VISIONS AND IDENTIFICATIONS
Although remarkably sure, efficient and successful in various branches
of art, Whistler has to be ranked primarily as a figure painter. In
these efforts centre his greatness. He is, however, only a figure
painter in a modified sense. We look in vain for large and elaborate
compositions. He achieved his fame as a portrait and single figure
painter.
It is strange that a man who had the science of painting at his finger
ends should limit himself to single figures. Perhaps he knew his
limitations, or, the limitation of his peculiar view-point as to what
painting should be and could accomplish. Possibly he went too far in his
elimination. Who can say? An artist must be true to his own convictions,
and the public and critics must accept, and, in time, learn to
appreciate them. Analysis of an artist's work is interesting only as far
as it helps one to find the right view-point for contemplation.
Whistler, of course, had no use for ordinary portraiture, as it has been
practised for centuries. He felt, no doubt, that the time for
idealization as well as realistic interpretation of likenesses had
passed. No painter can surpass Van Dyke in the elegant delineation of
men and women, or Franz Hals in the representation of instantaneous
expression. Whistler wanted a characteristic attitude that expressed in
a simple pose or movement an entire personality. But the purely
technical problem fascinated him even more, to express himself
forcefully in black and dull colours, to paint broadly and yet so
delicately that no brushwork became visible, and to create the illusion
of atmosphere and space around the human form.
His first picture of importance (started in 1859), "At the Piano," was
also the first true Whistler, not only the Whistler we admire and
cherish to-day but the Whistler who has exercised an influence on modern
painting and who will live as one of the prominent figures in the
history of art. I have rarely seen a modern interior treated with more
charm and simplicity. A woman, apparently Lady Haden, in a quaint black
old-fashioned gown, is seated at the piano, from which she seems to
elicit some vague melancholy chords, while a little girl in white, in
a pensive attitude, stands opposite her, in the curve of the instrument.
The dark silhouette of the mother is beautifully balanced by the white
form of the little girl. There is an astonishing number of horizontal
lines in the composition, but somehow they are not noticed, at least
they do not offend the eye. I believe the diagonal tendency of the
figures counteracts all other lines. One peculiarity of Whistler's
interiors and backgrounds is that they nearly always represent a
straight wall. He rarely indulged in perspective arrangements. His aim
was breadth and simplicity, and he avoided all cheap pictorial effect.
Technically, it still shows the Stevens' influence--it could almost pass
for a genre picture--but in poetical conception and the suggestion of a
mystic atmosphere it already predicts all the accomplishments of the
artist's prime.
[Illustration: AT THE PIANO.]
In his earlier career Whistler occasionally made use of more elaborate
accessories, as in his "Little White Girl," "The Princess of the
Porcelain Land," and the "Woman in White." The latter I consider one of
his weakest compositions. The figure is rather stiff and too high up in
the picture. The carpeted floor looks as though it were sloping. The
bottom of the dress is too distinct. The same could be said of the
entire contour, the lines are not sufficiently graceful to permit such
clearness of line. Also as a painting of a white figure on a white
background it is not unsurpassed. "Katherine Emmerich," by Gabriel Max,
at the Pinakothek, Munich, and the Raffaelli's "Sleeping Woman," in the
Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia, treat the same theme but are technically
superior.
Whistler developed slowly. Only gradually he learned to avoid detail as
much as possible, and only occasionally accentuated it here and there,
as a note of contrast to the larger planes. The years 1870-90 were the
most active and important years of his career. Nearly all his portraits,
those of Frederick Leyland, Florence Leyland, Miss Alexander, Rose
Corder, Sarasate, Sir Henry Irving as Philip II, The Fur Jacket, Lady
Archibald Campbell, The Artist's Mother, Carlyle, Theodore Duret, Mme.
Cassatt, Mrs. Huth, Lady Meux, etc., were painted in that period.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York_
SIR HENRY IRVING AS PHILIP II.]
All these later pictures were painted under the ban of Velasquez. In
Whistler's paintings Velasquez's art was revived and rejuvenated. He
repeats the same inspirations but in an etherealized, modernized and
individualized manner. Whistler was triumphantly himself.
There is much conjecture as to how Whistler acquired his knowledge of
Velasquez. Joseph Pennell claims that Whistler never went to the Prado
in Madrid. Duret tells us, that during a trip to Spain in 1882, he
intended to go to Madrid, but on the way was fascinated by the scenery
around Guethary (north of Biarritz) to such an extent that he prolonged
his stay until it was time to return, without having crossed the
Pyrenees. Others, with a quizzical mien, say that he might have gone
without letting anybody know of it. It is hardly credible that he did
not see the "Dwarfs," the "Spinners," the "Mercury and Argus," the
"Maria Theresa," "La Meninas," "Æsop," the "Menippus" and the "Surrender
of Breda."
