time we heard Whistler complain of the heat, in which, as a rule, he
revelled, though he dressed for it at dinner in white duck trousers
and waistcoat with his dinner-jacket, and in the street exchanged his
silk hat for a wide-brimmed soft grey felt, or a "dandy" straw. He was
restless, anxious to stay in his studio, but, for the sake of Miss
Birnie Philip and her mother, anxious to go to the country or by the
sea. Looking from our windows, he would say that, with the river there
and the Embankment Gardens gay with music and people, we were in no
need to leave town, and we were sure he envied us. One day he went to
Amersham, near London, with the idea of staying there and painting two
landscapes somebody wanted. Mr. Wimbush took him.
"You know, really, I can't say that, towards twilight, it is not pretty
in a curious way, but not really pretty after all--it's all country,
and the country is detestable."
Eventually he took a house at Sutton, near Dublin, persuaded Mrs. and
Miss Birnie Philip to go there, and then promptly left with Mr. Elwell
for Holland. He told Mr. Sidney Starr once that only one landscape
interested him, the landscape of London. But he made an exception of
Holland. When he was reminded that there is no country there, he said
to us:
"That's just why I like it--no great, full-blown, shapeless trees as
in England, but everything neat and trim, and the trunks of the trees
painted white, and the cows wear quilts, and it is all arranged and
charming. And look at the skies! They talk about the blue skies of
Italy; the skies of Italy are not blue, they are black. You do not
see blue skies except in Holland and here, where you get great white
clouds, and then the spaces between are blue! And in Holland there is
atmosphere, and that means mystery. There is mystery here, too, and the
people don't want it. What they like is when the east wind blows, when
you can look across the river and count the wires in the canary bird's
cage on the other side."
He stayed a week at Domburg, a small seashore village near Middelburg.
With its little red roofs nestling among the sand-dunes and its wide
beach under the skies he loved, he thought it enchanting, and made a
few water-colours which he showed us afterwards in the studio. The
place, he said, was not yet exploited, and at Madame Elout's he found
good wine and a Dordrecht banker who talked of the Boers and assured
him they were all right, the Dutch would see to that. A visit to
Ireland followed. He went full of expectations, for as the descendant
of the Irish Whistlers he called himself an Irishman. We have a note
of his stay there from the late Sir William Armstrong, Director of the
National Gallery of Ireland: "He took a house, 'Craigie' the name
of it, at Sutton, six miles from Dublin, on the spit of sand which
connects the Hill of Howth with the mainland (as the Neutral Ground
unites 'Gib.' with Spain) on the north side of Dublin Bay. There he
excited the curiosity of the natives by at once papering up the windows
on the north side of the house, for half their height, with brown
paper. He came to dinner with me one night, stipulating that he should
be allowed to depart at 9.30, as he was such an early goer to bed. We
dined accordingly at 7, and his Jehu, with the only closed fly the
northern half of County Dublin could supply, was punctually at the door
at the hour named. There he had to wait for three hours, for it was
not until 12.30 that the delightful flow of Whistler's eloquence came
to an end, and that he extracted himself from the deep arm-chair which
had been his pulpit for four hours and a half. His talk had been great,
and we had confined ourselves to little exclamatory appreciations and
gazes of rapt adoration! I spent an hour or two with him in the Irish
National Gallery. I found him there lying on the handrail before a
sketch of Hogarth (George II. and his family) and declaring it was
the most beautiful picture in the world. The only other remark on any
particular picture which I can now recall is his saying of my own
portrait by Walter Osborne, 'It has a _skin_, it has a _skin_!' He
soon grew tired of Sutton and Ireland, and when I called at Craigie a
few days after the dinner he had flown. He did not forget to send a
graceful word to my wife, signed with his name and Butterfly."
He did little work during his visit. The house was on the wrong side of
the bay, the weather was wretched, but Chester, on the way home, was
"charming and full of possibilities."
In September the frequent meetings were continued. The talk drifting
here and there, touched upon many subjects belonging to no particular
period, but characteristic of his moods and memories. Thus, one
evening, when Mr. W. B. Blaikie was with us and the talk turned to
Scotland, Whistler told stories of Carlyle. Allingham, he said, was
for a time by way of being Carlyle's Boswell and was always at his
heels. They were walking in the Embankment Gardens at Chelsea, when
Carlyle stopped suddenly: "Have a care, mon, have a care, for ye have
a tur-r-ruble faculty for developing into a bore!" Carlyle had been
reading about Michael Angelo with some idea of writing his life or
an essay, but it was Michael Angelo, the engineer, who interested
him. Another day, walking with Allingham, they passed South Kensington
Museum. "You had better go in," Allingham said. "Why, mon, only fools
go in there." Allingham explained that he would find sculpture by
Michael Angelo, and he should know something of the artist's work
before writing his life. "No," said Carlyle, "we need only glance at
that."
Whistler's talk of Howell and Tudor House overflowed with anecdotes of
the adventurer, for whom he retained a tender regret, and the group
gathered about Rossetti. He accounted for Howell's downfall by a last
stroke of inventiveness when he procured rare, priceless black pots for
a patron who later discovered rows of the same pots in an Oxford Street
shop. Whistler had a special liking for the story of Rossetti dining at
Lindsey Row, at the height of the blue and white craze, and becoming so
excited when his fish was served on a plate he had never seen before
that he forgot the fish and turned it over, fish and all, to look at
the mark on the back. Another memory was of a dinner at Mr. Ionides',
with Rossetti a pagan, Sir Richard Burton a Mohammedan, Lady Burton a
Catholic. They fell into a hot argument over religion, but Whistler
said nothing. Lady Burton, who was in a state of exaltation, could not
stand his silence: "And what are you, Mr. Whistler?" "I, madam," he
answered, "why, I am an amateur!" He spent many evenings drawing upon
his memory of the "droll" and "joyous" things of the past. But the past
brought him back with redoubled interest to the present, in which so
much waited to be done.
In October we began to notice a change, and we knew that when he
worried there was cause. He was called to Paris once or twice about
the school and his "_châteaux_ and _pieds-à-terre_." After one of
these journeys he was laid up with a severe cold at Mr. Heinemann's.
In November he was in bed for many days at Garlant's. He had other
worries. British critics conspired either to ignore his success at
the Paris Exhibition, or account for it sneeringly or lyingly. He was
irritated when he read an article on the Exhibition, signed D. S. M.,
in the _Saturday Review_ devoted altogether, he told us, to Manet and
Fantin, with only a passing reference to himself:
"Manet did very good work, of course, but then Manet was always
_l'écolier_--the student with a certain sense of things in paint, and
that is all!--he never understood that art is a positive science, one
step in it leading to another. He painted, you know, in _la manière
noire_, the dark pictures that look very well when you come to them at
Durand-Ruel's, after wandering through rooms of screaming blues and
violets and greens, but he was so little in earnest that midway in
his career he took to the blues and violets and greens himself. You
know, it is the trouble with so many; they paint in one way--brilliant
colour, say--they see something, like Ribot, and, dear me, they think,
we had better try to do this too, and they do and, well, really, you
know, in the end they do nothing for themselves!"
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MRS. WALTER SICKERT
In the possession of Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MISS WOAKES
In the possession of Messrs. Knvedler & Co.
(_See page 360_)]
He was furious with the critic who stated that
his medal was awarded for _The Little White Girl_. The statement was
offensive because, he said, "the critics are always passing over recent
work for early masterpieces, though all are masterpieces; there is
no better, no worse; the work has always gone on, it has grown, not
changed, and the pictures I am painting now are full of qualities they
cannot understand to-day any better than they understood _The Little
White Girl_ at the time it was painted."
This was an argument he often used. A few evenings after, he told a
man, who suggested that Millet's later work was not so good because he
was married and had to make both ends meet, "You're wrong. An artist's
work is never better, never worse; it must be always good, in the end
as in the beginning, if he is an artist, if it is in him to do anything
at all. He would not be influenced by the chance of a wife or anything
of that kind. He is always the artist."
He was annoyed because critics could not see a truth which to him was
simple and obvious. His annoyance culminated when the _Magazine of Art_
not only said the _Grand Prix_ was awarded for _The Little White Girl_,
but protested against the award, because the picture was painted before
the ten years' limit imposed by the French authorities, a protest
printed in other papers. Whistler could not bear this in silence,
for it looked like an effort to deprive him of his first high award
from a Paris Exhibition. The attack was disgraceful. Whistler's two
other pictures were his most recent, and, as we have said, _The Little
White Girl_ was specially invited. As soon as he was well enough, he
came to us several times, with Mr. William Webb, his solicitor, to
talk the affair over. As a result, an apology was demanded, and made.
This belittling of certain pictures in favour of others, with its
inevitable inference, offended him, in the end as in the beginning. Mr.
Sargent writes us an instance of his manner of carrying off the offence
before the world. Somebody brought him a commission for a painting,
stipulating that it should be "a serious work." Whistler's answer was
that he "could not break with the traditions of a lifetime."
Another worry he should have been spared was a dispute with one of
the tenants at the Rue du Bac, a trivial matter which, in his nervous
state, loomed large and made him unnecessarily miserable. The carpets
of the lady on the floor above him were shaken out of her windows into
his garden, and it could not be stopped. He tried the law, but was told
he must have disinterested witnesses outside the family. If he engaged
a detective, a month might pass before she would do it again. But it
chanced that, while beating a carpet, it fell into his garden, and his
servants refused to give it up. The lady went to law and his lawyer
advised him to return the carpet. It depressed him hopelessly, and as
he had long ceased to live in the Rue du Bac, we could not understand
why he should have heard of so petty a domestic squabble.
Ill and worried as he was, our work at intervals came to a standstill.
When he felt better and stronger the talks went on, but at moments he
seemed almost to fear that the book would prove an obituary. Once he
said to us that we "wanted to make an Old Master of me before my time,"
and we had too much respect and affection for him to add to his worries
by our importunity. With the late autumn his weakness developed into
serious illness. By the middle of November he was extremely anxious
about himself, for his cough would not go. The doctor's diagnosis, he
said, was "lowered in tone: probably the result of living in the midst
of English pictures." A sea journey was advised, and Tangier suggested
for the winter. When he was with us he could not conceal his anxiety.
If he sneezed, he hurried away. He fell asleep before dinner was over;
sometimes he could hardly keep awake through the evening. Once or twice
he seemed to be more than asleep, when there was nothing to do but to
rouse him, which was not easy, and we were extremely frightened until
we could, and, indeed, until J. got him back to Garlant's. He would
never trust himself to the night air until Augustine had mixed him a
hot "grog." Tangier did not appeal to him, and he asked J. to go with
him to Gibraltar, stay a while at Malaga, and then come back by Madrid
to see at last the pictures he had always wanted to see. He was hurt
when J.'s work made it impossible for him to leave London.
