AS HIS FRIENDS KNEW HIM
One afternoon in 1892, walking along the boulevards with Stéphane
Mallarmé, during absinthe hours, I met Whistler. The poet and the
painter raised their hats and shook hands and exchanged a few words in
French, which I did not understand. I was introduced, Whistler bowed,
shook hands and then we passed on. It was one of those fugitive meetings
that occur so frequently and to which no importance can be attached. It
gives one the sole and rather futile privilege of having seen Whistler,
just as I have seen Liszt, the king of Bavaria, Ibsen and many others,
without having become acquainted with them.
I do not remember how Whistler was dressed, I only recall the top hat,
monocle and cane. He looked rather undersized to me, a trifle affected,
but exceedingly picturesque, and possessing that peculiar magnetism
which we feel in the presence of great men.
As for a more intimate analysis of Whistler's personality, I must refer
to some of his friends, who have expressed themselves in print. I shall
cite a number of paragraphs that have the merit of descriptive verity,
and that will give a clear insight into his curious, highstrung
character, as it appeared in every-day life.
"What strikes one in Whistler's biography," says Laurence Binyon, the
London critic and poet, "is the extraordinary amount of time, trouble
and energy he expended on things and people that did not matter, the
record of his squabbles, the fanatical loyalty of his enmities, the rage
of his 'egotism.'" This is the Whistler that the world knew. But there
was another Whistler, Mr. Binyon suggests,--"A man of singular
sensitiveness, who shunned the vulgar daytime and stole abroad at
twilight ... bent always on revealing to his fellow men the loveliness
that lurks in familiar sights and among the dingy aspects of a modern
city."
One of his earliest intimates who writes of him in Vanity Fair, as
one of the "Men of the Day," signed John Junior, says: "Mr.
Whistler--'Jimmy' as his friends call him--is personally one of the most
charming, simple and witty of men. He touches nothing but he
embellishes and enlivens it with startling novelty of conceit. His
hereditary lock of white hair is a rallying point of humour wherever he
goes, and his studio is the resort of all who delight in hearing the new
thing."
The article continues to say that it is evidently not difficult for the
newspaper correspondent to approach him, as much had been written about
his charming house and spacious studio in Chelsea. He was so thoroughly
an artist that material seemed indifferent to him. His famous "Peacock
Room," which he did for Mr. Leyland, shows his genius as a decorator,
and conservative opinion is, that he was even greater as an etcher than
as a painter. He had engraved, and painted in water-colours, of course,
and his attire, from his top-coat to his shoe strings, was made from his
own designs. Apparently he chafed under the academic tyranny of even the
tailor. Of his powers in mimicry and in character acting his friend
never tired of talking and telling anecdotes which illustrate it, and
indicate that even in drollery his art is as subtle as in work of
seriousness and dignity. "Dickens was not a patch on him," said someone,
recently, who had seen the pantomiming of both.
Harper Pennington, one of his _officially_ acknowledged pupils, gives a
fine description of the man in the "Metropolitan Magazine" of 1910.
"Whistler was not a tall man, but of trim and muscular appearance,
broad-shouldered, strong-armed, and well set up--the result of West
Point training. He was intensely active and alert, although not in the
least fidgety or nervous. His eyes were as bright as a bird's, flashing
from face to face in a group of persons. It is noteworthy that he moved
his eyes and not his head from side to side, fixing each speaker in his
turn. This may have been another effect of West Point drills--'Eyes
right,' 'Eyes left.' His long hands and bony wrists suggested force and
delicacy of touch. If he was a trifle robin-legged, the effect served to
enhance a certain dandified attitude he frequently assumed, especially
when chaffing someone who deserved it, to the delight of the gallery,
without which he seldom thought it worth while to perform.
"The man was above all things gregarious--he did not like to be
alone--and most intensely human. He had his foibles, faults and virtues
like the rest. The Whistler I knew was clean of person and speech. I
never heard him utter one word that might not be repeated without
offending the most easily shocked of prudes. He has been described as
untidy. He was, on the contrary, the only man who ever washed his hair
three times every day, and was fastidious to the point of being prinky
about his person. His clothes, generally black, were always simple in
the extreme and spotless, even when, in those old Venice days of
dreadful poverty, they were worn threadbare--actually in holes. His
courage was indisputable. He would fight any man, no matter what size or
weight, and the jaunty cheerfulness with which he bore privations, when
he lacked everything, even the materials necessary for his work,
deceived those who were his daily companions and sufficiently proved his
moral pluck.
"He wore a black silk ribbon tie at his neck, a bow with six inch loops
and fluttering ends, but that was all that was unusual in his attire,
unless the long bamboo wands of canes--a dark one for the night and a
light for day--should be included. Nothing that glittered, not even a
watch-chain or a ring, formed any part of his costume. A tiny white or
yellow flower at his buttonhole was his unique adornment.