However it really matters little. He had seen the portraits of the
Hermitage at an early age, and was thoroughly acquainted with the
various portraits of Philip II at the London National Gallery. In this
age of handbooks one can study Gozzoli in a New York garret. Of course a
trip to Florence might prove profitable, but the right man, with the
proper amount of imagination, knows no obstacle. His intuition will help
him to get thoroughly imbued with any subject he is bent upon knowing.
The portraits are all single figure studies, with a plain or simple
background. They do nothing. They merely convey the charm of a
personality as seen in an arrangement of colour. Whistler was a keen
observer of facial expression and gesticulation and still more so of
that other no less telling kind of expression, which depends upon our
general bearing, and upon the way we move our limbs and body while we
are trying to convey our thoughts and intentions to our neighbours. But
this was not the principal theme, as it is of so many portrait painters.
To him the very soul of art was elimination: to leave out all that could
be left out. He realized that he could not proceed in the elimination
process as gaily and liberally as in his nocturnes. He needed a more
convincing sense of form, a certain regard for detail--no matter how
broadly rendered--and a feeling for accurate line. This fragmentary
representation of a human being requires the keenest artistic feeling,
to know exactly when one has to stop in the process of reducing the
multiplicity of nature to simple forms, of discarding superficial traits
of the figure and retaining only the essential ones. For elimination is
only half the game; selection makes up the rest. The sureness with which
Whistler stops just upon the border line proves his genius. However
vague and enveloped his line may have become, it has never been pushed
beyond the point where it falls into meaningless and spiritless
formlessness.
Whistler's portraiture may be summed up as a never-ceasing study to
express a human personality in the subtlest way imaginable. At bottom of
all that he creates, there lies the desire to make his figures betray
their character, emotions, and their whole personality by means of a
tonal vision.
In the portrait of Frederick Leyland, the "Medici of Liverpool" (painted
1873), Whistler, for the first time, introduced the plain background
without accessories, endeavouring to subordinate it to the figure. In
the portrait the figure occupies the entire length of the canvas, and
yet is enveloped in atmosphere. I believe this is largely due to the
vagueness of outline and the accentuation of the principal points of the
human form by touches of light, as the headlights on the silver buckle
of the shoe, the hand on the hip and the gray overcoat over the left
arm. The blacks in this picture have a marvellous quality. The painting
of a black evening suit against a pitch black background is one of the
masterpieces of modern technique, over which future ages will not cease
to marvel. Also the shadow on the grey floor helps. The pose is dignity
itself, but it seems to me that the artist did not quite succeed in
carrying out his own ideal. The figure makes the impression as if it
were stepping out of the picture, like a Rubens.
The same problem occupied him for years. He succeeded much better in the
"Rose Corder" and "The Fur Jacket;" and in the "Lady Archibald
Campbell," also called the "Yellow Buskin," he actually solved the
problem. The picture is at the Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia, and
everybody who has seen it will realize, or feel, at least, that the
figure is represented as if actually moving in space.
Most of his pictures were painted in ordinary rooms, without a top
light, partly, no doubt, because he wanted to paint his sitters under
natural, not artificial conditions. Also the "Rose Corder" portrait,
painted in 1876, carries out this sensation. This portrait, which
was purchased by Richard A. Canfield from its former owner, Graham
Robertson, is entitled "An Arrangement in Black and Brown." The
differentiation of brown in the hair, fur, felt hat, feather and
floor are so subtle and beautiful, that it would be almost impossible
to go any further in the exploitation of one colour. The person who
can appreciate the subtleties of these cool, almost neutral colours,
appreciates Whistler. It was his main ambition, even to that extent
that he wished the beholder to know of his intention. And that is
no doubt the main reason why he called his portraits "Arrangements
and Harmonies," even as other artists call their portraits
"Interpretations," and their sculptured busts "Versions." Titles
are really of no importance. They are, at the best, only annotations,
but, as long as they are deemed necessary, they ought to give a vague
suggestion of the subject matter or reveal the technical aim of the
painter. Whistler's titles are frequently too long, but they generally
convey some direct and valuable information to the beholder.
[Illustration: _Owned by Richard A. Canfield_
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN: MISS ROSE CORDER.]
