows no obstacle. His intuition will help him to get thoroughly imbued with any subject he is bent upon knowing. The portraits are all single figure studies, with a plain or simple background. They do nothing. They merely convey the charm of a personality as seen in an arrangement of colour. Whistler was a keen observer of facial expression and gesticulation and still more so of that other no less telling kind of expression, which depends upon our general bearing, and upon the way we move our limbs and body while we are trying to convey our thoughts and intentions to our neighbours. But this was not the principal theme, as it is of so many portrait painters. To him the very soul of art was elimination: to leave out all that could be left out. He realized that he could not proceed in the elimination process as gaily and liberally as in his nocturnes. He needed a more convincing sense of form, a certain regard for detail—no matter how broadly rendered—and a feeling for accurate line. This fragmentary representation of a human being requires the keenest artistic feeling, to know exactly when one has to stop in the process of reducing the multiplicity of nature to simple forms, of discarding superficial traits of the figure and retaining only the essential ones. For elimination is only half the game; selection makes up the rest. The sureness with which Whistler stops just upon the bor Whistler's portraiture may be summed up as a never-ceasing study to express a human personality in the subtlest way imaginable. At bottom of all that he creates, there lies the desire to make his figures betray their character, emotions, and their whole personality by means of a tonal vision. In the portrait of Frederick Leyland, the "Medici of Liverpool" (painted 1873), Whistler, for the first time, introduced the plain background without accessories, endeavouring to subordinate it to the figure. In the portrait the figure occupies the entire length of the canvas, and yet is enveloped in atmosphere. I believe this is largely due to the vagueness of outline and the accentuation of the principal points of the human form by touches of light, as the headlights on the silver buckle of the shoe, the hand on the hip and the gray overcoat over the left arm. The blacks in this picture have a marvellous quality. The painting of a black evening suit against a pitch black background is one of the masterpieces of modern technique, over which future The same problem occupied him for years. He succeeded much better in the "Rose Corder" and "The Fur Jacket;" and in the "Lady Archibald Campbell," also called the "Yellow Buskin," he actually solved the problem. The picture is at the Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia, and everybody who has seen it will realize, or feel, at least, that the figure is represented as if actually moving in space. Most of his pictures were painted in ordinary rooms, without a top light, partly, no doubt, because he wanted to paint his sitters under natural, not artificial conditions. Also the "Rose Corder" portrait, painted in 1876, carries out this sensation. This portrait, which was purchased by Richard A. Canfield from its former owner, Graham Robertson, is entitled "An Arrangement in Black and Brown." The differentiation of brown in the hair, fur, felt hat, feather and floor are so subtle and beautiful, that it would be almost impossible to go any further in the exploita Owned by Richard A. Canfield The "Florence Leyland" portrait, painted in 1873—at The Brooklyn Museum of Art and Sciences,—is also much liked by painters. It always seemed to me a trifle dismal in tone. The greys have a muddy look and the background is too black and opaque. It is a study in greys and blacks. The dress, the floor, and the feather of the hat are grey. The hat itself, the gloves and the bow are black. Even the handkerchief and the white ruffles that fall over the gloves are grey. The design is ele Whistler's unusually low key in the majority of his portraits strikes us as peculiar, even to this day. There are no gold, rose and mauve flesh tints of a Titian to be found on his canvases. "There is no bloom of flesh which emulates the gleam of a pearl or the luminous grain of a camelia." But the fault-finding is largely the effect of our being accustomed to high-keyed portraiture. Whistler explained this, in his drastic manner, in an article in the London World, July, 1886, which we quote in full: "The notion that I paint flesh lower in tone than it is in nature is entirely based upon the popular superstition as to what flesh really is—when seen on canvas; for the people never look at nature with any sense of pictorial appearance—for which reason—by the way—they also never look at a picture with any sense of nature, but unconsciously from habit, with reference to what they see in other pictures. "Now in the usual 'picture of the year' there is but one flesh that should do service under all circumstances, whether the person painted be in the soft light of the room or in the glare of the open. The one aim of this unsuspecting painter is to make his man stand out from the frame—never doubting that on the contrary, he should really, and in truth absolutely does, stand within the frame—and at a depth behind it equal to the distance at which the painter sees his model, and nothing could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to thrust the model on the hitherside of this window. Lights have been heightened, until the white of the tube alone remains—shadows have been deepened until black alone is left. Scarcely a feature stays in its place, so fierce is its intention of 'firmly' coming forth; and in the midst of this unseemly struggle for prominence, the gentle truth has but a sorry chance, falling flat and flavourless and without force. Whereas, could the people be induced to turn their eyes but for a moment, with the fresh