etched work has not been surpassed by any one, and equalled only by
Rembrandt. Comparing the etching of the two, it should be said of
Rembrandt that he chose greater subjects,--as, for instance,
‘Christ Healing the Sick’ and ‘The Crucifixion;’ in landscape ‘The
Three Trees;’ and in portraiture ‘Jan Lutma,’ ‘Ephraim Bonus,’ and
‘The Burgomaster Six.’ It certainly cannot be said of Whistler that
he ever etched any plates such as the two first mentioned. Though
Rembrandt’s etchings number, say, two hundred and seventy plates,
when a buyer has bought fifty, he has, no matter how much money he
may possess, all the Rembrandts he wants. In other words, two
hundred and twenty plates are of little value.
“Whistler has catalogued three hundred and seventy-two plates; but
it would not do to think of stopping the buying of his prints with
fifty, or twice that number, or any other figures, indeed, short of
them all. The difference between Rembrandt and Whistler might be
expressed in this way: Rembrandt etched many things whose technique
was not the best, whose subjects were abominable, and whose work
generally was far from pleasing. Whistler, on the contrary, has
never etched a plate that would not be a delight to any
connoisseur.
“I have fifty-five Rembrandts, and, with the exception of half a
dozen more, I have all that I want, or all that I would buy, no
matter how much money I had. Of Whistlers I have fifty-one, and I
carry constantly in my pocket a list of as many more that I would
be glad to buy if I had the chance. I can add that if I succeed in
getting the others I shall then want as many more.
“While Whistler has not equalled Rembrandt in some of the great
things, yet his average is very much higher. The latter etched
scores of plates that do his memory no honor; the former, on the
contrary, has never etched one that will not be remembered with
pleasure. To etch a fine portrait is the surest proof of the
master; the human face is the grandest subject that any artist ever
had. I have always thought that Rembrandt’s ‘Jan Lutma’ was the
grand old man of all etched portraiture, though it is hard to see
in what possible respect it surpasses ‘The Engraver,’ ‘Becquet,’
‘Drouet,’ and other portraits by Whistler.
“Rembrandt’s ‘Three Trees,’ in landscape, is a greater plate than
Whistler’s ‘Zaandam,’ though the latter is well-nigh perfection. I
know no Rembrandt interior that approaches Whistler’s ‘Kitchen,’
and I know no exteriors, unless possibly a few by Meryon, that
approach his ‘Palaces,’ ‘The Doorway,’ ‘Two Doorways,’ the
‘Embroidered Curtain,’ and a score or two of others that are well
known to all lovers of black and white.
“This story was started on Whistler ten or twelve years ago, and
has been on its travels ever since: Some one asked him which of his
etchings he thought the best. His answer was, ‘All of them.’ And he
told the truth. Of plates that he thought much of, when I saw him
thirteen years ago, the little ‘Marie Loches,’ which is another
name for the Mayor’s residence, was hung over his desk, and I
distinctly remember that the fine ‘Pierrot,’ in the Amsterdam set,
was also a prime favorite of his. Later I have heard it said that
the portrait of ‘Annie’ he regarded as his finest figure piece.”
In February, 1883, he exhibited in London, in the rooms of the Fine Arts
Society, fifty-one etchings and dry-points.
It was, according to the placards,--and in reality,--an “Arrangement in
Yellow and White,” for the room was white, with yellow mouldings; the
frames of the prints white, the chairs white, the ottomans yellow; the
draperies were yellow, with white butterflies; there were yellow flowers
in yellow Japanese vases on the mantels; and even the attendants were
clothed in white and yellow. As a French artist remarked, “It was a
dream of yellow.”
This, however, is how it struck some of the angry critics, who were
impaled in the catalogue:
“While Mr. Whistler’s staring study in yellow and white was open to
the public we did not notice it,--for notice would have been
advertisement, and we did not choose to advertise him.
“Of the arrangement in yellow and white, we note that it was simply
an insult to the visitors,--almost intolerable to any one
possessing an eye for color, which Mr. Whistler, fortunately for
him, does not,--and absolutely sickening (in the strictest sense of
the word) to those at all sensitive in such matters. ‘I feel sick
and giddy in this hateful room,’ remarked a lady to us after she
had been there but a few minutes. Even the common cottage chairs,
painted a coarse yellow, did not solace the visitors; and the
ornaments on the mantel-piece, something like old bottle-necks,
only excited a faint smile in the sickened company.”[14]
The sea-sick lady was probably an invention of the writer.