"Is it true, as Thackeray declared, that ordinary mortals do, indeed,
delight to pry into the weakness of the strong, the smallness of the
great? I have thought it best to show _my_ Whistler as he really was, a
simple, kind and tender-hearted fellow, who turned his best side towards
the unappreciative world he lived in, not from vanity of person, but to
hide his poverty, and the makeshifts he was driven to employ, as a man
will say 'I like to walk,' when he can't afford to ride. His cackling
laugh hid many a bitter thrust that had gone home and hurt him to the
quick. He laughed, and then would come the swift _riposte_ of witty
repartee. He never attacked a living creature, never struck the first
blow, and would have been glad to live in peace with all the world. But
so coarse were the criticisms of his person and his work that he was
driven to defend Art, which was the only thing he could not joke about.
Upon the rare occasions when he talked with me, as a master might, about
his work, his face itself seemed transfigured.
"Brave when he was well, his cowardice when ill or in pain was comical.
If he caught cold he would disappear, and those who knew him well were
sure he had fled to his doctor--his brother's house in Wimpole Street.
Dr. Whistler told me that Jimmy would appear all muffled up and say:
'Willie, I am ill! I am going up to bed--here--and won't go home until
you've cured me!' Any little malady was enough to demoralize him. In
his hours of weakness he would hide away like a wounded animal and
not show up again until he had been nursed back to his normal state.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT IN FLESH-COLOUR AND BLACK: THEODORE DURET.]
"Whistler was extremely frugal and abstemious. He ate and drank most
moderately the plainest fare. He liked dainty dishes and rare old wine,
but had a horror of the 'groaning board' at huge set feasts and formal
banquets. He could cook quite decently himself, and sometimes made an
omelet or scrambled eggs, but these culinary feats I never saw
performed; as to the Master's knowledge of wine, it was very limited
indeed. I have seen him mistake a heavy vintage of champagne for
'Tisane.' I never saw him cook anything, even in his poorest days, in
Venice, but I know that he liked a good dinner at a club even when it
was punctually served and consisted of quite ordinary delicacies such as
other men delight in."
The notes from his childhood are rather scarce. In his mother's diary,
written during the stay in Russia, we find the following reference to
him when he was twelve years old: "... Jimmie's eagerness to attain all
his desires for information and his fearlessness often make him offend
and it makes him appear less amiable than he really is." And at some
other place, when they had watched some parade with the Empress
passing: "He behaved like a man. With one compassing arm he guarded me,
and with the other kept people at a proper distance, and I must confer,
brilliant as the spectacle was, the greatest pleasure was derived by the
conduct of my dear and manly boy." Miss Emma Palmer, his cousin,
describes Whistler at this period as "tall and slight, with a pensive,
delicate face, shaded by soft brown curls. He had a foreign appearance
and manners, which, added to his natural abilities, made him very
charming even at that age. He was one of the sweetest, loveliest boys I
ever knew and was a great favourite."
"Whistler, as a boy, was exactly what those who knew him as a man would
expect: gay and bright, absorbed in his work when that work was in any
way related to art, brave and fearless, selfish, if selfishness is
another word for ambition, considerate and kindly above all to his
mother. The boy, like the man, was delightful to those who knew and
understood him, 'startling' and 'alarming' to those who did not."
Joseph Pennell, in his excellent book, has given us a most fascinating
description of Whistler as a student in Paris and a young painter in
England. No one can refuse to admire the loyalty of this writer, who has
gathered with such loving care every note of interest in Whistler's
life. The following paragraphs are from his Quartier Latin chapter; "To
Whistler the Frenchman was more sympathetic than the English, in his
serious as in his light hours. His fellow students brought back to
England the impression that he was an idler; it is hard to-day to make
people believe that he was anything else in his youth. And yet he worked
in Paris as prodigiously as he played. To us it is incomprehensible how
he found time to read as a student, and yet he knew the literature of
the period thoroughly, and always the charm of his manner and his
courtesy made it delightful to do anything for him. Few men ever ate
less than Whistler, but few were more fastidious about what they did
eat--no man ever shrank more from thought, or at the mention of death
than Whistler. There was always in life so much for him to do and so
little time in which to do it.
"He was popular with the children, and delighted in music, though he was
not too critical, for he was known to call the passing hurdy-gurdy into
his garden and have it ground under his windows. Occasionally the
brother (Greaves) played, so that Whistler might dance. He was always
full of drolleries and fun. He would imitate a man sawing, or two men
fighting at the door, so cleverly that his brother never ceased to be
astonished when he walked into the room alone and unhurt. He delighted
in American mechanical toys and his house was full of Japanese dolls.