The "Florence Leyland" portrait, painted in 1873--at The Brooklyn Museum
of Art and Sciences,--is also much liked by painters. It always seemed
to me a trifle dismal in tone. The greys have a muddy look and the
background is too black and opaque. It is a study in greys and blacks.
The dress, the floor, and the feather of the hat are grey. The hat
itself, the gloves and the bow are black. Even the handkerchief and the
white ruffles that fall over the gloves are grey. The design is elegant
and visible, but swallowed up in the colour. Its success or failure
depends upon your psychological appreciation of colours. If you like
that particular combination you will admire the picture, and otherwise
you will not, and no argument will persuade you to accept it as a
masterpiece.
Whistler's unusually low key in the majority of his portraits strikes us
as peculiar, even to this day. There are no gold, rose and mauve flesh
tints of a Titian to be found on his canvases. "There is no bloom of
flesh which emulates the gleam of a pearl or the luminous grain of a
camelia." But the fault-finding is largely the effect of our being
accustomed to high-keyed portraiture. Whistler explained this, in his
drastic manner, in an article in the London World, July, 1886, which we
quote in full:
"The notion that I paint flesh lower in tone than it is in nature is
entirely based upon the popular superstition as to what flesh really
is--when seen on canvas; for the people never look at nature with any
sense of pictorial appearance--for which reason--by the way--they also
never look at a picture with any sense of nature, but unconsciously from
habit, with reference to what they see in other pictures.
"Now in the usual 'picture of the year' there is but one flesh that
should do service under all circumstances, whether the person painted be
in the soft light of the room or in the glare of the open. The one aim
of this unsuspecting painter is to make his man stand out from the
frame--never doubting that on the contrary, he should really, and in
truth absolutely does, stand within the frame--and at a depth behind it
equal to the distance at which the painter sees his model, and nothing
could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to thrust
the model on the hitherside of this window. Lights have been heightened,
until the white of the tube alone remains--shadows have been deepened
until black alone is left. Scarcely a feature stays in its place, so
fierce is its intention of 'firmly' coming forth; and in the midst of
this unseemly struggle for prominence, the gentle truth has but a sorry
chance, falling flat and flavourless and without force. Whereas, could
the people be induced to turn their eyes but for a moment, with the
fresh power of comparison, upon their fellow creatures as they pass in
the gallery, they might be made dimly to perceive, though I doubt it, so
blind is their belief in the bad, how little they resemble the impudent
images on the wall! how 'quiet' in colour they are, how grey and low in
tone. And then it might be explained to their riveted intelligence how
they had mistaken meretriciousness for mastery and by what methods the
imposture had been practised upon them."
People on the whole prefer brightness to æsthetic gloom, and refuse to
accept the unadulterated truth. "A beautiful picture! But I would not
like to see my wife or mother painted that way," is the general verdict
at a Whistler exhibition. And it includes people who should know better.
Do not even learned critics excuse the low-keyed, ash grey tints of
Velasquez faces by asserting that he wished to symbolize the doom of
Spanish feudalism by their paleness? Ridiculous! A proud Spanish
cavalier himself, such a thought would never have entered his head. He
painted them with a bloodless enervated complexion, because they had
that kind of complexion and because he, as a realistic painter, objected
to any idealizing process.
It can, however, be safely stated that Whistler frequently went too far
in his search for dark tonalities. But there was a reason for it. No
primary colour is agreeable with black. If black is the favourite colour
he must exclude yellow, red, and blue or paint them exceedingly low as
Tissot has done in his "Prodigal Son" series. Yellow is the easiest
colour to manage, as black impoverishes its tone. The secondary colours,
like orange, green, and violet, lend themselves more readily to any
scheme where black furnishes the prominent note, but they must be dull,
obscure and possess no brilliancy. White, on the other hand, as Whistler
so fully realized in his "Lady Meux, No. 1," will always produce by its
extreme difference a harmony of contrast.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE: LADY MEUX (NO. 1).]
The most suitable colours for a combination with black are the neutral
colours, like grey and brown, or delicate tints, like pink and olive,
russet and citrine. At these conclusions every student of the harmony
and contrasts of colour must naturally arrive. And Whistler conquered
his knowledge by actual experiments. It was no whim. As long as he
favoured black he could not change his colour schemes. His colouring had
to be kept cool and the few tones of luminous colours that he introduced
had to be broken and neutralized. The scientific facts underlying his
colour moods should answer all futile questions of why he selected such
deep and sombre colour combinations. We all realize that he is no
colourist in the sense of Memling, Pinturicchio, Titian, Rubens,
Fragonard, Delacroix, Makart or Roybet, he does not even show us as
much variety as Constable or Israels or an Impressionist.
