pose; and ten or fifteen minutes were not infrequently spent in getting
palette and brushes to suit him. To a model paid by the hour this delay
was of no concern, but to the unpractised sitter, whose limit of
endurance and patience did not exceed an hour, the time spent in setting
the palette seemed unduly long and altogether wasted. But all that was a
part of the refinement of Whistler’s art.
So susceptible was his color-sense that he could not mix colors to suit
him unless canvas and sitter were before him precisely as they would be
when he began to paint. The arrangement of the colors on the palette was
but preliminary to placing those same colors on the canvas, therefore
the sitter was as essential to the one process as the other.
* * * * *
Once inside his studio, Whistler seemed to lose all the eccentricities
of manner by which he was known to the world. He doffed his coat,
substituted for his monocle a pair of servicable spectacles, and was
ready for work.
If it were a full-length portrait, he placed the canvas near his palette
and his sitter in pose about four feet to the other side of the easel.
For observation he stood about twelve feet back towards the
doorway,--very close, in fact, to the refractory stove. The light fell
slanting on the right of the portrait and sitter, over the painter’s
left shoulder, and this light he would modify each day according to the
amount of sunshine and the effect he desired.
He then selected two or three small brushes with handles about three
feet in length, stood back about twelve feet, took a good look at both
sitter and canvas, then stepping quickly forward, and, standing as far
from the canvas as the long handles and his arms permitted, he began to
rapidly sketch in the figure with long, firm strokes of the brush. The
advantage of long handles was obvious,--they enabled him to stand back
quite a distance and sketch directly from his sitter. Except for this
first sketch, he used ordinary brushes with ordinary handles.
There was nothing eccentric or unusual in his methods or in what he
worked with. Probably no painter in all Paris used simpler means to
arrive at great results. It is quite likely that no other painter of
to-day--judging entirely from appearances of modern canvases--could
achieve any satisfactory results with materials so elemental.
To make the sketch required possibly thirty minutes. To the casual
observer there was often more of a likeness in the first sketch than at
any time after,--which simply goes to show the power of line devoid of
color and also the easy task of the caricaturist.
* * * * *
The sketch finished, the long-handled brushes were discarded and work
began in earnest. With one or more, sometimes a handful of brushes,--for
they would accumulate without his realizing it,--he would again stand
back and carefully scrutinize sitter and canvas until it seemed as
if--and no doubt it was so--he transferred a visual impression of the
subject to the canvas and fixed it there ready to be made permanent with
line and color; then quickly, often with a run and a slide, he rushed up
to the canvas and, without glancing at his sitter, vigorously painted so
long as his visual image lasted, then going back the full distance he
took another look, and so on day after day to the end.
In life-size work he seldom stood close to the canvas and painted direct
from his sitter.
He has laid down the proposition:
“The one aim of the unsuspecting painter is to make his man ‘stand
out’ from the frame, never doubting that, on the contrary, he
should really, and in truth absolutely does, stand _within_ the
frame, and at a depth behind it equal to the distance at which the
painter sees his model. The frame is, indeed, the window through
which the painter looks at his model, and nothing could be more
offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to thrust the model
on the hitherside of this window.”[46]
The number of sittings required varied greatly, and did not depend in
any degree upon the size of the canvas. Sometimes he would paint a
life-size figure with great rapidity; again he would spend weeks and
months on a very small picture. All depending upon conditions over which
he had no control.
He has devoted as many as ninety sittings to a portrait, only to
pronounce it unfinished and unsatisfactory.
No work counted or was permitted to remain save that painted in what he
called his “grand manner,” which meant the work of those days and hours
when everything--sitter, light, weather, spirits, mood, enthusiasm--was
just right,--a combination that might come several days in succession or
but once in a fortnight.
He once said, “The portrait of my mother was painted in a few hours,”
meaning that the work of the last few hours was the work that really
counted.
It was interesting to watch a picture grow under the hands of Whistler.
With most painters something is finished from day to day, and in the
course of ten or twelve sittings the portrait is complete. Not so with
him. Nothing, not a detail, not even an infinitesimal section of the
background was finished until the last.