power of comparison, upon their fellow creatures as they pass in the gallery, they might be made dimly to perceive, though I doubt it, so blind is their belief in the bad, how little they resemble the impudent images on the People on the whole prefer brightness to Æsthetic gloom, and refuse to accept the unadulterated truth. "A beautiful picture! But I would not like to see my wife or mother painted that way," is the general verdict at a Whistler exhibition. And it includes people who should know better. Do not even learned critics excuse the low-keyed, ash grey tints of Velasquez faces by asserting that he wished to symbolize the doom of Spanish feudalism by their paleness? Ridiculous! A proud Spanish cavalier himself, such a thought would never have entered his head. He painted them with a bloodless enervated complexion, because they had that kind of complexion and because he, as a realistic painter, objected to any idealizing process. It can, however, be safely stated that Whistler frequently went too far in his search for dark tonalities. But there was a reason for it. No primary colour is agreeable with black. If black is the favourite colour he must exclude yellow, red, and blue or paint them ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE: LADY MEUX (NO. 1). The most suitable colours for a combination with black are the neutral colours, like grey and brown, or delicate tints, like pink and olive, russet and citrine. At these conclusions every student of the harmony and contrasts of colour must naturally arrive. And Whistler conquered his knowledge by actual experiments. It was no whim. As long as he favoured black he could not change his colour schemes. His colouring had to be kept cool and the few tones of luminous colours that he introduced had to be broken and neutralized. The scientific facts underlying his colour moods should answer all futile questions of why he selected such deep and sombre colour combinations. We all realize that he is no colourist in the sense of Memling, Pinturicchio, Titian, Rubens, Fragonard, Dela I say Impressionist, because an Impressionist's canvas can be deprived of colour (and how many are) as much as any black-in-black arrangement of a Tissot or Ribot. The high key does not save a picture from being colourless. Colour means the full use of the palette, green, blue, red, and yellow, on one canvas as distinct sensations and not modified into a general tint. The majority of Impressionists are tonalists not colourists. Franz Hals and Velasquez were fond of black and greys but rarely lacked the sense of conveying a delicate colour impression. Whistler, who, in his portraits is a great tonalist but never a colourist, displays the same faculty in his best work, but in some instances his subtle touch seems to have forsaken, him, and the result was a dull tonality as in his "Florence Leyland." A similar colour scheme but of great charm is represented in "La Belle AmÉricaine" (the only picture that in subject matter bears any relation to America). The grey tight-fitting gown and the black boa around the neck in conjunction with the assertive and yet so nonchalant pose have a singular charm. As soon as the outlines of a figure are too much oblit Having painted only single figures, it has been doubted whether he had any extensive knowledge of figure composition. This seems to be a futile question. It is my contention that he limited himself to one figure representation, because he knew all about "Old Master" composition. He wanted one big total effect and did not see how it could have been reached, or had been ever reached by anybody except by one single figure. He had nothing in common with the representation of history, legend or myth and much less of genre, realism of the gutter, or descriptive painting. He wanted to represent modern men and women in the costume of to-day. So he chose the single standing or And how he controlled the various forms of representation. He invariably chose the most favourable position. A standing figure offers the widest scope of characterization when shown in a full front view. Nearly all his men, Sarasate, Duret, and Irving are drawn in that position. But a seated figure is shown to the best advantage in a clear profile, every student of composition must arrive at the conclusion, and there was nothing else to do but to paint his "Mother" and "Carlyle" in that attitude. Women on the other hand are more picturesque in outline, also look well, stand Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia The portraits of Miss Cecily Henrietta Alexander (painted in 1872), and Mr. Theodore Duret (painted in 1883), show perhaps in the clearest way that he always worked on the same problem. They are, one may say, the uniting link between the Japanese period and the "Carlyle" and "The Artist's Mother," his most finished and perfect work. They have more colour and grace than most of his pictures, and show the figures with some accessories. Both linger in one's mind as a vision of select refinement. Little Miss Alexander, with her plumed hat in her hand and her white dress relieved by grey and black accents against a general background, depicts a "pose" such as the painter The Duret on the other hand shows superior characterization. It may be because the figure is more clearly silhouetted, the outlines of the gaunt figure are as plain as they can be. The painter tried to brighten up the black suit problem with a light background and pink domino. The strange combination of an awkward shape, with almost a touch of brutality in its make-up, and the gay insignia of an opera ball, the domino and red fan, arouse a feeling of grotesque drollery, and yet it is all so forbiddingly proud that one is strongly fascinated by the canvas. One of the most important portraits that compete with the Leyland, Duret and Miss Alexander is the "Arrangement in Black:—Portrait of the