In December Whistler gave up the struggle to brave the London winter,
and decided to sail for Gibraltar, on the way to Tangier and Algiers,
with Mr. Birnie Philip, his brother-in-law, to take care of him. Sir
Thomas Sutherland, Chairman of the P. & O. Company, arranged for every
comfort on the voyage. But, as usual, there were complications at the
last moment--as usual, the fearful trouble of getting off from his
studio. Everybody was pressed into his service and kept busy, all the
waiters in the hotel were in attendance. The day before he was to start
he discovered that his etching plates needed to be regrounded and he
sent them to J., who agreed to do what he could at such short notice,
but warned him that there was not time to ground the plates properly
and that very likely they would be spoiled. Whistler sent for them in
the evening and, instead of leaving them out to dry until the morning,
wrapped them up and packed them among the linen in his trunk. It was
extraordinary that a man so careful about his work should always have
wanted somebody else to ground his plates or prepare his canvases, or
do something as important, that he should have done for himself, and
that oftener than not he should have wanted it, as on this occasion, at
the last moment. However, with the help of his friends and the waiters
and his family, he was got ready in time, and on December 14 he started
for the South.
CHAPTER XLVI: IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. THE YEARS NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE
AND NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO.
As soon as Whistler got away from London he was unhappy. At Tangier
the wind was icy, at Algiers it rained, and everywhere when it was
clear the sky was "hard" and the sea was "black." Snow was falling at
Marseilles, and he was kept in his room for a couple of weeks, so ill
he had to send for a doctor, and he was only comforted when he found
the doctor delightful. Corsica was recommended and, as "Napoleon's
Island," attracted Whistler. When he was well enough Mr. Birnie Philip
left him, and he sailed alone for Ajaccio. Here he stayed at the Hôtel
Schweizerhof. The weather at first was abominable, so cold and the
wind so treacherous that he could not work out of doors, and he felt
his loneliness acutely. Fortunately he made a friend of the Curator
of the Museum, and Mr. Heinemann joined him for a time. They loitered
about together in the quaint little town, went to see the house where
Napoleon was born--"a great experience"--spent many rainy hours in the
_café_ where Mr. Heinemann taught him to play dominoes, a resource not
only then but the rest of his life. They played for the price of their
coffee, and Whistler cheated with a brilliancy that made him easily a
winner, but that horrified a German who sometimes took a hand, though
the _naïveté_ of Whistler's "system" could not have deceived a child.
He was by no means idle, and he brought back a series of exquisite pen
and pencil drawings begun at Tangier. A few water-colours were made,
and when the weather gave him a chance he worked on his copper-plates.
He bit one or two that J. had grounded in London, and the ground came
off. He did not know how, or did not have the courage to prevent it.
We can only wonder again that a man who made such wonderful plates did
not know what to do, or did not dare do it, in difficulties of this
sort, preferring to rely upon somebody else. He had drawn on some of
the other plates before he began to bite any of them, and he may have
done more than have as yet been seen. In Mr. Howard Mansfield's and
the Grolier catalogues only one plate in Corsica is recorded, in both
called _The Bohemians_. But as J. grounded ten or a dozen for Whistler,
and as he spoke to us of more than once bitten, it is probable that the
plates exist. "All my dainty work lost," he wrote to us from Corsica,
and it looked as if the shadow had fallen upon our friendship. But he
understood, and the shadow passed as quickly as it came. There were
other schemes. One day, after his return, he told Mr. Clifford Addams
that he had seen a great black-bearded shepherd, on a horse, carrying a
long pole, coming down a hill-side, of whom he wanted to make a large
equestrian portrait. But he never started it. He felt he was not able.
The closing of the school in Paris occupied and worried him, and he
was arranging for a show of pastels and prints at the Luxembourg. One
pleasure, of which he wrote to us, came from "new honours" in Dresden,
where he was awarded a gold medal and elected "unanimously to the
_Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts_." He was more tired than he admitted
in his letters, dwelling little on his fatigue, and insisting that the
doctor in Marseilles found nothing was the matter with him. But he was
never strong after the autumn of 1900, and earlier than this the doctor
in London warned his friends that he was failing.
He was more hopeful because at Ajaccio he said he had discovered what
was the matter with him:
"At first, though I got through little, I never went out without a
sketch-book or an etching-plate. I was always meaning to work, always
thinking I must. Then the Curator offered me the use of his studio.
The first day I was there he watched me, but said nothing until the
afternoon. Then--'But, Mr. Whistler, I have looked at you, I have been
watching. You are all nerves, you do nothing. You try to, but you
cannot settle down to it. What you need is rest--to do nothing--not to
try to do anything.' And all of a sudden, you know, it struck me that
I had never rested, that I never had done nothing, that it was the one
thing I needed. And I put myself down to doing nothing--amazing, you
know. No more sketch-books, no more plates. I just sat in the sun and
slept. I was cured. You know, Joseph must sit in the sun and sleep.
Write and tell him so."
He was sufficiently recovered to take his old joy in the "Islanders,"
into the midst of whom he fell on the P. & O. steamer coming back from
Marseilles:
"Nobody but English on board, and, after months of not seeing them,
really they were amazing: there they all were at dinner, you know--the
women in low gowns, the men in dinner jackets. They might look a trifle
green, they might suddenly run when the ship rolled--but what matter?
There they were--men in dinner jackets, stewards behind their chairs in
dinner jackets--and so all's right with the country! And, do you know,
it made the whole business clear to me down there in South Africa. At
home every Englishman does his duty--appears in his dinner jacket at
the dinner hour--and so, what difference what the Boers are doing? All
is well with England! You know, you might just as well dress to ride in
an omnibus!"
Whistler returned from Corsica at the beginning of May in excellent
spirits. He came to us on the day of his arrival. We give one small
incident that followed because it shows the simplicity he was careful
to conceal from the world he liked to mystify. J. was in Italy and
E., that afternoon, on her way back from the Continent. At our door
he met our French maid, Augustine, starting for Charing Cross, and he
walked with her to the station, where she was to meet E., while she
gave him the news. Her account was that everybody stared, which was not
surprising. He, always a conspicuous figure, was the more so in his
long brown overcoat and round felt hat, _en voyage_, while she wore
a big white apron and was _en cheveux_. Moreover, their conversation
was animated. She invited him to dinner, promising him dishes which
she knew would tempt him, and he accepted. He appeared a little before
eight. "Positively shocking and no possible excuse for it," he said,
"but, well, here I am!"
Work was taken up in the studio, our talks were resumed, his interest
in the Boer War grew, the heat he had not found in the South was
supplied by London in June and July, and from the heat he gained
strength. He came and went, as of old, between Garlant's Hotel and
Buckingham Street, until he declared that the cabbies in the Strand
knew him as well as the cabbies in Chelsea. It had ever been his boast
that he was known to almost every cabman in London, as, indeed, he was.
The tales of his encounters with them were numerous, for, if lavish in
big things, he could sometimes be "narrow" in small, and his drives
occasionally ended in differences. The only time we knew the cabby
to score was one day this year, when J. was walking from the studio
with him. "Kibby, kibby," Whistler cried to a passing cab, not seeing
the "fare" inside. The cabman drew up, looked down at him, looked him
over, and said, "Where did yer buy yer 'at? Go, get yer 'air cut!" and
drove off at a gallop. Whistler, safe inside an omnibus, laughed at the
adventure.
But the summer was full of adventures. Another afternoon he and J.
were walking in the Strand when a well-known English artist stopped
him with, "Why, my dear old Jimmie, how are you? I haven't seen you
or spoken to you for twenty years!" Whistler turned slowly to J. and
said, "Joseph, do you know this person?" And the person fled. "H'm,"
said Whistler, "hasn't spoken to me for twenty years--guess it will
be another twenty before he dares again." We were abroad a great
part of the summer of 1901, and when we got back his weakness had
returned with the cold and the damp and the fog. He had realised the
uselessness of keeping up his apartment and studio in Paris, the state
of his health making it impossible for him to live in the one or to
climb to the other, and business in connection with closing them took
him to Paris in October. Towards the beginning of the month he was ill
in bed at Garlant's Hotel, and towards the end at Mr. Heinemann's in
Norfolk Street. When well enough to go out he was afraid to come to us
in the evening: "Buckingham Street at night, you know, a dangerous,
if fascinating place!" He would not dine where he could not sleep, he
said, "_J'y dîne, j'y dort_," and in our small flat he knew there was
no corner for him. Early in November he moved to Tallant's Hotel, North
Audley Street, and there he was very ill and more alarmed than ever.
"This time I am very much bowled over, unable to think," he told E.
when she went to see him, and, though he laughed, he was depressed by
his landlady's recommendation of his room as the one where Lord ----
died. "I tried to make her understand," he said, "that what I wanted
was a room to live in." He looked the worse because in illness, as in
health, he had the faculty of inventing extraordinary costumes. E.
remembers him there, after he was able to get up, in black trousers, a
white silk night-shirt flowing loose, and a short black coat.
Illness made Whistler more of a wanderer, and for months he was denied
the rest he knew he needed. From Tallant's, in November, he went to
Mrs. Birnie Philip's in Tite Street, Chelsea. Here he never asked his
friends, and we saw less of him. The first week in December he left
London for Bath, where he took rooms in one of the big Crescents, and
where he thought he could work. There were shops in which to hunt for
"old silver and things," in a vague way people seemed to know him,
and, on the whole, Bath pleased him. He lost few excuses, however, for
coming to London, and was in town almost all of January. On some days
he was surprisingly well. He went to the Old Masters Exhibition at the
Royal Academy especially to see the Kingston Lacy _Las Meniñas_, and he
told us the same day:
"It is full of things only Velasquez could have done--the heads a
little weak perhaps--but so much, or everything, that no one else
could have painted like that. And up in a strange place they call the
Diploma Gallery I saw the Spanish Phillip's copy of Las Meniñas, full
of atmosphere really, and dim understanding."
Ochtervelt's _Lady Standing at a Spinet_ interested him, suggesting a
favourite theme:
"The Dutchmen knew how to paint--they had respect for the surface of
a picture; the modern painter has no respect for anything but his own
cleverness, and he is sometimes so clever that his work is like that
of a bad boy, and I'm not sure that he ought not to be taken out and
whipped for it. Cleverness!--well, cleverness has nothing to do with
art; there can be the same sort of cleverness in painting as that of
the popular officer who cuts an orange into fancy shapes after dinner."
He was severe on contemporary artists who forgot the standard of the
Louvre, the only standard he recognised. Of Conder he said, "_Il est
trop joli pour être beau!_" and of a follower of Rodin, "He makes a
landscape out of a man." When he saw Watts' _Hope_ his comment was,
"The hope that maketh the heart sick." Watts he always called "_ce
faux Titien_." "Except in England, would anything short of perfection
in art be praised?" he said. "Why approve the tolerable picture any
more than the tolerable egg?" A sitter dissatisfied with his portrait
told Whistler it was not good. "Do you call it a good piece of art?"
he asked. "Well," said Whistler, "do you call yourself a good piece of
Nature?"
One day a man rushed into a hat store and, as Whistler was hatless,
being fitted, bellowed, "I say, this hat don't fit." "Your coat don't,
either," Whistler answered.