He worked with great rapidity and long hours, but he used his colors
thin and covered the canvas with innumerable coats of paint. The colors
increased in depth and intensity as the work progressed. At first the
entire figure was painted in grayish-brown tones, with very little of
flesh color, the whole blending perfectly with the grayish-brown of the
prepared canvas; then the entire background would be intensified a
little; then the figure made a little stronger; then the background, and
so on from day to day and week to week, and often from month to month,
to the exhaustion of the sitter, but the perfection of the work, if the
sitter remained patient and continued in favor.
At no time did he permit the figure to get away from or out of the
background; at no time did he permit the background to oppress the
figure, but the development of both was even and harmonious, with
neither discord nor undue contrast.
And so the portrait would really grow, really develop as an entirety,
very much as a negative under the action of the chemicals comes out
gradually--lights, shadows, and all from the first faint indications to
their full values.
It was as if the portrait were hidden within the canvas and the master
by passing his wands day after day over the surface evoked the image.
Most painters can take a canvas and begin at once with the colors of the
finished picture, making each stroke count from the very first, often,
if the canvas has been prepared, doing little or nothing to the
background. Whistler himself would sometimes let the prepared canvas
show, all the resources of his art he understood, but if he did, the
picture was simply a sketch.
In a very profound sense Whistler’s work from the very beginning was
always finished,--finished in the sense that any growing thing is
perfect from day to day. The plant may be but a tender shoot just
appearing above the ground, or it may be in full leaf, or in gorgeous
blossom, but it is finished, it is perfect by day and night. In that
sense were Whistler’s paintings finished. If they were sketches, then
the slight amount of color used was precisely the amount the sketch
required. At no time was the sense of proportion outraged by carrying
line or color or likeness beyond the symmetrical development of the
three.
* * * * *
One must not be understood as saying that all his pictures are of equal
merit,--perfection does not necessarily mean that; nor that he did not
do many things he considered failures.
Few painters ever destroyed more work, no painter was ever more critical
of his own work. But, in spite of all he could do, things would get out
into the world that he wished destroyed. This was due in part to the
facility with which he made sketches and the enthusiasm with which he
would begin new things, many of which never got on. Now and then some of
these unfinished things--unfinished from the first stroke, because never
quite satisfactory to him--would escape his studio.
Artists express very positive opinions regarding the merits of his
pictures, placing some with the best the world has done, others as quite
unworthy the master. As no two painters agree which are the best and
which are the least worthy, the layman is helpless. In truth, only
Whistler himself could have pointed out all the qualities and defects,
and this he never did. If pressed for an opinion or a preference, he
would evade the question, or by deftly speaking of this or that quality
of the works under discussion would leave his hearers with the
impression they knew all about the matter, when in reality they were no
wiser than before. He simply did not care to discuss his work intimately
with the lay or the professional mind. What he saw was beyond their
comprehension, or if not beyond their comprehension, then they saw it
without further words from him, for did not the picture speak plainly
for itself?
* * * * *
Contrary to general impression, he was patience itself in his studio. A
sitter who was with him every day for nearly six weeks never heard him
utter an impatient word; on the contrary, he was all kindness. He would
permit his sitter to bring friends to the studio, and he would listen to
all the foolish suggestions that could occur to a tired and impatient
man.
Sometimes he would rebuke a too-insistent sitter, as the following
anecdotes show, if true:
It is said that one man annoyed him by saying at the end of each
sitting:
“How about that ear, Mr. Whistler? Don’t forget to finish that!”
At the last sitting, everything being done except this ear, Whistler
said:
“Well, I think I am through. Now I’ll sign it.” Which he did in a very
solemn, important manner, as was his way.
“But my ear, Mr. Whistler! You aren’t going to leave it that way?”
“Oh, you can put it in after you get home.”
He was once painting the portrait of a distinguished novelist, who,
though extremely clever, was not blessed with the fatal gift of beauty.
When the portrait was finished, the sitter did not seem satisfied with
it.