* * * * *
Another, apparently somewhat less susceptible to the “sickening” effects
of yellow, simply says:
“Mr. Whistler has on view at the Fine Art Society’s some
half-a-hundred etchings; but it was not to see these only that he
invited his friends, and many fine people besides, last Saturday.
In the laudable effort for a new sensation, he had been engaging in
literature; and a grave servant, dressed in yellow and white (to
suit the temporary decoration of the walls during the show) pressed
into the hands of those who had come in all innocence to see the
etchings a pamphlet in which Mr. Whistler’s arrangements had
extended to an arrangement of critics.”[15]
The catalogue which stirred the ire of the critics was an innocent
little thing in brown-paper cover containing a list of the prints; but
beneath each was a line or two from the critics, and they were all there
in outspoken condemnation of the work of the man who is now placed, by
even the critics, on a plane with Rembrandt. Some have since confessed
their errors in print and begged for the mantle of charity.
* * * * *
On the title-page appeared:
“Out of their own mouths shall ye judge them.”
And here, as an example, is what he printed beneath “No. 51, Lagoon;
Noon.” In mercy the names of the critics are omitted.
“Years ago James Whistler was a person of high promise.”
“What the art of Mr. Whistler yields is a _tertium quid_.”
“All of which gems, I am sincerely thankful to say, I cannot
appreciate.”
“As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that
we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the
degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been
fair?”
“Disastrous failures.”
“Failures that are complete and failures that are partial.”
“A publicity rarely bestowed upon failures at all.”
Whereupon Whistler brought the catalogue to a close with these
scriptural sentences:
“Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake
us; we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we
walk in darkness.”
“We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no
eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night.”
“We roar all, like bears.”
Whistler’s manner of arraigning his critics was his own. No one else
could compile such delightful bits of literature as were those
catalogues he issued from time to time; but the idea of publishing
adverse criticism with the work criticised was not new.
To his first edition of “Sartor Resartus” Carlyle--Whistler’s neighbor
in Chelsea--printed as an appendix the letter of condemnation which
Murray the publisher received from his literary adviser and which led to
the rejection of the manuscript.
The scheme is not without advantages,--it amuses the reader and
confounds the critic, to which ends books and paintings are created.
* * * * *
How the galled jades winced may be gathered from the following mild
comments:
“Mr. Whistler’s catalogue, however, is our present game. He takes
for motto, ‘Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’ But Mr. Whistler
mistakes his vocation. He is no butterfly. He might be compared,
perhaps, to a bird,--the bird that can sing but won’t. If one
judged, however, from some of his etchings, one would say a spider
was nearer his mark. But a butterfly! the emblem of all that is
bright and beautiful in form and color! Daniel Lambert might as
reasonably have taken the part of the Apothecary in ‘Romeo and
Juliet,’ or Julia Pastrana have essayed the _rôle_ of Imogen.
“Criticism _is_ powerless with him in many different ways. It is
powerless to correct his taste for wilfully drawing ill. If a
school-girl of ten showed such a picture of a human being as this
(referring to illustration), for instance, we might criticise
usefully enough. We might point out that no human being (we suppose
the thing is intended for a human being, but it may be meant for a
rag-bag) ever had such features or such shape. But of what use
would it be to tell Mr. Whistler as much? He knows it already, only
he despises the public so much that he thinks it will do well
enough for them.
“Again, criticism is powerless to explain what was meant by some
such figure as this, in No. 33. The legs we can especially answer
for, while the appendages which come where a horse has his feet and
pasterns are perfect transcripts--they are things we never could
forget. We have not the faintest idea what they really are. We
would not insult Mr. Whistler by supposing he tried to draw a horse
with the customary equine legs, and so failed as to produce these
marvels. Perhaps Dr. Wilson knows of some animal limbed thus
strangely.
“It is because of such insults as these to common sense and common
understanding, and from no ill-will we bear him, that we refuse
seriously to criticise such work as Mr. Whistler has recently
brought before the public. Whatever in it is good adds to his
offence, for it shows the offence to be wilful, if not
premeditated.”[16]
Poor etchings,--condemned for their virtues, condemned for their
faults,--there is no health in them.