One or two evenings he risked the night air to come to us and his talk
was as gay and brilliant--reminiscent, critical, "wicked," as the mood
took him, and at times serious. We remember his earnestness when he
recalled the _séances_ and spiritual manifestations at Rossetti's, in
which he believed. He could not understand the people who pretended to
doubt the existence of another world and the hereafter. His faith was
strong, though vague when there was question of analysing it. Probably
he never tried to reduce it to dogma and doctrine, and, in that sense,
he was "the amateur" he described himself in jest. If his inclination
turned to any special creed it was to Catholicism. "The beauty of
ritual is with the Catholics," he said. But his work left him no
time to study these problems, and his belief perhaps was stimulated
by the mystery in which it was lost. He would have been more amused
and interested than anybody could he have foreseen the messages to be
received from him by an artist, and the book to be written by him for
an author, and the portrait to be made by him for a medium, after his
death.
On other days London apparently was tiring him and he dozed off and on
through his visits. He expended much energy in sending some old pieces
of silver to the doctor at Marseilles and the Curator at Ajaccio,
who had been kind to him. He was full of these little courtesies and
never forgot kindness, just as he never failed to show it to those who
appealed to him, whether it was to find a publisher for an unsuccessful
illustrator, or a gallery for an unsuccessful painter, or even, as we
know happened once, to support a morphomaniac for months.
A shorter visit to town was made solely to attend a meeting of the
International Society because his presence was particularly desired.
This was one of the occasions that proved the sincerity and activity of
his devotion to the Society and its affairs. It is a satisfaction that
this devotion was appreciated and that the loyalty of the Council was
not shaken during his lifetime.
In March Whistler came back to Tite Street, but, as we have said,
he asked no one while he stayed with "the Ladies," his name for his
mother- and sisters-in-law. There was one almost clandestine meeting
with Professor Sauter, Whistler's desire to hear about the Boers, to
whom he "never referred, of course, in the presence of the Ladies,"
becoming too strong to be endured, and he could rely upon Sauter for
sympathy and the latest news. It was an interval of mystery in the
studio. No one was invited, few were admitted, nothing was heard of the
work being done. Whistler liked to keep up an effect of mystery in his
movements, but we have never known him to carry it so far as during the
first month or so after his return from Bath. At last J. was summoned.
Whistler would not let him come further than the ante-room, talking
to him through the open door or the thin partition, but presently,
probably forgetting, called him into the studio and went on painting,
and he forgot the mystery. Whistler felt he had little strength and
devoted that little to his work. But, even in ill-health, he could not
live without people about him, and he soon fell back into his old
ways. Miss Birnie Philip was now almost always in the studio with him.
In April he showed us the portrait of Mr. Richard A. Canfield, whose
acquaintance he made at this time, unfortunately, for he introduced Mr.
Canfield to "the Ladies," and the introduction resulted in the loss
of one of his friends. Miss Birnie Philip was sitting to him, he was
working on the portrait of Miss Kinsella, the _Venus_, and the little
heads, and he was adding to the series of pastels. He was bothered
about the show of his prints and pastels which M. Bénédite wished to
make at the Luxembourg, and he was anxious to hand over the details
to J., who could not see to them as he was away constantly this year.
Whistler looked forward to the show because of the official character
it would have, though after recent purchases of pictures for the
Luxembourg he said, "You know, really, I told Bénédite, if this goes on
I am afraid I must take my 'Mummy' from his Hotel." He was worried also
about a show at the Caxton Club in Chicago, where it was proposed to
reproduce his etchings without his permission. But when the Club found
he objected the matter dropped.
To avoid further wandering, for which he was no longer equal, he took a
house in Chelsea, where he had lived almost thirty years: he had been
absent hardly more than ten. Mrs. and Miss Birnie Philip went to live
with him. The house, not many doors west of old Chelsea Church, was No.
74 Cheyne Walk, built by Mr. C. R. Ashbee, and it stood on the site
of a fish-shop of which Whistler had made a lithograph. There was a
spacious studio at the back in which, in his words, he returned to his
"old scheme of grey." Its drawbacks were that it was on a lower level
than the street, reached by a descent of two or three steps from the
entrance hall, and that the rest of the house was sacrificed to it.
Two flights of stairs led up to the drawing-room where, in glass cases
running round the room, he placed his blue-and-white. The dining-room
was on this floor, but another flight of stairs had to be climbed to
get to the bedrooms in the garrets. Almost all the windows opening upon
the river were placed so high, and filled with such small panes, that
little could be seen from them of the beauty of the Thames and its
banks so dear to Whistler. The street door was of beaten copper and the
house was full of decorative touches, which, he said, "make me wonder
what I am doing here anyhow--the whole, you know, a successful example
of the disastrous effect of art upon the British middle classes." Into
this house he moved in April.
He reserved his energy for his work and went out scarcely at all. He
did not dare risk the dinner given in May by London artists to Rodin,
who, however, breakfasted with him a day or two after. We mention a
detail that shows how sensitive Whistler was on certain subjects. M.
Lantéri and Mr. Tweed came with Rodin, and this is Whistler's account
to us later on the same day:
"It was all very charming. Rodin distinguished in every way--the
breakfast very elegant--but--well, you know, you will understand.
Before they came, naturally, I put my work out of sight, canvases up
against the wall with their backs turned. And you know, never once,
not even after breakfast, did Rodin ask to see anything, not that I
wanted to show anything to Rodin, I needn't tell you--but in a man so
distinguished it seemed a want of--well, of what West Point would have
demanded under the circumstances."
No doubt Rodin thought, from the careful manner in which work was put
out of sight, that he was not expected to refer to it. His opinion of
Whistler we know, for he wrote it to us:
"_Whistler était un peintre dont le dessin avait beaucoup de
profondeurs, et celles-ci furent préparées par de bonnes études, car il
a dû étudier assidument._
"_Il sentait la forme, non seulement comme le font les bons peintres
mais de la manière des bons sculpteurs. Il avait un sentiment
extrêmement fin, qui a fait croire à quelques-uns que sa base n'était
pas forte, mais elle était, au contraire, et forte et sûre._
"_Il comprenait admirablement l'atmosphère, et un de ses tableaux qui
m'a le plus vivement impressionné, 'La Tamise (barrage) à Chelsea,' est
merveilleux au point de vue de la profondeur de l'espace. Le paysage en
somme n'a rien; il n'y a que cette grande étendue d'atmosphère, rendue
avec un art consommé._
"_L'oeuvre de Whistler ne perdra jamais par le temps; elle gagnera;
car une de ses forces est l'énergie, une autre la délicatesse; mais la
principale est l'étude du dessin._"[13]
His visits to us were on Sundays, when he came for noonday breakfast,
alone or with Miss Birnie Philip. If possible, we had people he liked
or was interested in to meet him. One Sunday the late Mrs. Sarah
Whitman, of Boston, and Miss Tuckerman were of the party, and Whistler,
though he arrived tired and listless, recovered his animation before
breakfast was over, and, for the new audience, described again the
house in which he was so astonished to find himself, and again summed
up the Boer campaign. Once he braved the night and dined, June 12--the
last time he dined at our table--and was so wonderful we forgot how ill
he was. We asked Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Morris and Professor Sauter, and
Mr. Morris brought a message from General Wheeler, then in London and
delighted to have news of Whistler, whom he remembered so well in the
class above him at West Point. To be remembered by a distinguished West
Point man was charming, but Whistler would not hear of General Wheeler
being in the class below him; it was the class above; for Whistler did
not choose to be older than anybody. We have spoken of his prejudices.
He gave that evening an instance of one of the strongest. Something was
said of the negro; he refused to see "any good in the nigger, he did
not like the nigger," and that was the end of it. But Mr. Morris argued
that it depended on the nigger; some he would be glad to invite to his
house and to dinner. "Well, you know," said Whistler, "I should say
that depends not on the nigger, but on the season of the year!" This
reminds us of his argument another evening with Mrs. T. Fisher Unwin.
But the negro had never had a chance, Mrs. Unwin protested. "Never had
a chance!" said Whistler, "why, there, you know, there they all were
starting out equal--the white man, the yellow man, the brown man, the
red man, the black man--what better chance could the black man have? If
he got left, well, it's because he couldn't keep up in the race."
[Illustration: THE CHELSEA GIRL
(_See page 359_)]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF E. G. KENNEDY
In the Metropolitan Museum, New York
(_See page 335_)]
On these last visits there was another subject he could not keep
long out of his thoughts and his talk. He had not been many days in
his new house before building was begun by Mr. Ashbee on a vacant
lot next door. "It is knock, knock, knock all day," Whistler said,
and his resentment was unbounded. In his nervous state the perpetual
irritation, the feeling that advantage had been taken of him and that
he had not been informed of the nuisance beforehand, put him into a
rage. Mr. Ashbee has written us that Whistler knew a building was
to be put up. Those who took the house may have known, but Whistler
told us he did not until the work began. Excitement, above all, the
doctor said, must be avoided as it was bad for his heart. There was
no mistaking the effect of this endless annoyance. He hoped for legal
redress, and he referred the matter to Mr. Webb. But the knocking
continued. On June 17 E. dined with him at Cheyne Walk, the one other
guest Mr. Freer, recently arrived from Detroit, and it seemed to her
as if Whistler was fast losing the good done by the winter's rest
and quiet. Mrs. and Miss Birnie Philip were uneasy, and it came as
no surprise to hear a few days later that he had left the house in
search of repose and distraction in Holland, with Mr. Freer as his
companion. It was too late. At The Hague, where he stayed in the Hôtel
des Indes, he was dangerously ill, at death's door. Mr. Freer remained
as long as he could, and Miss Birnie Philip and Mrs. Whibley hurried
to take care of him. The period was critical. There was no suggestion
of it in the first public sign he gave of convalescence. A stupid
reporter telegraphed from The Hague that the trouble with Whistler
"was old age, and it would take him a long time to get over it." The
_Morning Post_ published an article that Whistler thought had been
prepared in anticipation of death, which, sparing him for the time,
spared also the old wit. He wrote to beg that the "ready wreath and
quick biography might be put back into their pigeon-hole for later
use"; in reference to the writer's description of him he apologised
for "continuing to wear my own hair and eyebrows after distinguished
_confrères_ and eminent persons have long ceased the habit"; and those
who read the letter could not imagine that, a few days previously,
his letter-writing seemed at an end. It contained his last word about
Swinburne, and in it the bitterness with which he wrote _Et tu, Brute!_
in _The Gentle Art_ had disappeared. The _Morning Post_ stated that
Swinburne's verses inspired _The Little White Girl_. Whistler explained
that the lines "were only written in my studio after the picture was
painted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from
the poet to the painter--a noble recognition of work by the production
of a nobler one."