“Don’t you like it?” inquired Whistler.
“No; can’t say I do. But,” in self justification, “you must admit that
it is a bad work of art.”
“Yes,” Whistler replied; “but I think you must admit that you are a bad
work of nature.”
The truth is, he would listen to every suggestion made by the sitter,
model, or even casual visitor, if one were admitted.
A sitter once said to him:
“Mr. Whistler, isn’t there something wrong about the right eye?”
Instantly alert, he said:
“What’s that you say? Um--um--right eye----” And he carefully examined
the canvas. “We’ll have a look at that. Suppose you stand for just a
moment--just a moment.” And he paid as much heed as if the criticism had
come from competent sources.
Mrs. Whistler would now and then come to the studio, and he would
eagerly ask her opinion of the progress made; and her suggestions were
always followed. For her ability as an artist--for her own pleasure,
rather than for profit--and as a critic of his work he had the highest
opinion. Her suggestions were ever to the point, and under her influence
a work always made rapid headway. It was an irreparable loss when she
died in 1897, and he was never again quite so light-hearted. For a long
time he kept the apartments at 110 Rue du Bac, but did not live there.
* * * * *
His will expressed his devotion to her memory and belief in her art,--
“I bequeath my wife’s entire collection of garnets rare and
beautiful, together with sprays, pendants, etc., of the same style
of work or setting in white stones, brilliants, or old paste, our
entire collection of beautiful old silver and plate, and the
complete collection of old china, to the Louvre. This bequest is on
condition that the three collections be gathered together in one
and displayed as the ‘Beatrix Whistler Collection.’ Also that in it
or appropriately in the same room shall be hung proofs of my wife’s
exquisite etchings, of which I leave a list attached to my will
signed by me.”
By a codicil dated May 7, 1903, he revoked the bequest to the Louvre,
but he expressed a desire that, in the event of his residuary legatee
retaining the collection of garnets during her life, she would bequeath
them to the Louvre upon her death.
He was unsparing of his sitters only in this one respect,--he would
become so absorbed in his work as to completely forget them, and they
would collapse with fatigue. Sometimes he would notice by their pallor
the faintness which was overcoming them, and instantly, all solicitude,
he would have them rest, or go out on the balcony for fresh air; but he
himself never sat down. While they were resting he would walk back and
forth, looking at the canvas, but rarely touching it, and talking to
himself,--now and then, but not often, taking the sitter into his
confidence. The moment the sitter was rested he would begin working
again like one possessed.
By close observation it could be seen that the best work was usually
done during the first long pose, or in the last hour of the afternoon,
when the shadows were deepening; and the wise sitter would humor this
trait and pose his longest and best in those two hours.
To the unaccustomed a half-hour standing--without moving so much as to
disturb a line of the garments--is a long pose. But with practice--and
with Whistler one had practice--an hour and a half without moving a
muscle is not impossible.
Every portrait Whistler ever began he expected to make his masterpiece.
That is the way he started in with any work. It was to be the best thing
he ever did; and so long as the enthusiasm lasted he would walk up and
down the studio talking half to himself half to his sitter:
“We will just go right on as we have begun, and it will be
fine,--perhaps the finest thing I have ever done.”
“Not as good as the portrait of your mother?”--the inevitable question.
“Perhaps; who knows? Possibly finer in a way; for this, you know, is
different. We’ll make a big thing of it.” And so on for days and weeks,
until something would occur,--possibly weariness on the part of the
sitter; possibly failure to keep appointments on days when the painter
felt like doing his best; possibly too great anxiety to see the picture
finished,--and the painter’s enthusiasm would subside, and the portrait
would turn out not so great after all.
After the first few days he would place the canvas in its frame, and
thereafter paint with it so. And his frames were designed by himself.
All who have seen his pictures know them,--just simple, dignified lines,
with no contortions of wood and gilt.