* * * * *
And these and many similar things were written, only twenty years ago,
of the greatest etchings the world has known since the days of
Rembrandt.
When one thinks of the obscurity of Rembrandt to the day of his death,
and how little his work was known for long after, of the passing of
Meryon without recognition, it must be conceded that Whistler is coming
into his own amazingly fast.
* * * * *
Senefelder discovered the process, but Whistler perfected the art of
lithography. It was not until 1877, twenty years after he began etching,
that he made his first lithographs.
There had been many before him, but none like him.
During the first half of the century the process was in great vogue in
France, and men like Ingres, Millet, Corot, and Delacroix tried the
facile stone.
One can readily understand how so fascinating a process appealed to
Whistler, and the wonder is that he did not attempt it earlier.
The use of transfer-paper, whereby the artist is enabled to make his
drawing when and where he pleases upon the paper, instead of being
hampered by the heavy stone, has greatly advanced the art, though
drawing on the stone possesses certain advantages and attractions over
the paper.
Not many years ago Whistler was called as an expert witness in a case
which involved the question whether the use of transfer-paper was
lithography. The result of the case is of no consequence. While on the
stand, he turned to the judge, and said:
“May I be permitted to explain, my lord, to these gentlemen (the jury)
why we are all here?”
“Certainly not,” answered the court; “we are all here because we cannot
help it.”
The witty ruling of the court deprived those present of remarks which
would have been not only to the point but greatly amusing.
It was in this case that an artist who had written many fine things
about Whistler and his work appeared as a witness on the other side, and
in cross-examining the great painter, counsel called attention to one of
the complimentary things that had been written (“Mr. Whistler’s almost
nothings are priceless”), and asked, “You don’t dissent to that, do you,
Mr. Whistler?”
Whistler smiled, and replied, “It is very simple and very proper that
Mr. ---- should say that sort of a thing, but I attach no importance to
it.”
And it is really true that no man ever enjoyed more having nice things
said about his work, and no man ever attributed less importance to
either favorable or unfavorable comments. He accepted both as a matter
of course and of no consequence; neither he nor his work was affected in
the slightest degree.
In 1896 he exhibited some seventy lithographs in the rooms of the Fine
Arts Society, and they were a revelation of the possibilities of the
process in the hands of a master of line.
The Way catalogue, now out of print, contained one hundred and thirty,
purporting to cover those printed down to and including 1896.
To this list must be added at least eight more which are well known, and
possibly others.
* * * * *
There are, therefore, in existence nearly four hundred etchings and
dry-points by Whistler, and probably not less than one hundred and fifty
lithographs,--a large volume of work for one man, even if he produced
nothing else.
Stress is here laid upon the mere volume of his work to meet some
remarkable views which have been put forth concerning him and to correct
the popular impression that his controversies diverted him from his art.
He was but sixty-nine when he died. His first etchings appeared in
1857-58. For the remainder of his life he averaged twelve plates and
lithographs a year,--one a month; and of this great number, it is
conceded by conservative experts, the percentage of successful plates
and stones is much larger than that of any of his great predecessors. In
fact, there are no failures. Some of the plates were more sketchy and of
slighter importance than others, but every one is the genuine expression
of the artist’s mood at the moment of execution, and precious
accordingly.
Not many years ago there was in a certain city an exhibition of the
slight but pretty work of a famous French illustrator. By his grace, and
especially by his happy facility in the drawing of children in checked
frocks and gray or brown or blue stockings and stubby shoes, the work
attracted attention, and, as always happens with the pretty and the
novel, aroused an enthusiasm quite out of proportion to its real merit.
Two men fell into a dispute over the merits of the little drawings, one
siding with the throng and maintaining they were great, the other
insisting they were simply pretty,--too pretty to be good and really
quite hard and mechanical in execution,--in fact, quite inconsequential
as art.
“Look,” said he, “at this figure of a child. See how the outline is
painfully traced in black and then the colors filled in as mechanically
and methodically as if a stencil had been used. What would a Jap say to
that?”
“He would say it is fine. It is Japanese in color and motive.”
“About as Japanese as a colored illustration in a modern magazine.” The
discussion became heated.