After Mr. Freer had gone, Mr. Heinemann, at Whistler's urgent appeal,
joined him in The Hague, a fortunate circumstance, as two charming
spinster cousins, the Misses Norman, were able to find for the patient
comforts out of reach of a stranger. They took rooms for him near
the Hôtel des Indes, suggested a nurse, prepared dishes for him, and
interested The Hague artists in his presence. Mesdag, Israels, and Van
's Gravesande were attentive. Afterwards, Van 's Gravesande wrote:
"_Je l'ai beaucoup aimé. Whistler, malgré tout son quarrelling avec
tout le monde, c'était un 'très bon garçon' tout à fait charmant entre
camarades. J'ai passé quelques jours avec lui, il y déjà une vingtaine
d'années, à Dordrecht nous y avons fait des croquis, des promenades sur
l'eau, etc. etc. J'en garde toujours un excellent souvenir. On ne peut
pas s'imaginer un compagnon plus gentil que lui, enjoué, aimable, sans
aucune prétention, enthousiaste, et avec cela travailleur comme pas
un._"
Whistler enjoyed the society of his doctor--"the Court Doctor, quite
the most distinguished in Holland." Mr. Clifford Addams came for a
while from Dieppe, and in September E. went to Holland. Whistler was so
much better that he made the short journey from The Hague to Amsterdam,
where she was staying, to ask her to go with him to the Rijks Museum
and look at the _Effie Deans_, which he had not seen in the gallery,
and the Rembrandts. It is not easy for her to forgive the chance that
took her away from the hotel before the telegram announcing his visit
was delivered. She heard of him afterwards at Müller's book-shop, where
he had been in search of old paper, for which they said his demand
in Amsterdam had been so great and constant that dealers placed a
fabulous price upon it. E. the next day went to The Hague, where she
found him in rooms that in the last hours of packing looked bare and
comfortless, for he had decided to start at once for London. He had
promised to lunch with his doctor, so that she saw only enough of him
to realise how frail and depressed and irritable illness had left him.
His sisters-in-law told her that the doctor said he could keep well
only by the greatest care and constant watchfulness, that he must not
be excited, that he must not walk up many stairs.
Professor Sauter was more fortunate than E., and we have his notes
of Whistler at The Hague when, with the first cheerful days of his
recovery, his interest in life seemed to revive:
"Realising the difficulty of conveying my vivid impressions, I have
hesitated for so long to give you an account of our experiences with
Whistler during the last days of August and the beginning of September
1902, in Holland, soon after the severe illness which he suffered.
"A letter which I received in the beginning of August was sufficient
proof that he was convalescent, and that he had regained his interest
in many affairs, and that he was enjoying The Hague and the Hôtel des
Indes, but also that he was longing for the society of friends from
London. Towards the end of August our journey to Belgium and Holland
brought us to The Hague, and of course our first visit was to him.
"It was indeed a pleasure to hear his gay voice, after he had received
our card, calling down from the top of the stairs,'Are you there? Just
wait a bit--I will be down in a moment.' In a few minutes his thin,
delicately dressed figure appeared, in his face delight, gay as a
schoolboy released from school and determined to have an outing.
"He had then removed to apartments a few doors from the hotel, but to
the latter he invited us to lunch. With intense appreciation Whistler
spoke of the attention and consideration shown to him by the hotel
people during his illness. All was sun, like the beautiful sunny
warm August day, and as if to give proof of his statements about the
cooking, management, and everything in the hotel, he ordered lunch with
great care.
"He was full of gaiety, and his amusement over the obituary and his
own reply to it was convincing enough that neither his spirit nor his
memory had suffered.
"After lunch, Whistler insisted on taking us for a drive to show us the
'charming surroundings' of The Hague and the Bosch. We drove also to
Scheveningen. He was full of admiration and love for The Hague.
"On the way to Scheveningen the real state of his health became
alarmingly evident. He looked very ill and fell asleep in the carriage,
but to my suggestion to drive home and have a rest he would not listen.
"It was a glorious afternoon, and the calm sea with the little white
breakers, the sand with hundreds of figures moving on it, and children
playing in gay dresses, made a wonderful picture to enjoy in his
company.
"About 5 P.M. we brought him to his rooms after arranging to visit the
Mauritshuis together next day.
"About 11.30 next morning we met in the gallery, and wandered from
room to room. He was all alive and bright again, and there he showed
particular interest in and affection for Rembrandt's _Father_, and
spoke of it as a fine example of the mental development of the artist,
which, he said, should be continuous from work to work up to the end.
"I mentioned that we were going to the Vieux Doelen to lunch to meet
General De Wet; his interest in this announcement was intense, and I
had to promise to tell him all about it in the afternoon.
"On coming to the two portraits by Franz Hals he examined the work with
undisguised delight, but the full disclosure of feeling towards the
Master of Haarlem was reserved to us for the next day.
"On my saying, 'We are going to Haarlem to-morrow,' Whistler promptly
replied, 'Oh, I might come along with you.'
"In his delicate state of health this reply was startling indeed, and
realising the responsibility of allowing him to undertake even the
small journey away from his rooms and doctor, I replied, 'But we are
leaving by an early train.' 'Oh, then I might follow later on,' he
finished.
"Thus we parted, he to his rooms, we to the Vieux Doelen.
"About 4 P.M. I went round to give him an account of my meeting with De
Wet, which aroused the greatest curiosity, and many questions I had to
face.
"When I asked him whether he had seen the Generals, he said, 'You see,
I just drove round and left my cards on their Excellencies.'
"But still the journey of Haarlem occupied his mind, and before I left
him it came out: 'Well, you are going to Haarlem early to-morrow?
Perhaps I will see you there.'
"I certainly would never have dreamt for a moment that he would carry
out what I took for passing fancy, and intense was my astonishment
when next day about noon at the Haarlem Gallery I saw Whistler in the
doorway, smilingly looking towards me, saying, 'Ah, I just wanted to
see what you are doing.'
"From this moment until we took the train at the Haarlem Station back
to The Hague a nature revealed itself in its force and subtlety, its
worship for the real and its humility before the great, combining the
experience of age with the enthusiasm of youth.
"Hardly could I get Whistler away for a small lunch.
"We wandered along the line from the early _St. George's Shooting
Guild_ of 1616 down to the old women of 1664.
"Certainly no collection would give stronger support to Whistler's
theory that a master grows in his art, from picture to picture, till
the end, than that at Haarlem.
"We went through the life with Hals the people portrayed on the
canvases, his relations with, and attitude towards, his sitters; he
entered in his mind into the studio to examine the canvas before the
picture was started and the sitters arrived, how Hals placed the men in
the canvas in the positions appropriate to their ranks, how he divined
the character, from the responsible colonel down to the youthful dandy
lieutenant, and how he revelled in the colours of their garments!
"As time went on Whistler's enthusiasm increased, and even the distance
between the railing and the picture was too great for this intimate
discourse. All of a sudden, he crept under the railing close up to the
picture, but lo! this pleasure could not last for long.
"The attendant arrived and gave him in unmistakable words to understand
that this was not the place from which to view the pictures.
"And Whistler crawled obediently back from his position, but not
discouraged, saying, 'Wait--we will stay after they are gone,' pointing
to the other visitors.
"Matters were soon arranged with the courteous little chief attendant
down in the hall, who, pointing to the signature in the visitors' book,
asked, '_Is dat de groote Schilder?_' (Is that the great painter?) and
on my confirming it, pressed his hands together, bent a little on one
side, opened his eyes and mouth wide, and exclaimed under his breath,
'Ach!' He was a rare little man.
"We were soon free from fellow visitors and watchful attendants, and no
more restrictions were in the way for Whistler's outburst of enthusiasm.
"We were indeed alone with Franz Hals.
"Now nothing could keep him away from the canvases; particularly the
groups of old men and women got their full share of appreciation.
"He went under the railing again, turning round towards me, saying,
'Now, _do_ get me a chair.' And after it was pushed under the
railing, he went on, '_And now, do_ help me on the top of it.' From
that moment there was no holding him back. He went absolutely into
raptures over the old women, admiring everything; his exclamation of
joy came out now at the top of his voice, now in the most tender,
almost caressing whisper: 'Look at it--just look; look at the beautiful
colour--the flesh--look at the white--that black--look how those
ribbons are put in. Oh, what a swell he was--can you see it all?--and
the character--how he realised it.' Moving with his hand so near the
picture as if he wanted to caress it in every detail, he screamed
with joy: 'Oh, I must touch it--just for the fun of it,' and he moved
tenderly with his fingers over the face of one of the old women.
"There was the real Whistler--the man, the artist, the painter--there
was no 'Why drag in Velasquez?' spirit--but the spirit of a youth, full
of ardour, full of plans, on the threshold of his work, oblivious of
the achievements of a lifetime.
"He went on to analyse the picture in its detail.
"'You see, _she_ is a grand person'--pointing to the centre
figure--'she wears a fine collar, and look at her two little black
bows--she is the treasurer--she is the secretary--she keeps the
records'--pointing at each in turn with his finger.
"With a fierce look in his eye, as though he would repulse an attack
on Hals, and in contemptuous tone, he burst out, 'They say he was a
drunkard, a coarse fellow; don't you believe it--they are the coarse
fellows. Just imagine a drunkard doing these beautiful things!'
"'Just look how tenderly this mouth is put in--you must see the
portrait of himself and his wife at the Rijks Museum. He was a swagger
fellow. He was a cavalier--see the fine clothes he wears. That is a
fine portrait, and his lady--she is charming, she is lovely.' In time,
however, the excitement proved too much for him in his weak state,
and it was high time to take him away into the fresh air. He appeared
exhausted, and I feared a collapse after such emotions.
"During my absence in looking for a carriage he went on talking to Mrs.
Sauter. 'This is what I would like to do, of course, you know, in my
own way'--meaning the continual progress of his work to the last. 'Oh,
I would have done anything for my art.' It was a great relief to have
him safely seated in the carriage with us.
"Once there he soon regained his spirits, and, as we had expected to
meet Mrs. Pennell at the Gallery, but looked in vain for her, we now
drove from hotel to hotel in search of her, and on this expedition a
truly Whistlerian incident happened. Stopping before one of the hotels,
he requested to see the proprietor, who appeared immediately at the
side of the carriage, a tall, solemn-looking gentleman, with a long
reddish beard, bowing courteously, but the gentleman could give no
information about Mrs. Pennell's arrival at his hotel. After minute
inquiries about the place, Whistler turned to him, asking, '_Monsieur_,
what hotel would you recommend in Haarlem if you would recommend any?'
to which he promptly and seriously replied, '_Monsieur_, if I would
recommend an hotel in Haarlem I would recommend my own.' 'Thank you,
_Monsieur_, thank you,' responded Whistler, touching his hat, bowing
slightly. And we drove on soon, to arrive at the hotel where we
intended to take tea, and rest.
"Soon we were happily settled on our return journey, in a special
compartment, which he was, in his chivalrous consideration towards
ladies, most anxious to reserve, as he put it, 'to make Mrs. Sauter
comfortable--she is tired.'
"With it, a day full of emotions, amusement, and anxieties came to an
end--and, as it proved to Whistler, the last pilgrimage to Franz Hals.
"It needed no persuasion to keep Whistler at home after so fatiguing a
day.
"But on our return to the hotel late the next afternoon we were told
that he had called three times, and finally left a note asking us to
come round in the morning and also to bring him news of Mrs. Pennell.