* * * * *
When a sitter was of congenial spirit and complacent mood they would
lunch in the studio, and he would paint all day, from eleven in the
morning until--well, until it was so dark that all was dim and shadowy
and ghostly; and then together both would take their leave, always
turning at the door for a last look at the canvas looming mysterious in
the darkness; then grope their way down the winding oaken stairs, later
to dine together at some unfrequented place where the proprietor watched
the fire himself and had stored away in musty depths a few--just a
few--relics of memorable vintages.
“O my friends, when I am sped, appoint a meeting; and when ye have
met together, be ye glad thereof; and when the cup-bearer holds in
her hand a flagon of old wine, then think of old Khayyam and drink
to his memory.”
In a glass of ruby Margaux of the vintage of ’58, the last of its dusty
bin, I drink to the memory of those glorious days when the vacant canvas
assumed the hues of life and grew beneath the touch; and those fragrant
nights when, with stately ceremony, the cob-webbed bottle came forth
from its bed of long repose to subdue fatigue, banish all care, and
leave but the thought of the beautiful.--Behold, far soul, the empty
glass!
_IX_
_Portrait-Painting--How he Differed from his Great
Predecessors--The “Likeness”--Composition of Color--No Commercial
Side--Baronet vs. Butterfly._
Whistler was not a “portrait-painter,” as the phrase goes nowadays; but
he was, in certain respects, the greatest painter of portraits the world
has known.
As a “portrait-painter” he fell far short of Rembrandt, Velasquez, and a
host of lesser men; but as a painter of portraits he rose superior to
them all in certain refinements of the art.
* * * * *
There is a vast difference between the “portrait-painter” to whom the
sitter is of first importance and the painter to whom his art is of
first importance. The difference lies in the attitude of the artist
towards his canvas, towards the work he is about to undertake. Is the
inspiration wholly his own, or is he influenced by considerations quite
foreign to the production of a pure work of art?
The attitude of the “portrait-painter” may be likened unto that of the
“poet laureate,” whose verse is at the command of conditions he does
not control; who _may_, by accident, write a good thing,--but the rule
is otherwise, with even the best.
* * * * *
To rightly place a human being on canvas, or in stone, or in marble, or
in poetry, is the noblest achievement of art. On the technical side it
exhausts the resources of the art; on the spiritual side it exhausts the
genius of the artist. But “portrait-painting” as a profession, as an
industrial and a commercial proposition, is a degradation of art.
It is in strict accord with the spirit of the age; it is a
natural and an inevitable evolution. But it is, nevertheless, a
degradation,--for wherein does the shop-like atelier of the professional
“portrait-painter” differ from the emporium and the bazaar of commerce?
And wherein do the methods of the shrewd and successful painter differ
from those of the successful merchant? Are not the doors of the studio
open to every comer with a purse? Are not the prices fixed at so much
per square yard of canvas? Is not the patronage of celebrities sought,
regardless of artistic possibilities, for the prestige it gives? Are not
the A.R.A. and the R.A., and all the degrees and decorations, sought,
like the “By special appointment to H.M.--” of the tradesman, for the
money there is in them?
But what need to enumerate the motives that move the professional
“portrait-painter,”--they are written on his every canvas.
Sculpture still clings to its ideals, and the “bust-maker” is a term of
reproach. No sculptor with any ambition whatsoever, with any love for
his art, would willingly look forward to a career of portrait
bust-making. Dire necessity may compel him, and year after year he may
make the marble and bronze effigies of local celebrities; but the yoke
galls, the task wearies, and he looks forward to the time when,
emancipated from his thraldom, he may do something _of his own_.
Not so the “portrait-painter.” He glories in his degradation; paints a
score of huge, staring canvases, blatant likenesses of blatant people,
and, before the paint is dry, parades them in exhibition as his latest
galaxy of masterpieces,--not that his art may be magnified, but that his
trade may be advertised.
The sculptor is only too glad if his bronze effigies are hidden in leafy
thickets, in parks, and out-of-the-way places. He has not learned the
commercial value of exhibitions. He does not every few months place on
view a lot of marbles and bronzes, the work of as many weeks. He has not
caught from the shop-keeper the trick of displaying his wares in a
window. But the “portrait-painter”----!