Oddly enough, at that moment a Japanese expert, who was crossing the
country on his way to Europe to catalogue some collections, entered the
room, and he was appealed to for his opinion of the drawing in question.
In broken English he said:
“It is--very--pretty, very pretty; but--I not know how you say it,--but
it is what you call--Spencerian,--yes, that is the name of the
copy-books--Spencerian writing, while a Japanese drawing is
the--autograph--that is the difference--the autograph.”
And that is the difference between some of the work of even the great
ones before him and whatever Whistler did,--everything he touched was
his autograph; whereas with even Rembrandt there is the feeling now and
then, though seldom, of the set purpose, of the determination to secure
a certain result, of the intention to do something for others. Whistler
never did anything for any one but himself. He never touched needle or
brush to please model, sitter, or patron. Whenever the work in hand
ceased to amuse and interest him as a creation of his own fancy, he
dropped it. He could not work after his interest had evaporated.
* * * * *
There is in existence a water-color[17] bearing Whistler’s signature on
the back, and also this endorsement: “From my window. This was his first
attempt at water-color.--E. W. Godwin.”
It is a characteristic view of the Thames with Old Battersea Bridge
reaching almost from side to side.
In his pastels and water-colors, as in his etchings and lithographs, he
never forced a delicate medium beyond its limitations.
Of all artists who ever lived, Whistler made the least mystery of his
art.
He not only expressed his intentions fully in his art, but also in
unmistakable language.
In the first of his “Propositions,” published many years ago, he laid
down certain fundamental principles which controlled his use of etching,
water-color, and pastel, the first proposition being:
“That in art it is criminal to go beyond the means used in its
exercise.”
And he defined the limits of the etcher’s plate, and by implication the
dimensions of the water-color and pastel--art’s most fragile means.
* * * * *
In the famous “Propositions No. 2” he formulated the principles which
governed his work as a painter, the first being:
“A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about
the end has disappeared.”
And the last:
“The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter,--perfect in
its bud as in its bloom,--with no reason to explain its presence, no
mission to fulfil, a joy to the artist, a delusion to the
philanthropist, a puzzle to the botanist, an accident of sentiment and
alliteration to the literary man.”[18]
* * * * *
These two sets of “Propositions,” read in connection with his one
lecture, the “Ten o’Clock,” which was delivered in London, February 20,
1885, at Cambridge, March 24, and Oxford, April 30, contain his creed
in art.
Many a painter has written books explanatory of his art, but none has
ever stated so plainly and so tersely the principles which actually
governed all he did. Whistler was so epigrammatic in utterance that he
was not taken seriously, but accused of paradox. But whoever reads what
he has so soberly and earnestly said will better understand his work.
And whatever may be thought of reprinting entire the “Gentle Art,” there
can be no question about the great need of scattering broadcast the
“Propositions” and the “Ten o’Clock.”
_V_
_Chelsea--The Royal Academy--“Portrait of His
Mother”--“Carlyle”--Grosvenor Gallery--The “Peacock
Room”--Concerning Exhibitions._
After--possibly because--his “White Girl” was rejected at the Salon, he
went to London and made his home at Chelsea, where he had as neighbors
Carlyle, Rossetti, George Eliot, and others of note in art and
literature.