"Monday was a fête day for Holland--the Queen's birthday, and the town
gay with flags and orange streamers and happy holiday crowds.
"I went round early to keep him company and bring him the news he
wished for.
"We sat at his window overlooking merry-go-rounds, little toy and sweet
stalls, and throngs of little children in their loyal smart frocks.
"'What a pretty sight! If I only had my water-colours here I could do a
nice little picture,' he remarked.
"Dr. Bisschop had kindly arranged to take us and Mr. Bruckmann to the
Gallery of Mesdag, and Whistler accepted an invitation to join us.
"There the Canalettos were of chief interest to him. Lunch at a _café_,
another visit to the Mauritshuis, and tea at his rooms brought our stay
to an end."
[Footnote 13: See Appendix at end of volume.]
CHAPTER XLVII: THE END. THE YEARS NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO AND NINETEEN
HUNDRED AND THREE.
Whistler came back to No. 74 Cheyne Walk, to the noise of building, to
the bedroom at the top of the house--to the conditions against which
the doctor's warning was emphatic. When E. saw him about the middle of
September on her return--J. was still away--he had been again ill and
was confined to his room. On her next visit, within a few days, he
was in bed, but he had moved downstairs to a small room adjoining the
studio, intended, no doubt, for a model's dressing-room. In one way it
was an improvement, for there were no stairs and his studio was close
at hand whenever he had strength for work, but the only window looked
upon the street, and the clatter of children and traffic was added to
the builders' knocking.
Except in this house, we never saw him after his return from The
Hague. At times, in the winter and spring, he was able to go out in a
carriage, but the three flights of stairs to our flat rose between him
and us, an insurmountable barrier. Therefore there were seldom the old
long intimate talks, for he was not often alone in the studio. Miss
Birnie Philip was usually with him, sometimes sitting apart with her
knitting, and only rarely drawn into the conversation. Mrs. Whibley
was frequently there, and before "the Ladies" there were reservations,
for with many things they were not to be "troubled." This involved a
restraint in himself and a sensation of oppression in his visitors.
Then there was a coming and going of models, visits from his doctors,
his solicitor, his barber, and many other people who helped to distract
him. His friends were devoted, encouraged by him and knowing he
welcomed anyone from the world without; Mr. Luke Ionides, oldest of
all, Mrs. Whistler, Mr. Walton, who lived next door, Professor Sauter,
Sir John Lavery, Mr. and Mrs. Addams, his apprentices, Arthur Studd,
his near neighbour, drifted in and out almost daily. He was bored when
alone and unable to work, though he had of recent years developed an
extraordinary passion for reading. But, as a matter of fact, he was
hardly ever lonely, for he was surrounded as he liked in his studio,
and yet he felt his condition and grew restless, so that his wish to
rejoin Mr. Heinemann in "housekeeping" seemed natural.
Whistler had intervals when his energy returned, and he worked and
hoped. We knew on seeing him when he was not so well, for his costume
of invalid remained original. He clung to a fur-lined overcoat
worn into shabbiness. In his younger years he had objected to a
dressing-gown as an unmanly concession; apparently he had not outgrown
the objection, and on his bad days this shabby worn-out overcoat was
its substitute. Nor did the studio seem the most comfortable place for
a man so ill as he was. It was bare, with little furniture, as his
studios always were, and he had not used it enough to give it the air
of a workshop. The whole house showed that illness was reigning there.
The hall had a more unfinished, more unsettled look than the entrance
at the Rue du Bac, and it was sometimes strewn with the trays and odds
and ends of the sickroom. Papers and books lay on the floor of the
drawing-room, in contrast to the blue-and-white in the cases. A litter
of things at times covered the sideboard in the dining-room. Everywhere
you felt the cheerlessness of a house which is not lived in. When we
saw Whistler in his big, shabby overcoat shuffling about the huge
studio, he struck us as so old, so feeble and fragile that we could
imagine no sadder or more tragic figure. It was the more tragic because
he had always been such a dandy, a word he would have been the first to
use in reference to himself. We recall his horror once when he heard a
story that represented him as untidy and slovenly. "I!" he said, "I,
when if I had only an old rag to cover me I would wear it with such
neatness and propriety and the utmost distinction!" But no one would
have suspected the dandy in this forlorn little old man, wrapped in a
worn overcoat, hardly able to walk. On his bad days there was not much
walking about, and he lay stretched on an easy chair, talking little,
barely listening, and dozing. His nights were often sleepless--he had
lost the habit of sleep, he told us, and as the day went on he became
so drowsy that it seemed as if nothing could rouse him from what was
more like death than sleep. Sometimes, sitting by the table where tea
was served, he would drop his forehead on the edge of the table, fall
asleep, and remain motionless for an hour and more. A pretty little
cat, brown and gold and white, that lived in the studio, was often
curled up on his lap, sleeping too. His devotion to her was something
to remember, and we have seen him get up, when probably he would not
have stirred for any human being, just to empty the stale milk from her
saucer and fill it up with fresh. A message was sent to E., one day,
to announce the birth of her first kittens, that also made the studio
their home and became a source of mild distraction to the invalid.
On his good days he liked to play dominoes after tea and he cheated
with his accustomed tricks. He often kept J. for a game and sometimes
for dinner with himself and Miss Birnie Philip in the studio, the
climb to the dining-room out of the question. There were times when he
would say he never could get back to work again, but others when he
managed to work with not only the old vigour, but the old mastery. He
had an Irish model, Miss Dorothy Seton, whose red hair was remarkably
beautiful and whose face Whistler thought as remarkable, for it
reminded him of Hogarth's _Shrimp Girl_. One afternoon J. found him
painting her, her red hair hanging over her shoulders and an apple
in her hand, the picture to which the title _Daughter of Eve_ was
eventually given. He was walking up and down the studio in delight,
looking almost strong, and he seized J. by the arm in the old fashion
and walked him up and down too. "Well, Joseph, how long do you think
it took me to paint that, now?" and not for weeks had he shown such
animation as when he added, "It was done in a couple of hours this
very morning." So far as we know, it was the last important picture he
painted, and it was, as J. then saw it, the finest thing of his latest
period. He must have painted on it again, for at the Paris Memorial
Exhibition the bloom of its beauty had faded. Now and then he worked on
a portrait of Miss Birnie Philip, and he was anxious to continue the
portrait, started a year or so before, of Mrs. Heinemann, which needed
only a few more sittings, but, to the world's loss, these could not be
arranged. He saw to cleaning the _Rosa Corder_, which Mr. Canfield,
who was back in London and buying pictures, drawings, and prints in
the studio, bought this winter for two thousand pounds from Mr. Graham
Robertson. The story of this purchase was the only amusing thing we
ever heard Mr. Canfield say: "Offered the young fellow a thousand
pounds--wouldn't hear of it. Offered him two--jumped at it. Why, the
darned fool, if he had held on he could have had five!" Whistler
telegraphed for us to come and look at _Rosa Corder_ for the last time
in England, "to make your _adieux_ to her before her departure for
America." When E.--J. again away--arrived at the studio, he was better
than since his return from The Hague. He had slept eight hours and a
half the night before, and he rejoiced in not being sleepy. He wiped
the canvas here and there tenderly with a silk handkerchief and kept
turning round to ask triumphantly, "Isn't she beautiful?"
Mr. Canfield was sitting again for his portrait, and was always
welcome, not merely as a sitter, but as a friend. He seemed to have
hypnotised Whistler, whom we heard say that Canfield was the only
man who had never made a mistake in the studio. We could not help
regretting this because of Canfield's notorious reputation in New
York, and the unpleasant things said of Whistler's tolerance of the
man. Whistler had been warned, but had sacrificed a friendship of
years in his indignation at "a breath of scandal" against anyone
whom he had introduced to "the Ladies." In the early part of 1903 we
received numerous letters and telegrams from correspondents of American
papers in London re-echoing the question in the New York dailies, "Is
Whistler painting gambler Canfield?" The fact that Canfield was much
desired at home made the New York papers of the yellowest sort, like
the British respectable ones, eager for details, and all sorts and
conditions of male and female reporters haunted our stairs. They were
a terrible nuisance, and we remember in particular the youth who came
with the usual question, "Is Whistler painting the gambler?" and who,
on J.'s reply that he had better go and ask the painter, said "But
they tell me Whistler would either horsewhip me or kick me out of the
house. What do you think?" J.'s answer was that he had better go and
see. Whistler's condition rendered any remark which might excite him
dangerous, and everybody hesitated to suggest that Canfield was a very
public character to include in one's private circle. Canfield's visits
did not cease, and the fact that reconciled us to his presence was
that it resulted in one of Whistler's masterpieces. The portrait, _His
Reverence_, ranked then with _The Master Smith of Lyme Regis_. But this
was our estimate when we saw the picture in Whistler's studio. Later it
was simply ruined, for he worked on it too.
Whistler often saw dealers who came for his prints. On two memorable
afternoons Mr. David Kennedy brought the large MacGeorge Collection
of Whistler's etchings, which he had purchased in Glasgow, for
Whistler to look over, and, in some cases, we believe, to sign them.
He went through as many as he could, commenting on their state and
their preservation. There were some he had not seen for years, and
Mr. Ionides, who was present on one of the afternoons, seemed to
know more about them than Whistler. He soon tired, and was not to be
revived by the bottle of American cocktails which Mr. Kennedy, to his
complete approval, also brought. Several times we found him going
through the accumulation of "charming things" from the studio in the
Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Many he did not think so charming were, we
understand, destroyed by him. So Miss Birnie Philip maintains, and
Mr. Lavery told us that he was calling at Cheyne Walk one afternoon
when Whistler said he had been burning things. We are unable to state
if a reliable list was made of what was destroyed and what was kept.
Some days Whistler read us parts of his earlier correspondence--the
"wonderful letters" to the Fine Art Society during the Venetian period.
And once, tired though he was, he insisted on reading to E. just
once more his letter to a dealer, who had threatened him with a writ
and whom he warned of the appearance he would make, "with one hand
presenting a Sir Joshua to the nation, with the other serving a writ on
Whistler. Well indeed is it that the right hand knows not always what
the left hand doeth."
In November he sent the _Little Cardinal_, which had been at the
_Salon_ the previous summer, to the Portrait Painters' Exhibition.
Several critics spoke of it as a work already seen, giving the
impression, he thought, that it dated back many years. He wrote to
the _Standard_ to contradict this impression, Wedmore again having
blundered. We called to see him on the afternoon the letter was
written, and he was in great glee. He said:
"The letter is one of my best. I described Wedmore as Podsnap--an
inspiration, isn't it? With the discovery of Podsnap in art criticism
I almost feel the thump of Newton's apple on my head, and this I have
said. Heinemann promises to take it himself to the editor of the
_Standard_, and really the whole thing has such a flavour of intrigue
that I do believe it has made me well again!"