I say Impressionist, because an Impressionist's canvas can be deprived
of colour (and how many are) as much as any black-in-black arrangement
of a Tissot or Ribot. The high key does not save a picture from being
colourless. Colour means the full use of the palette, green, blue, red,
and yellow, on one canvas as distinct sensations and not modified into a
general tint. The majority of Impressionists are tonalists not
colourists. Franz Hals and Velasquez were fond of black and greys but
rarely lacked the sense of conveying a delicate colour impression.
Whistler, who, in his portraits is a great tonalist but never a
colourist, displays the same faculty in his best work, but in some
instances his subtle touch seems to have forsaken, him, and the result
was a dull tonality as in his "Florence Leyland." A similar colour
scheme but of great charm is represented in "La Belle Américaine" (the
only picture that in subject matter bears any relation to America). The
grey tight-fitting gown and the black boa around the neck in conjunction
with the assertive and yet so nonchalant pose have a singular charm. As
soon as the outlines of a figure are too much obliterated the charm of
colour seems to vanish. Colour alone cannot hold it. It demands form to
balance it. Whistler said that painting was every bit as much a science
as mathematics. I fear at times he considered it too much a science, at
least as far as his colour was concerned. He painted figures, indoors,
so low in tone that he could have added a streak of real sunshine at its
proper value to the picture. If his darkest canvases grow darker still
with age, they will be almost indistinguishable. But his scientific
attitude rarely played him false in composition.
Having painted only single figures, it has been doubted whether he had
any extensive knowledge of figure composition. This seems to be a futile
question. It is my contention that he limited himself to one figure
representation, because he knew all about "Old Master" composition.
He wanted one big total effect and did not see how it could have been
reached, or had been ever reached by anybody except by one single
figure. He had nothing in common with the representation of history,
legend or myth and much less of genre, realism of the gutter, or
descriptive painting. He wanted to represent modern men and women in the
costume of to-day. So he chose the single standing or seated figure.
Why did he never paint a group! Perhaps he had found it impossible to
obtain in a more elaborate composition the result that he cherished
most. A painter must paint from the model, to approach any degree of
verity. A Monticelli may "fake" or paint from imagination, but his
colour masses are a different proposition than life-size figures. The
fact must be before one's eyes to render them accurately. One figure in
modern costume offers such facts in a natural manner. An elaborate group
can be secured only with difficulty, and will never look quite natural.
Whistler knew his strength, and did not waste superior energy for a less
satisfactory result. This was scientific restraint.
And how he controlled the various forms of representation. He invariably
chose the most favourable position. A standing figure offers the widest
scope of characterization when shown in a full front view. Nearly all
his men, Sarasate, Duret, and Irving are drawn in that position. But a
seated figure is shown to the best advantage in a clear profile, every
student of composition must arrive at the conclusion, and there was
nothing else to do but to paint his "Mother" and "Carlyle" in that
attitude. Women on the other hand are more picturesque in outline, also
look well, standing, in profile with slightly turned face, viz.,
"Rose Corder," "Miss Alexander," "The Yellow Buskin," "The Fur Jacket,"
"Mrs. Huth," "Lady Meux No. 2." Also in the delineation of the human
face he preferred the simple full-face view, with just a slight shift to
the right or left to show the line of the nose. The three-quarter view
is undoubtedly more picturesque, and when he painted small heads, among
them his own, he frequently used it. In the larger portraits he wanted
dignity, breadth, and simplicity and he sacrificed everything to that
effect.
[Illustration: _Wilstach Gallery, Philadelphia_
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK: LADY ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL (THE YELLOW BUSKIN).]
The portraits of Miss Cecily Henrietta Alexander (painted in 1872), and
Mr. Theodore Duret (painted in 1883), show perhaps in the clearest way
that he always worked on the same problem. They are, one may say, the
uniting link between the Japanese period and the "Carlyle" and "The
Artist's Mother," his most finished and perfect work. They have more
colour and grace than most of his pictures, and show the figures with
some accessories. Both linger in one's mind as a vision of select
refinement.