Carlyle’s description of Chelsea as it was in 1834, when he and his wife
moved there, is interesting,--for the place changed little before
Whistler came. Writing to his wife concerning the house he had found,
Carlyle said:
“The street runs down upon the river, which I suppose you might see
by stretching out your head from the front window, at a distance of
fifty yards on the left. We are called ‘Cheyne Row’ proper
(pronounced _Chainie_ Row), and are a ‘genteel neighborhood;’ two
old ladies on one side, unknown character on the other, but with
‘pianos.’ The street is flag pathed, sunk storied, iron railed, all
old-fashioned and tightly done up; looks out on a rank of sturdy
old _pollarded_ (that is, beheaded) lime-trees, standing there like
giants in _tawtie_ wigs (for the new boughs are still young);
beyond this a high brick wall; backwards a garden, the size of our
back one at Comely Bank, with trees, etc., in bad culture; beyond
this green hayfields and tree avenues, once a bishop’s
pleasure-grounds, an unpicturesque yet rather cheerful outlook. The
house itself is eminent, antique, wainscoted to the very ceiling,
and has been all new painted and repaired; broadish stair with
massive balustrade (in the old style), corniced and as thick as
one’s thigh; floors thick as a rock, wood of them here and there
worm-eaten, yet capable of cleanness, and still with thrice the
strength of a modern floor. And then as to rooms, Goody! Three
stories beside the sunk story, in every one of them three
apartments, in depth something like forty feet in all--a front
dining-room (marble chimney-piece, etc.), then a back dining-room
or breakfast-room, a little narrower by reason of the kitchen
stairs; then out of this, and narrower still (to allow a back
window, you consider), a china-room or pantry, or I know not what,
all shelved and fit to hold crockery for the whole street. Such is
the ground area, which, of course, continues to the top, and
furnishes every bedroom with a dressing-room or second bedroom; on
the whole a most massive, roomy, sufficient old house, with places,
for example, to hang, say, three dozen hats or cloaks on, and as
many crevices and queer old presses and shelved closets (all tight
and new painted in their way) as would gratify the most covetous
Goody,--rent, thirty-five pounds! I confess I am strongly tempted.
Chelsea is a singular heterogeneous kind of spot, very dirty and
confused in some places, quite beautiful in others, abounding with
antiquities and the traces of great men,--Sir Thomas More, Steele,
Smollett, etc. Our row, which for the last three doors or so is a
street, and none of the noblest, runs out upon a ‘Parade’ (perhaps
they call it), running along the shore of the river, a broad
highway with huge shady trees, boats lying moored, and a smell of
shipping and tar. Battersea Bridge (of wood) a few yards off; the
broad river, with white-trowsered, white-shirted Cockneys dashing
by like arrows in thin, long canoes of boats; beyond, the green,
beautiful knolls of Surrey, with their villages,--on the whole a
most artificial, green-painted, yet lively, fresh, almost
opera-looking business, such as you can fancy. Finally, Chelsea
abounds more than any place in omnibi, and they take you to
Coventry Street for sixpence. Revolve all this in thy fancy and
judgment, my child, and see what thou canst _make_ of it.”[19]
Between Whistler and Rossetti there sprang up a friendship that was
singular, considering how diametrically opposite they were to one
another in nearly everything. They had, however, this in common,--each
was in search of a degree of the beautiful quite beyond the grasp of the
ordinary mortal; but of the two, Whistler’s is incomparably the finer
art, for it is the purer and more abstract, while Rossetti’s painting
exhibited the literary bent very conspicuously,--it was inextricably
involved with his poetry.
One day he showed Whistler a sketch which Whistler liked, and he urged
Rossetti to go on with it; but Rossetti became so infatuated with his
conception that instead of finishing the picture he wrote a sonnet on
the subject and read it to Whistler, who said:
“Rossetti take out the picture and frame the sonnet.”
Life in Chelsea in those days had its drawbacks.
Whistler’s utter lack of commercial instinct, his dislike for the
dealers, the habit he had of falling out with any one who discussed
money matters with him, and that reluctance to part with pictures which
was a conspicuous trait through life, often involved him in trouble
financially.
* * * * *
In 1879 E. W. Godwin designed and built for him a house in Tite Street.
It was of white brick, and known as the “White House,” and is described
as having been very artistic in so far as it was settled and furnished,
but for some time only two rooms were in order. “Everywhere you
encountered great packing-cases full of pretty things, and saw
preparations for papering and carpeting, but somehow or other nothing
ever got any forwarder. What was done was perfect in its way. The white
wainscoting, the rich draperies, the rare Oriental china, the pictures
and their frames, the old silver, all had a charm and a history of their
own.”[20]
His powers of persuasion were such that it is said he once tamed a
bailiff--temporarily in possession--to a degree of docility little short
of amazing,--a favorite word of his.
“When the man first appeared he tried to wear his hat in the
drawing-room and smoke about the house. Whistler soon settled that.
He went out into the hall and fetched a stick, and daintily knocked
the man’s hat off. The man was so surprised that he forgot to be
angry, and within a day or two he had been trained to wait at
table. One morning, when Mr. Whistler was shaving, a message was
brought up that the man (he was always known in the house as ‘the
man,’ as if he were the only one of his species) wanted to speak to
him.