He planned to publish the criticism, his letter, the answers, and
his final comments in a brown-covered pamphlet, a scheme begun but,
owing to his feeble health, never carried out. To an exhibition of old
silver at the Fine Art Society's he lent many of his finest pieces and
insisted upon their being shown together in a case apart, and arranged
according to his instructions. His silver, like everything belonging
to him, was a proof of his exquisite taste and faultless judgment. It
was chosen, not for historic interest, nor for rarity, but for elegance
of form and simplicity of ornament. The other collections in the
exhibition were set out on red velvet; his, with which he sent some of
his blue-and-white china, was placed on his simple white table linen
marked with the Butterfly. After we had been to the exhibition, he
asked us for every detail:
"How did the white, the beautiful napkins look? Didn't the slight hint
of blue in the Japanese stand and the few perfect plates tell? Didn't
the other cases seem vulgar in comparison? and didn't the simplicity
of my silver, evidently for use and cared for, make the rest look like
museum specimens?"
[Illustration: GALLERY AT THE LONDON MEMORIAL EXHIBITION]
[Illustration: GALLERY AT THE BOSTON MEMORIAL EXHIBITION]
[Illustration: WHISTLER'S GRAVE IN CHISWICK CEMETERY ADJOINING CHISWICK
CHURCHYARD]
[Illustration: MONUMENT IN WHISTLER'S MEMORY AT THE UNITED STATES
MILITARY ACADEMY AT WEST POINT]
He examined the catalogue, found fault with it because the McNeill, of
which he was so proud, was misspelt, and he could not understand why
there were comparatively fewer entries and shorter descriptions of his
case than of others where history supplied an elaborate text.
Notwithstanding his state, he forgot none of the old courtesies. When,
in November, Sir James Guthrie was elected to the Presidency of the
Royal Scottish Academy, he telegraphed his congratulations, and was
repaid by his pleasure when Guthrie, still a member of the Council of
the International, telegraphed back, "Warmest thanks, my President."
On New Year's Day (1903) we received the card of good wishes it was
his custom to send to his friends--a visiting-card with greetings
written by himself and signed with the Butterfly. Though he could not
go to the meetings of the International, the business done at each
had to be immediately reported, and when the annual dinner was given
he considered every detail, even to the point of revising the _menu_
and sending special directions for the salad. He had great pleasure
in the degree of LL.D. conferred upon him by Glasgow University, at
the suggestion of Sir James Guthrie and Professor Walter Raleigh. Dr.
D. S. MacColl, at their request, we believe, and after consulting J.,
approached him first to make sure that the honour would be accepted.
There was a gleam of the old "wickedness" when Dr. MacColl called.
Whistler appointed a Sunday, asking him to lunch, but when he arrived
at the appointed hour he was sent upstairs to the unused drawing-room
and supplied with _Reynolds'_, a Radical sheet adored by Whistler
because of its wholesale abuse of the "Islander." And Whistler said:
"When at last he was summoned to the studio, I told him it was the
paper that of course he always wanted to read at the Club, but was
ashamed to be seen with! And all through lunch I had nothing to say of
art--I talked of nothing except West Point."
However, when MacColl had a chance to explain why he came, Whistler
expressed his pleasure in receiving the degree. We recall his pains
with his letter of acknowledgment after the official announcement
came in March, his concern for the correct word and the well-turned
phrase, his anxiety that there should be no mistake in the Principal's
title and honorary initials. It illustrates his care for detail if
we add that, before writing the address, he sent a note, submitting
it, next door, to Mr. and Mrs. Walton, who were Scotch, he said, and
would know. Another pleasure came from the deference shown him by the
Art Department of the Universal Exposition of 1904 at St. Louis. Early
in 1903 Professor Halsey C. Ives, Chief of the Art Department, was in
London, and went with J. to call on Whistler and to ask him to serve
as Chairman of the Committee, of which Sargent, Abbey, and J. were
members, for the selection of work by American artists in England. The
invitation was a formal recognition of Whistler's position, and he
accepted, though he did not live to occupy the post.
These months were not without worries. News of books about him, in
preparation or recently published, annoyed him, as he had hoped to
prevent such enterprises by giving us his authority for the work to
which his illness was a serious interruption. We called one afternoon
when he was worrying himself into a fever over the latest attempt of
which he had heard, and was unable to think or talk of anything except
the insolence of people who undertook to write about him and prepare
a biography without consulting him and his wishes. As he talked he
complained of pains in his back, and his restlessness was distressing
to see. Another afternoon, he was, on the contrary, chuckling over Mr.
Elbert Hubbard's _Whistler_ in the _Little Journeys_ series. He read us
passages:
"Really with this book I can be amused--I have to laugh. I don't know
how many people have taken my name in print, and, you know, usually
I am furious. But the intimate tone of this is something quite new.
What would my dear Mummy--don't you know, as you see her with her
folded hands at the Luxembourg--have said to this story of my father's
courtship? And our stay in Russia--our arrival in London--why, the
account of my mother and me coming to Chelsea and finding lodgings
makes you almost see us--wanderers--bundles at the end of long sticks
over our shoulders--arriving footsore and weary at the hour of sunset.
Amazing!--it would be worth while, you know, to describe, not the book,
but the effect on me reading it."
He was looking desperately ill the day he told us that Montesquiou
had sold his portrait, and he was not consoled by the fact that Mr.
Canfield was the purchaser, so that it would remain, for the present
at least, in America. He was the more hurt because Montesquiou was a
friend and, "as you know, the descendant of a long distinguished line
of French noblemen."
There were unnecessary worries. Mr. Freer sent some of Whistler's
pictures to the Winter Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The jury awarded him the Academy's Gold
Medal of Honour, and, to assure to the pictures the place of greatest
distinction where they would look best, hung them before anything
was installed, building up a screen for them in the most important
room, and beginning the numbers in the catalogue with them. For some
reason Mr. Freer did not approve of the hanging and seems to have
misunderstood the motives for it. The secretary, Mr. Harrison Morris,
could make no change. As the incident was reported to Whistler he
fancied a slight in the arrangement which was meant to do him honour.
A similar incident occurred in the Spring Exhibition of the Society of
American Artists in New York, where, also, Mr. Freer objected to the
place chosen for Whistler's work. Whistler, as a result, was disturbed
by the idea that American artists were treating him with indifference
or contempt, though this was at the time when their acceptance of
him as master was complete and their eagerness to proclaim it great.
Whistler went so far as to say that he never wished work of his to
hang again in the Pennsylvania Academy, and in regard to the New York
Exhibition he wrote protesting to the New York papers. The agitation
and excitement did him no good, and in his weakness such small worries
were magnified into grave troubles. It is the more to be regretted
because, on all sides, in America he was honoured. The fault was Mr.
Freer's inability to understand artistic matters. Mr. Will H. Low
and other artists tried as well as they could to explain things to
Whistler, but Mr. Freer succeeded in prejudicing him to the day of his
death against the Pennsylvania Academy, which had done more than any
other American art institution to show its appreciation. Americans may
have been slow in acknowledging him officially, but that was because
they knew little of his work. They began to make amends long before his
death, and their eagerness to possess his work may be contrasted to the
indifference in England or in Germany, where it is said a Whistler was
bought for Berlin by Dr. Bode for two thousand pounds, but was returned
to the dealers by the Emperor's command. The _Sarasate_ had been
purchased for the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in November 1896,
the first picture, Mr. Beattie, the Director, tells us, bought for the
gallery, and we believe the first Whistler bought for any American
gallery. It is prized as one of the most important works in the
collection, and, though it cost the Institute five thousand dollars,
was insured for thirty thousand when it went to the Rome Exhibition in
the spring of 1911. We were sorry when last in Pittsburgh to see that
it is cracking. _The Yellow Buskin_ was in the Wilstach Collection,
Philadelphia, and _The Master Smith_ and _The Little Rose of Lyme
Regis_ in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts before 1903, and hardly an
American collector of note was not seeking to include Whistlers in
his collection. Now the Chicago Institute has _Southampton Water_ and
the Metropolitan in New York has the _Irving_, _Connie Gilchrist_,
_Cremorne Gardens_, and several important studies, and has purchased
from M. Duret his own large portrait and been presented by Mr. E. G.
Kennedy with his small one. M. Duret parted with his because he felt he
was growing old. He had had many offers from private collectors, but he
wished to know the painting was safe in a museum. Two great masters had
painted him, Manet and Whistler, he said to us shortly after the sale,
and both portraits are now in public galleries. _The Fur Jacket_ is at
Worcester, and in the Brooklyn Institute is the very unfinished and
unsatisfactory commencement of _Florence Leyland_. The _Lange Leizen_
is in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia. The Avery collection of
etchings is in the New York Public Library, and Charles L. Freer has
donated to the National Gallery at Washington his entire collection,
the largest in the world, while we have given our collection of
Whistleriana to the Library of Congress; the best possible refutation
to the nonsense talked about want of appreciation by many self-styled
critics, several of whom have been imported into America and England
since Whistler's death.
Whistler's health varied so during the winter that we were often
encouraged to hope. But with the spring hope lessened with every visit.
To consult our notes is to realise, more fully than at the time, how
surely the end was approaching. The afternoons of sleep increased
with the increasing weakness of his heart. He could not shake off the
influenza cold which was dragging him down, and he lived in constant
fear of infection from others if anybody even sneezed in his presence.
"I can't risk any more microbes--I've about enough of my own." At
times his cough was so bad that he was afraid to talk, and he would
write what he wanted to say; it was his tonsils, he explained. There
were visits when, from the moment we came until we left, he worried,
first because the windows were open, then because they were shut, and
his impatience if the doctor's visit was delayed would have exhausted a
stronger man. J. dined with him on May 14, when there was a rekindling
of gaiety. He showed the portrait of Mr. Canfield; he played dominoes
for hours; at dinner, when a gooseberry tart was served, he apologised
for the "Island." But after this there was no more gaiety for us to
record. A few days later J. went abroad for several weeks, and Mr.
Heinemann sailed for America. When he said good-bye to Whistler he was
entrusted with innumerable commissions. He was to find out the truth
concerning the treatment of Whistler's pictures in Philadelphia and
New York, to discover who his new unauthorised biographers were, what
artists and literary people were saying, what dealers were doing, and,
when he returned, then they would "keep house together again." This was
the moment when Mr. Heinemann took another flat, with the identical
arrangements of the first, in Whitehall Court, so that they could go
back to the old life. But before he returned the end had come.
Fortunately, while Mr. Heinemann and J. were away, Mr. Freer arrived
in London on his annual visit, and he was free to devote himself to
Whistler, whom he drove out whenever Whistler had the strength. But
this was not for long, and with her visit to him on July 1 E. gave up
hope. He was in bed, but hearing that she was there, he sent for her.
There was a vague look in his eyes, as if the old fires were burnt
out. He seemed in a stupor and spoke only twice with difficulty. Miss
Birnie Philip referred to his want of appetite and the turtle soup
ordered by the doctor, which they got from the correct place in the
City. "Shocking! shocking!" Whistler broke in slowly, and then after
a minute or two, "You know, now we are all in the City!" Miss Birnie
Philip wanted to give tea to E., who, seeing how ill he was, thought
it wiser not to stay, and after some ten minutes said good-bye. "No
wonder," Whistler murmured, "you go from a house where they don't give
you anything to eat." E.'s next visit was on the 6th. The doctor had
been with him, he was up, dressed, and had been out for a drive. But
he looked worse, his eyes vaguer, giving the impression of a man in
a stupor. He said not a word until she was leaving, and then his one
remark was, "You are looking very nice."