Little Miss Alexander, with her plumed hat in her hand and her white
dress relieved by grey and black accents against a general background,
depicts a "pose" such as the painter seldom indulged in. There is a
flavour of aristocratic coquetry, a flavour of Gainsborough and Boldini
in this attitude, an attribute that in this instance is as important to
the picture as the unusual colour scale. It took him years to finish
this picture, and nobody can appreciate how many weary hours of anguish
it cost the little model. More than once it reduced her to tears. One
day as she was entering the studio she met Carlyle, who was sitting also
for his portrait. "Puir lassie! Puir lassie!" he said. But Whistler had
no pity. He had but little consideration for his sitters or models; he
forgot their presence as soon as he became entangled in the intricacies
of his technique.
The Duret on the other hand shows superior characterization. It may be
because the figure is more clearly silhouetted, the outlines of the
gaunt figure are as plain as they can be. The painter tried to brighten
up the black suit problem with a light background and pink domino. The
strange combination of an awkward shape, with almost a touch of
brutality in its make-up, and the gay insignia of an opera ball, the
domino and red fan, arouse a feeling of grotesque drollery, and yet it
is all so forbiddingly proud that one is strongly fascinated by the
canvas.
One of the most important portraits that compete with the Leyland,
Duret and Miss Alexander is the "Arrangement in Black:--Portrait
of the Senor Pablo de Sarasate," painted about 1884.
Here we have the true Whistler atmosphere, the blurred contour of the
violinist's figure, which melts into the background without losing the
form, the elimination of all unnecessary details and accessories, and
the concentration of light on the face, shirt-front, hands and cuffs. It
is astonishing how few bright planes there are in most of Whistler's
portraits. In the "Sarasate" the lighted planes scarcely occupy
one-thirtieth part of the picture. The rest is all darkness, except the
vague shimmer on the floor, suggesting the footlight on the platform of
a concert hall. The light floor is one of the leading characteristics of
his single standing figures. It helps to suggest space. There is depth
in the background; it is not opaque like most backgrounds but vibrant
with subtle differentiations of values. The figure is standing in space.
One might think at first that this is brought about by the smallness of
the figure.
Joseph Pennell says that "what Whistler was trying to do was to paint
the man on a shadowy concert platform as the audience saw him."
Sarasate is intended to look small, less than life-size, as he would
appear upon the concert stage. I do not agree with this. I have heard
Sarasate play in Europe and America but never saw him on a shadowy
platform. To me the conception is a much bigger one. This is not the
Sarasate of ordinary life, nor is it the one we know from the concert
hall. The artist has attempted to suggest the whole atmosphere that
surrounds the life of musical genius. And he accomplished it by
introducing a male figure in an ordinary dress-suit with a shimmering
shirt front, the outlines of which are lost in vibrant emptiness. Only
the violin and bow occupy a certain prominence. "All is balanced by the
bow," as Whistler remarked to Sidney Starr.
The figure always seemed to me a trifle small. I personally prefer the
Leyland size, as it is more dignified. It does not seem logical to
sacrifice beauty and breadth to a mere illusion.
The whole tonal school and pictorial photography in particular have been
influenced by the "Pablo Sarasate," now at the Carnegie Art Institute,
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. It gives unparalleled joy to the followers of
dark tonalities. As usual the imitators--painters as well as
photographers--have exaggerated the extreme rather than normal aspect of
the painter's art.
For what is most to be admired technically in Whistler is the frugality,
the thinness of his brush work, that, despite the low pitch and flatness
of its colour tints, reveals an astounding variety, subtlety and
virility, a vibrancy that seems to radiate from the canvas. For
unobtrusiveness of paint Whistler has few rivals. In comparison with him
Monet seems a plebeian and Sargent a sleight of hand performer. He
combines the fanaticism of a perfect technique with the search for truth
and a desire to create new sensations, and expresses our breathless
modern life, with all its intricate moods. His art revels in the realms
of imagination unknown to Manet's realism, and Zorn's and Sargent's
pyrotechnical displays of technique look barbarous in comparison to
Whistler's smooth, fluid, unerring brushwork, which masters all the
optical illusions of this world with wizard-like dexterity.
He created a style for himself, and his space and colour arrangements
have exerted a deep and lasting influence on modern painting. Whether he
is as great a painter as some critics make him--whether he is as "big"
as Franz Hals, for instance, is still a matter of discussion. He will
always live in the history of art as being the first man who combined
the beauties of Eastern design with the principles of Western art. The
mysterious atmosphere of some of his canvases (from which solid forms
emerge or recede into), is a poetic translation of Japanese
suggestiveness--which does not care to create an illusion, but rather
suggests it. Whistler in his portraits was not an initiator of a new art
like Monet in his landscapes. He was the last and most perfect of an old
school. He merely pushed to their extreme consequence the principles
which all great painters since Velasquez have championed. He followed
more closely what one might call the thematic development of tone, and
discerned more plainly the significance and mystery that lie hidden in
blurred objects.