* * * * *
“Portrait-painting” pays,--that is the worst of it all. It is the one
branch of the art of painting that can be followed as methodically as
the making of clothes. It is, for that matter, closely allied to and
quite dependent upon the tailor and the dressmaker. Worth has made more
portraits than any one painter in Paris.
The “portrait-painter” must dress his manikin in clothes that will
“paint,” for the manikin is worse than nothing for the picture. There
must be a gown of brilliant stuffs, and either a hat or the
hair-dresser,--who also has made and unmade portraits,--or there must be
a uniform, hunting-breeches, judge’s gown and wig, accordingly as the
manikin is woman or man; and it is the theatrical trappings that are
painted, and, incidentally thereto,--manikin.
* * * * *
Reynolds painted something like two thousand canvases. In 1758 one
hundred and fifty persons sat to him,--an average of three portraits a
week. He was as methodical as an automatic machine. Rose early,
breakfasted at nine, was in the studio at ten, worked by himself until
eleven, when his first sitter of the day would appear, to be succeeded
by another precisely one hour later, and so on, a sitter an hour, until
four o’clock, when the popular painter made himself ready for a plunge
in the social swirl.
Portraits produced under such conditions cannot be made more than
technically brilliant,--superficial likenesses of the great majority of
the sitters,--and are unworthy the painter’s art.
After a brief study of their careers, and without seeing a portrait by
either, one would be warranted in looking for a masterpiece among
Gainsborough’s two hundred and twenty portraits rather than among the
two thousand canvases of Reynolds.
Great facility of execution is not necessarily a condemnatory feature
of a man’s art, but it is a dangerous feature, and with most men it is a
fatal feature.
The hand of the master must be entirely subservient to the brain. No
obstacle should intervene between the inspiration and its complete
expression, but the hand must not force the imagination; and it is true
that command of technic--mere digital dexterity--does lead the
performer, whether painter or musician, to speak when he has nothing to
say.
Happily for the reputation of Reynolds, he painted now and then a
portrait in which he took more interest, and these have some--possibly
not many--of the qualities that live. For the most part his reputation
rests on mere volume of brilliant and high-grade work,--very much as one
factory has a greater reputation than another. And he did more than any
man who ever lived to reduce “portrait-painting” to a trade, a
mechanical pursuit.
In the modern sense of the phrase, he was one of the greatest of
“portrait-painters;” certainly the most “successful”--again in the
modern sense--the world has known, of talent supreme, in genius wanting.
* * * * *
But there are portraits and portraits,--to illustrate:
There are portraits.
There are portraits that are also pictures.
There are pictures that are also portraits.
There are pictures.
The first-named are mere likenesses,--photographs on canvas. This sort
is very common and very popular; they are made with great facility by
the professional “portrait-painters” and they are greatly applauded
wherever seen. They have their fixed prices,--so much for half,
three-quarters, or full-length,--and they are quite a matter of
commerce, with a maximum of dexterity and a minimum of art. There are
those who can and do paint great portraits, who turn out endless numbers
of these mechanically-made things to the detriment of their art. Of the
best of this sort were the most of Reynolds’s portraits,--superficially
brilliant and attractive likenesses that ought not to be seen outside
the family circle for which they were intended. Of this same sort are
most of those startling people who issue from the studios of the popular
“portrait-painters” of to-day, to thrust the nonentity of their
individualities upon us. The identity of the “Blue-Boy,” by
Gainesborough, is quite immaterial; the identity of the “Shrimp-Girl,”
by Hogarth, is likewise immaterial; the identity of the “Child with a
Sword,” by Manet, is of no importance,--for these are pictures, though
at the same time portraits.
But the identity of the “portraits” by the popular “portrait-painter”
is, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, a matter of great
importance, the value of the canvas being enhanced by the celebrity or
notoriety of the sitter.
The mere portrait is better than no portrait at all, but it should be a
fixture in its own household, a family heirloom, and strictly entailed;
descendants failing, then to the midden.