Reports of his feebleness were brought to us by many, among others
by M. Duret. In July he came to London, and was deeply moved by the
condition in which he found Whistler, who, he thought, wanted to say
things when alone in the studio with him, but the day of his first
visit could not utter a word. And after a second visit, after an hour
with Whistler, who again struggled to talk and could not, Duret felt it
was the last time he would see Whistler. It was, and in his sorrow he
could but recall the days together gone for ever.
On the 14th E. called again, and again Whistler was dressed and in the
studio, and there were pictures on the easels. He seemed better, though
his face was sunken and in his eyes was that terrible vagueness. Now he
talked, and a touch of gallantry was in his greeting, "I wish I felt
as well as you look." He asked about Henley, the news of whose death
had come a day or two before. He watched the little mother cat as she
ran about the studio. There was a return of vigour in his voice when
Miss Birnie Philip brought him a cup of chicken broth and he cried,
"Take the damned thing away," and his old charm was in the apology
that followed, but, he said, if he ate every half-hour or so as the
doctor wanted, how could he be expected to have an appetite for dinner?
He dozed a little, but woke up quickly with a show of interest in
everything, and when, on the arrival of Mr. Lavery, E. got up to go,
fearing that more than one visitor would tire him, he asked, "But why
do you go so soon?" and these were the last words he ever spoke to her.
When J. returned to town, on Friday the 17th, he immediately started
for Chelsea, but met Mr. T. R. Way, who had been lunching with Mr.
Freer at the Carlton, and from whom he learnt that Whistler and Mr.
Freer were to go for a drive.
There was no drive that afternoon--no drive ever again. The illness
had been long, the end was swift. Whistler was dying before Mr. Freer
reached the house. On Thursday he had seemed much better, had gone
for a drive, and was so well at dinner that Mrs. Whibley told him
laughingly he would soon again be dressing to dine. But after lunch on
Friday she was called hurriedly to the studio, where Miss Birnie Philip
was already. They realised the seriousness of the attack. The doctor
was sent for, but the need for him had passed.
The papers during the next few days showed how Whistler's fame had
grown. We saw another side which the public could not see--the
affection in which he was held by those who knew him intimately.
Many came to us at once: M. Duret, who had lost the last of his old
comrades--first Manet, then Zola, and now Whistler, with whom the best
hours of his life were spent; Mr. Kennedy, whose business relations
with Whistler had developed into warm friendship; Sir John Lavery,
Professor Sauter, Mr. Harry Wilson, their one thought to express their
love and reverence for their President. Other artists followed, others
wrote, and our sorrow for the friend was tempered by knowing how deep
and widespread was the regret for the master. Mr. Heinemann returned
from New York too late to see Whistler again, and both he and J. were
spared the sad memory of Whistler with the life faded from his face,
the light gone from his eyes.
The funeral took place on Wednesday, July 22. The service was held in
old Chelsea Church, to which he had so often walked with his mother
from Lindsey Row. There was a comparatively small attendance. The
members of his own family who came were his sister-in-law, Mrs. William
Whistler, and his nieces, Mrs. Thynne and Mrs. Réveillon. The Society
with which, in his last years, he had identified his interests was
represented by the Council: Professor Sauter, Mr. Harry Wilson, Mr.
Francis Howard, Mr. Ludovici, Mr. Stirling Lee, Mr. Neven du Mont,
Mr. E. A. Walton, and J. Here and there were friends, Mr. Alan S.
Cole, Mr. Heinemann, Mrs. Edwin A. Abbey, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, Mr.
W. C. Alexander, Mr. Clifford Addams, Mr. Jonathan Sturgis; and here
and there Academicians, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Sir Alfred East.
But Whistler, who valued official recognition, was given none. No one
from the American Embassy paid the last tribute of respect to the most
distinguished American citizen who ever lived in London. No one from
the French Embassy attended the funeral of the Officer of the Legion of
Honour. No one from the German Embassy joined in the last rites of the
member of two German Royal Academies and the Knight of the Order of St.
Michael of Bavarit. Nor was anyone present from the Italian Embassy,
though Whistler was Commander of the Crown of Italy and member of the
Academy of St. Luke. The only body officially represented besides the
International was the Royal Scottish Academy. The police came to
restrain the crowd, but there was no crowd.
The coffin was carried the short distance from the house to the church
along the shores of the river he made his own. It was covered with a
purple pall, upon which lay a wreath of gold laurel leaves sent by his
Society. The pall-bearers were M. Théodore Duret, Sir James Guthrie,
Sir John Lavery, Edwin A. Abbey, George Vanderbilt, and Mr. Charles
L. Freer. The little funeral procession that walked with the coffin
from the house to the church included Miss Birnie Philip, Mrs. Charles
Whibley, their sisters, brother, and nephews, Mr. William Webb, and
Arthur Studd, but none of his own family, none of the group with whom
he had been most intimate in his last years. After the burial service
was read, the procession re-formed, and the family, the Council of the
International, and a few friends went to the graveyard at Chiswick.
It was a grey, stormy summer day, and as the clergyman said the last
prayers, and the coffin was lowered, the thick London atmosphere
wrapped the green enclosure in the magic and mystery that Whistler
was the first to see and to reveal. The grave was made by the side
of his wife under a wall covered with clematis. A tomb designed by
his stepson, E. Godwin, now covers the little plot of ground where
Whistler, the greatest artist and most striking personality of the
nineteenth century, lies at rest in a remote corner of the London
he loved, not far from the house, and nearer the grave, of Hogarth,
who had been to him the greatest English master from the days of his
boyhood in St. Petersburg.
[Illustration]
THE END OF THE LIFE OF JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL WHISTLER. HIS NAME AND HIS
FAME WILL LIVE FOR EVER. JOSEPH PENNELL. ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL
PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS
APPENDIX
Page 291, line 29.--"When you ask me to say something about the
illustrious and lamented Whistler, you do not, of course, want me to
add my contribution to the rich pyramid of admiration and praise that
has already been raised to his glory.
"What you must, of course, be thinking of, is anything special and
picturesque that I may be able to add to your biography of the great
artist.
"Well as I knew and loved his works, I had but a passing glimpse of his
person.
"Here are two interesting traits connected with it.
"Some few years ago, he was very much disturbed about a piracy
committed in Belgium by a foreigner living at Antwerp, of his curious
book, _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies_. One day he appeared in my
study, and said to me with a sarcastic smile: 'I should like you to be
my counsel in this little affair, because I have been told that you,
like myself, practice the gentle art of making enemies.'
"The case was won at Antwerp with the collaboration of my _confrère_,
M. Maeterlinck, a relative of the poet who is such an honour to our
country. The victory was celebrated at his house. When Whistler, the
hero of the festivity, arrived at this hospitable abode, he was a
long time in the ante-room. The maid who had let him in came, very
much amazed, to the drawing-room where we were awaiting him, and said
in Flemish: 'Madame, there is an actor in the ante-room; he is doing
his hair before the looking-glass, he is putting on pomade, painting
and powdering his face.' After a long interval, Whistler appeared,
courteous, correct, waxed and anointed, resplendent as the butterfly
which his name recalls, and with which he signed some of the notes he
used to write to his counsel.
"This is all I can offer you.
"I have asked M. Maeterlinck for any documents connected with this
episode he might have. All his researches have been in vain. Although
so many insignificant papers have been preserved, Fate the perverse has
allowed these precious fragments to disappear."
* * * * *
Page 415, line 6.--"Whistler was a painter whose drawing had great
depth, and this was prepared for by good studies, for he must have
studied assiduously.
"His feeling for form was not only that of a good painter, it was that
of a sculptor. He had an extraordinary delicacy of sentiment, which
made some people think that his basis was not very strong, whereas it
was, on the contrary, both strong and firm.
"He understood atmosphere most admirably, and one of his pictures which
made a very deep impression on me, _The Thames at Chelsea_, is a marvel
of depth and space. The landscape in itself is nothing; there is merely
this great extent of atmosphere, rendered with consummate art.
"Whistler's art will lose nothing by the lapse of time; it will gain;
for one of its qualities is energy, another is delicacy; but the
greatest of all is its mastery of drawing."