The portrait of the æsthete, Count Robert de Montesquiou de Fezensac,
who honoured this shore with a visit (painted in 1890-91), was one of
the last pictures of this series. Whistler undertook several portraits
of this peculiar, high-strung personality but finished only one. He
explained "that it was impossible to produce the same masterpiece twice
over--as difficult as for a hen to lay the same egg over twice." The
pose is one of _hauteur_ as becomes the author of "Les Hortenses
Bleus." He wears a dress-suit, and a dark overcoat with a grey lining is
thrown over his arm while the other arm thrusts forth a slender
cane-like sword. As it is so frequently the case with Whistler's
arrangement, it is more a play with colour than a character delineation.
A character delineation plus tone is surely more admirable than mere
tonality or mere character delineation. In his "Leyland," "Mother,"
"Duret," and "Carlyle" he accomplished both. In this one he only
excelled in one. I also fail to see why he called it "Black and Gold,"
as I cannot discover the slightest suggestion of gold. It is brown and
black. There is little use in reviewing each of his arrangements
separately as they all carry out the same principle.
[Illustration: _Owned by Richard A. Canfield_
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GOLD: COMTE DE MONTESQUIOU.]
In his two, perhaps, most important pictures, which are generally
conceded to be his masterpieces, his "Carlyle" and "The Artist's
Mother," both arrangements in black and grey, the painter is a trifle
more precise in line. He depicted, as background, actual walls of a room
and made an unusual excursion to the domain of space arrangement. Had he
at the time arrived at the conclusion that a deep sentiment, no matter
how vague, as that of a great philosopher and an adorable woman, can be
rendered successfully by illusion rather than suggestion!
The "Carlyle" was exhibited as early as 1877, and purchased after many
weary negotiations by the Glasgow City Gallery in 1891. It is a
masterpiece of characterization, of tone and space composition. It is a
most formidable object lesson to any portraitist. Notice how purely
simple and well balanced the composition of "Carlyle" is, how all the
details of dress have been eliminated, how the outline has been
accentuated against the background, how naturally the figure is seated,
and how well it has been placed in space. There is an atmosphere around
the figure. One feels that the person is seated in a room.
[Illustration: _City Art Gallery, Glasgow_
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY: THOMAS CARLYLE.]
The same can be said of the composition in the portrait of "The Artist's
Mother," at the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris. It was first exhibited at the
Royal Academy in London. In the season of 1882 it appeared in America,
and then was shown at the Paris Salon in 1888. It was also seen in
Munich, and was finally purchased by the French Government in 1891. The
simple pose, the delicate way of handling detail in the lace cap and the
hands, the masterly space arrangement, produced largely by the
rectangular curtain and the silhouette of the figure, the fine sense of
values, and the clever way in which he utilizes a few frames to break
the monotony of the background all have been commented upon a hundred
times. No modern painting has been more talked about and more frequently
imitated than this one, but none of the adaptations has reached or
surpassed its "pathos and tender depth of expression." Technically it is
perfect.
It is not the technique, however, which principally interests us in the
picture. Just as in his "Sarasate," Whistler attempted in his "Mother"
to give us the whole atmosphere that surrounds a personality. Old Mrs.
Whistler was a stern Presbyterian and her religious views must have been
trying to her son. Yet "Jimmy," though he used to give a queer smile
when he mentioned them, never in any way complained of the old lady's
strict Sabbatarian notions, to which he bowed without remonstrance. This
differentiation of character between mother and son explains much of the
rigid Quaker-like and yet so sympathetic pose of the picture.
The artist does not merely represent his old mother. He endowed the old
woman, sitting pensively in a grey interior, with one of the noblest and
mightiest emotions the human soul is capable of--the reverence and calm
we feel in the presence of our own aging mother. And with this large
and mighty feeling, in which all discords of mannerisms are dissolved,
and, by the tonic values of two ordinary dull colours, he succeeded in
writing an epic, a symphony domestica, of superb breadth and beauty--a
symbol of the mother of all ages and all lands, slowly aging as she sits
pensively amidst the monotonous colours of modern life. Nothing simpler
and more dignified has been created in modern art.
[Illustration: _Luxembourg Gallery, Paris_
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY: THE ARTIST'S MOTHER.]