Senor Pablo de Sarasate," painted about 1884. Here we have the true Whistler atmosphere, the blurred contour of the violinist's figure, which melts into the background without losing the form, the elimination of all unnecessary details and accessories, and the concentration of light on the face, shirt-front, hands and cuffs. It is astonishing how few bright planes there are in most of Whistler's portraits. In the "Sarasate" the lighted planes scarcely occupy one-thirtieth part of the picture. The rest is all darkness, except the vague shimmer on the floor, suggesting the footlight on the platform of a concert hall. The light floor is one of the leading characteristics of his single standing figures. It helps to suggest space. There is depth in the background; it is not opaque like most backgrounds but vibrant with subtle differentiations of values. The figure is standing in space. One might think at first that this is brought about by the smallness of the figure. Joseph Pennell says that "what Whistler was trying to do was to paint the man on a shadowy concert platform as the audience saw The figure always seemed to me a trifle small. I personally prefer the Leyland size, as it is more dignified. It does not seem logical to sacrifice beauty and breadth to a mere illusion. The whole tonal school and pictorial photography in particular have been influenced by the "Pablo Sarasate," now at the Carnegie Art Institute, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It gives unparalleled joy to the followers of dark tonalities. As usual the imi For what is most to be admired technically in Whistler is the frugality, the thinness of his brush work, that, despite the low pitch and flatness of its colour tints, reveals an astounding variety, subtlety and virility, a vibrancy that seems to radiate from the canvas. For unobtrusiveness of paint Whistler has few rivals. In comparison with him Monet seems a plebeian and Sargent a sleight of hand performer. He combines the fanaticism of a perfect technique with the search for truth and a desire to create new sensations, and expresses our breathless modern life, with all its intricate moods. His art revels in the realms of imagination unknown to Manet's realism, and Zorn's and Sargent's pyrotechnical displays of technique look barbarous in comparison to Whistler's smooth, fluid, unerring brushwork, which masters all the optical illusions of this world with wizard-like dexterity. He created a style for himself, and his space and colour arrangements have exerted a deep and lasting influence on modern painting. Whether he is as great a painter as some critics make him—whether he is as "big" as Franz Hals, for instance, is still a matter of The portrait of the Æsthete, Count Robert de Montesquiou de Fezensac, who honoured this shore with a visit (painted in 1890-91), was one of the last pictures of this series. Whistler undertook several portraits of this peculiar, high-strung personality but finished only one. He explained "that it was impossible to produce the same masterpiece twice over—as difficult as for a hen to lay the same egg over twice." The pose is one of hauteur as be Owned by Richard A. Canfield In his two, perhaps, most important pictures, which are generally conceded to be his masterpieces, his "Carlyle" and "The Artist's Mother," both arrangements in black and grey, the painter is a trifle more precise in line. He depicted, as background, actual walls of a room and made an unusual excursion to the domain of space arrangement. Had he at the time arrived at the conclusion that a deep sentiment, no matter how vague, as that of a great philosopher and an adorable woman, can The "Carlyle" was exhibited as early as 1877, and purchased after many weary negotiations by the Glasgow City Gallery in 1891. It is a masterpiece of characterization, of tone and space composition. It is a most formidable object lesson to any portraitist. Notice how purely simple and well balanced the composition of "Carlyle" is, how all the details of dress have been eliminated, how the outline has been accentuated against the background, how naturally the figure is seated, and how well it has been placed in space. There is an atmosphere around the figure. One feels that the person is seated in a room. City Art Gallery, Glasgow The same can be said of the composition in the portrait of "The Artist's Mother," at the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris. It was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. In the season of 1882 it appeared in America, and then was shown at the Paris Salon in 1888. It was also seen in Munich, and was finally purchased by the French Government in 1891. The simple pose, the delicate way of handling detail in the lace cap and the hands, the masterly space arrangement, produced largely by the rectangular curtain and the silhouette of the figure, the fine sense of values, and the It is not the technique, however, which principally interests us in the picture. Just as in his "Sarasate," Whistler attempted in his "Mother" to give us the whole atmosphere that surrounds a personality. Old Mrs. Whistler was a stern Presbyterian and her religious views must have been trying to her son. Yet "Jimmy," though he used to give a queer smile when he mentioned them, never in any way complained of the old lady's strict Sabbatarian notions, to which he bowed without remonstrance. This differentiation of character between mother and son explains much of the rigid Quaker-like and yet so sympathetic pose of the picture. The artist does not merely represent his old mother. He endowed the old woman, sitting pensively in a grey interior, with one of the noblest and mightiest emotions the human soul is capable of—the reverence and calm we feel in the presence of our own aging mother. And Luxembourg Gallery, Paris |
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