INDEX
Abbey, E. A., 139, 309, 321, 430, 435, 436
Abbey, Mrs., 139, 435
Abbot, Gen. H. L., 24
Abbott, Jas., 1
Académie Carmen, 35, 377-92
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, 409
_Adam and Eve, Old Chelsea_, 156, 197
Adam houses, Adelphi, 160-61
Addams, Clifford, 77, 360, 408, 418, 424, 435
Addams, Mrs. (Miss Inez Bate), 114, 359, 360, 367, 378, 383-86, 424
"_Albemarle, The_," 279, 311
_Alderney Street_, 275
Alexander, Cicely H. (Mrs. Spring-Rice), 99, 119-24
_Portrait of (Grey and Green)_, 53, 89, 106, 121-24, 131, 146, 208,
299, 375
Alexander, John W., 231, 232, 321
Alexander, May, _Portrait of_, 89, 124
Alexander, W. C., 121, 147, 157, 159, 239, 301, 435
Alexander, Mrs. W. C., 121, 124
Alexandre, Arsène, 315, 320
Allen, Sir William, 8-9
Allingham, W., 120, 403
Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, 56, 58, 153, 154, 252, 253, 435
_Alone with the Tide._ See _Coast of Brittany_
Aman-Jean, E., 320
_Américaine, L'_, 158-59, 208
American Art Association, Paris, 321
American Artists, Society of, 209, 431
_Amsterdam from the Tolhuis_, 74, 80
Amsterdam, Rijks Museum, 280, 418, 422
_Anacapa Island_, 32
_Andalouse, L'_ (_see_ Mrs. C. Whibley), 326, 397
Angel Inn, Cherry Gardens, 63
Angelo, Michael, 364, 403
the Sistine Chapel, 184
_Annabel Lee_, 280
_Ararat, Mount_, 184, 188
Argyll, Duke of, 308
Armitage, Mrs., 377
Armstrong, Thomas, 35-37, 47, 48, 55, 60-61, 168, 170
Armstrong, Sir W., 255, 402
_"Art and Art Critics_," _Whistler v. Ruskin_, 26, 180, 185, 245
Art Institute, Chicago, 283
_"Art Journal,"_ 103, 116, 235, 240, 255, 326
_Art, L'_, 180
_"Art Notes,"_ 157, 267
Art Union, 263
_"Artiste, L',"_ 93, 94
Artists, Society of, 375
Arts Club, 141, 155, 302
Ashbee, C. R., 414, 416
Astor, W. W., 286
Astruc, Z., 49
_Portrait of_, 58
_"Athenæum, The,"_ 59, 67, 69-70, 91, 93, 102, 127, 144, 154, 156,
159, 288
_Au Sixième_, 50
Aubert, M., 37
Augustine (Mme. Bertin), 343, 408
Authors, Society of, 281
Autotype Company, The, 157
Avery, S. P., 99, 100, 210, 432
Axenfeld, M., 49
_Portrait of_, 65
Bacher, Otto H., 118, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 199, 200, 202,
206, 231
_Balcony, By the_, 332
_Balcony, The (Flesh-Colour and Green)_, 86, 87, 109, 276, 281, 332
Balestier, Wolcott, 287
Balleroy, De, 91
Baltimore, 1, 26, 27
Bankes, Eldon, 348
Barbizon, excursion to, 318
Barnett, Canon and Mrs., 335
"_Baronet and the Butterfly, The_," 354, 375
_Barr, Miss, Portrait of_, 334
Barr, Robert, 334
Barrie, J. M., 286
Barrington, Mrs., 35
Barthe, M., 78, 129
Bastien-Lepage, J., 237, 371
Bath Club, 400
_Battersea (Symphony)_, 102, 377
_Battersea Bridge, Old_, 100, 186, 201
(_Blue and Silver_, later _Blue and Gold_), 90, 112, 154, 166, 170,
172-76, 217, 258
(_Brown and Silver_), 93, 301
Baudelaire, 46, 70, 85, 91, 102, 217, 255
Bavarian Royal Academy, 279
Bayliss, Sir Wyke, 251, 268-70
Beardsley, A., 184, 188, 310, 312, 314, 345, 352, 373
Beatty, J. W., 432
Beck, J. W., 308
Becquet, M., 37, 49, 367
_Portrait of_, 73
_Beggars, The_, 199, 277
Belfont, M., 311, 326
Bénédite, L., 48, 86, 414
Benham, Capt., 29, 31-33
Benham, Major H. H., 32-33
Berners Street Gallery, 69, 110
Bernhardt, Sarah, 138, 188
Beurdeley, Maître, 330, 353
_Bibi Lalouette_, 38, 49, 50
Bierstadt, A., 100
Bigham, Mr. Justice, 348-49
_Billingsgate_, 107, 186, 275
Bisschop, Dr., 423
Blaas, E. de, 191
_Black Lion Wharf_, 60, 66, 69, 198, 333
Blackburn, Vernon, 286
Blaikie, W. B., 403
Blanche, J. E., 146
Blenheim, 304
Blind, Mr. and Mrs., 84
Blomfield, R. E., 287
Blott, Mr., 164
_Blue and Gold_ (Westminster), 154, 170
_Blue Girl_, 124, 214, 218. _See_ Florence Leyland; _also_ Waller
_Blue Wave, The_, 68, 301, 306
Blum, R., 191, 194
Bode, Dr., 431
Boehm, Sir J. E., 154, 188
Boer War, 398
Boisbaudran, Lecocq de, 34, 46, 113
Boldini, J., 320, 350, 352, 353
Bonnat, L. J. F., 253, 391
Bonvin, F. S., 48, 53, 59
"_Book of the Artists_," 100
"_Book of Scoundrels_," 344
Boot, Miss, 64
Booth, Mrs., 76
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 209, 432
Public Library, 106, 309
Botticelli, 147
Boucher's _Diana_, copy of, 51
Boudin, E., 338
Boughton, G. H., 39, 57, 59, 111, 137, 150, 155
Bouguereau, A. W., 210, 252
Boussod Valadon, Messrs., 300
Bourgeois, L., 300
Bowen, Lord Justice, 169-81
Boxall, Sir Wm., 17, 18, 54, 110, 338
Bracquemond, F., 48, 73, 85, 91, 216
Breck, Adjt.-Gen., 30
Bremen, Meyer von, 210
_Bridge, The_, 199, 200
"_British Architect, The_," 204
British Artists' Exhibition, 259, 262
British Artists, The Royal Society of, 239, 246, 250-70, 370
British Museum, 75, 107, 108, 170
"_Broad Bridge, The_," 157
Bronson, H., 191
Bronson, Mrs., 191, 195
Bronson, Miss E. (Countess Rucellai), 189
Brooklyn Museum, 124, 432
Brown, Ernest G., 186, 204, 359
Brown, Prof. Fred., 344
Brown, Ford Madox, 82, 84, 110, 147, 203, 204
Brownell, W. C., 186
Browning, Robert, 191, 195
Bruckmann, W. L., 423
Brunel, 76
Buller, Sir Redvers, 399
Buloff, 13
Bunney, R., 191, 193
_Burckhardt, Count_, 71, 72
_Burgomaster Six, The_, 199
Burlington Fine Arts Club, 101
Burne-Jones, Sir E., 81, 104, 107, 147, 153, 154, 169, 175, 178, 204,
227, 253, 333
Burne-Jones, Lady, 168-69, 175
Burr, John, 260
Burton, Director of National Gallery, 178
Burton, Sir R., 404
Burton, Lady, 404
Burty, P., 100, 102
Bussy, Simon, 391
Butler, Mr., 193
Butterfly, The, 89-90, 121, 127, 219, 220, 260, 265, 269, 294, 403
Company of the, 355-57, 397
Byng, Rev. Mr., 272
_Café de Bode_, 75
_Café Molière_, 45, 48
Cahen, Countess Edmond de, 87
Calmour, Alfred, 84
Cambridge University Art Society, 246
Campbell, Lady Archibald, 138, 162-63, 214-16, 233
_Portrait of._ See _Yellow Buskin_
Campbell, Lady Colin, 138
_Portrait of_ (_Ivory and White_), 262
Canaletto, 103, 189-90, 191, 232, 335, 340
Canfield, R. A., 165, 194, 202, 426-27, 430, 433
_Portrait of_, 414
Caravaggio, 341
Carlisle, Earl of, 82
Carlyle, Thomas, 89, 119-21, 123, 334, 403, 404
_Portrait of_ (_Black and Grey_), 53, 74, 98, 119-20, 122, 123, 154,
164, 170, 171, 174, 185, 221, 240, 241, 282, 298-99, 308
_Carmen_, 362
Carmen Rossi, Madame, 313, 331, 358, 377-79, 387
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, 432
Carr, J. Comyns, 240
Carte, Mrs. D'Oyly, 160-61, 241-43
_Cassatt, Mrs., Portrait of_, 257
Cassell, 209
Cauldwell, J. E., 397
Cauty, H. H., 251
Cazin, C., 73
Cellini, 185, 297
Cennino, 185, 379
Centenary Exhibition of Lithography, 331, 332
"_Century Magazine_," 22, 31, 222, 237
Champfleury, 91
Chantrey Collection, 111-12
Chapman, Alfred, 109
Chapman, Miss Emily, 16, 47, 68, 81, 98
Chase, William M., 20, 21, 235-38, 391
_Portrait of_, 236
Chelsea Arts Club, 141, 247, 300
_Chelsea Girl_, 257
_Chelsea in Ice_ (_Harmony in Grey_), 263
_Chelsea Rags_, 279, 375
_Chelsea Reach_ (_Harmony in Grey_), 144
Cheyne Walk, houses in, 76, 98, 283,284, 285, 414, 423
Chicago Exhibition, 308-309
Chicago Institute, 130, 432
Childs, F. L. T., 25
Christie, J. E., 78
_Chronique des Beaux-Arts_, 303
Church, F. E., 100
Cimabue, 253
Claghorn Collection, the, 209
Claretie, Jules, 94
Clarke, Sir Edward, 348-49
Claude, 102, 103, 340
Clausen, George, 270, 289
Clémenceau, Georges, 300
Clerkenwell Church, 360
_Coast of Brittany, The_, 67-69, 220
_Coast Survey, Nos. I. and II._, 31-32,50, 62
Cole, Alan S., 17, 105, 135-37, 144, 145, 147-51, 165-66, 187, 204,
207, 210-13, 218, 228, 240, 256, 273, 284, 300, 354, 359, 435
Cole, Mrs. A. S., 138, 273, 359
Cole, Sir Henry, 33, 106, 149, 187, 212, 217, 375 _note_
_Portrait of_, 145
Cole, Timothy, 338-40, 397
Cole, Vicat, 112
Collingwood, W. G., 155, 167
Collins, Wilkie, 70
Colvin, Sir Sidney, 128, 246, 349
Comstock, Gen. C. B., 24
Conder, Charles, 412
Conway, Dr. Moncure, 101, 247
Cook, E. T., 82, 180
Cooper, T. S., 69
Coquelin Ainé, 225
Corder, Miss Rosa, 156
_Portrait of_ (_Arrangement in Black and Brown_), 146, 156, 165,
185, 208, 280, 283, 299, 306, 373, 426
Cordier, 91
Coronio, Mrs., 56
Courbet, G., 34, 46, 47, 48, 52, 53, 54, 64, 67-68, 86, 95, 102,
103-104, 113, 195, 216, 253
_Courbet on the Shore_, 95
"_Court and Society Review, The_," 233-34, 259
Couture, T., 34, 35, 252
Cowan, J. J., 194
_Portrait of_ (_Grey Man_), 324-25, 334
Crabb, Capt., 135
Crackenthorpe, Hubert, 279
Crane, Walter, 153-54, 175, 270
_Creditor, The_ (see _Gold Scab_), 188
_Cremorne Gardens_, 76-77, 144, 432
_Crépuscule_ (_Flesh-Colour and Green_), 86, 99-100, 222
Crivelli, 147
Crockett, S. R., 334
_Portrait of_ (_Grey Man_), 334
"_Cuckoo, The_," 207
Curtis, Ralph, 191, 193-95, 240
Cust, Henry, 286
Dabo, Léon, 43
D'Ache, Caran, 398
"_Daily Chronicle, The_," 332, 333, 351
"_Daily Graphic, The_," 332
"_Daily Mail, The_," 309
"_Daily News, The_," 143, 168, 246
"_Daily Telegraph, The_," 59, 67, 246
Dalou, J., 131
Dalziel Brothers, 71
_Dam Wood, The_, 124
"_Danbury News_," 137
_Dance House, The_, 51, 276
Dannat, W. T., 264
Darwen, 47
_Daughter of Eve, A_, 426
Davenport, Dr., 325
David, 34, 363
Davis, Edmund, 59, 376
Davis, Jefferson, 28
Day, Mr. Justice, 179
Day, Lewis F., 243
Degas, H. G. E., 34, 53, 239, 253, 349
Delabrosse, 292
Delacroix, E., 91, 253
_Hommage à_, 91
Delannoy, Ernest, 37, 41-46, 55, 81
Delaroche, Paul, 34
Delâtre, A., 49, 50, 62, 85
_Deluge_, 51
Denny, Annie, 33
Deschamps, Charles, 110, 188
_Design for a Mosaic_ (_Gold Girl_), 106
Desnoyers, Fernand, 74
Desoye, Mme., 85
"_Detroit Free Press_," 137
Dicey, F., 137
Dicksee, Frank, 112
Dilkes, the, 17
Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), 165
Dobbin, James C., 28
Doria Palace, 363