One great doll, dressed like a man, he would take with him not only to
Greaves, but to dinners at the Little Holland House, where the Princess
then lived, and to other houses, where he put it through amazing
performances." Many notes are quoted from the writings of his
associates. Here are some of the most interesting of them: Mr. Luke
Ionides writes: "He was a great favourite among us all, and also among
the grisettes we used to meet at the gardens where dancing went on. I
remember one especially, they called her the tigress. She seemed madly
in love with Jimmie and would not allow any other woman to talk to him
when she was present. She sat for him several times with her curly hair
down her back. She had a good voice and I have often thought she
suggested 'Trilby' to Du Maurier. One time in a rage she tore up a lot
of drawings, when Whistler came home and saw them piled high on the
table, he wept." If Whistler had money in his pockets, Mr. Ionides says,
he spent it royally on others.
Mr. Rowley, "Taffy," writes: "It was in 1857-8 that I knew Whistler, and
a most amusing and eccentric fellow he was, with his long black thick
curly hair and large felt hat with a broad black ribbon around it. I
remember on the wall was a representation of him, I believe done by Du
Maurier, a sketch of him, then a fainter one and then finally an
interrogation--very clever it was and very much like the original. In
those days he did not work hard."
"Whistler was never wholly one of us," Mr. Armstrong tells us; Drouet
does not think that Whistler worked hard, certainly not in usual student
fashion at the schools. He was every evening at the Students' ball, and
as he never got up until ten or eleven in the morning, where was the
time for work?
The personal observations and a glance at one of Whistler's
self-portraits of this period should give us a fair vision of the young
Whistler at Paris. The earliest known self-portrait in oil is the one
painted in Paris about 1859, the Whistler with a hat, engraved by
Guérard, which was lent by Samuel P. Avery to the Memorial Exhibition at
Boston. It shows him with a slight mustache, a large Rubens hat, a big
dotted tie, and a coat with a velvet collar. It is a good example of a
dark silhouette against dark arrangement. The face has a few strong
headlights, the remainder of it in middle tints, while the rest of the
figure--the hat, the hair, the bust--are darker than the background. The
space arrangement and position of the head are clever, but the shape of
the bust is awkward, and, I fear slightly contorted.
Mrs. Jameson writes: "The man, as I knew him, was so different from the
descriptions and presentations I have read of him, that I would like to
speak of the other side of his character. It is impossible to conceive a
more unfailingly courteous, considerate and delightful companion than
Whistler as I found him, and I never heard a complaint of anything in my
simple household arrangements from him. Any little failure was treated
as a joke. His courtesy to servants and maids was particularly charming,
indeed. I cannot conceive of his quarrelling with any one without
provocation. His talk about his own work revealed a very different man
to me from the self-satisfied man he is usually believed to have been.
He knew his powers, of course, but he was painfully aware of his
defects--in drawing for instance. To my judgment he was the most
absolutely truthful man about himself that I ever met. I never knew him
to hide an opinion or thought--nor to try to excuse an action."
[Illustration: THE UNSAFE TENEMENT (ETCHING).]
Mr. Watts Denton, on the other hand, tries to make us believe that Dante
Gabriel Rossetti got exceedingly tired of Whistler after a while and
considered him a brainless fellow, who had no more than a quick
malicious wit at the expense of others, and no real philosophy or
humour.
Otto Bacher, the American painter and etcher, has written a delightful
book entitled "With Whistler in Venice." The title is slightly deceptive
as the contents are largely an eulogy on the beauties of Venice.
Whistler is a mere picturesque incident. Bacher describes his friend in
this fashion: "When he was talking the glass (monocle) was dropped. If
he sat at one of the tables at the café the clanging of the eye-glass
accentuated his conversation. If he was presented to any one it would
drop and dangled to and fro from the neat cord for a few moments, to be
readjusted after some moments of fumbling. His monocle was always a
source of entertainment. He generally carried in his hand a Japanese
bamboo cane, using it to emphasize his remarks.
"He rose early, worked strenuously and retired late. He seemed to forget
ordinary hours for meals and would often have to be called over and
over again. He was a fastidious smoker, but a continuous one--his choice
of words was always a marked feature. His manners were elegant. He would
always adapt himself to any situation and, at the same time, retain his
dignity and personality."
Another interesting account was furnished in the Cornhill Magazine,
1903, by Mortimer Menpes: "Whistler was of all men essentially a
purist--a purist in every sense of the word, both as a man and a worker.
As a man he was sadly misunderstood by the masses. Whistler's nature was
ever a combative one and his long and brilliant career was a continuous
fight throughout. He revealed himself only to the few, and even that
small inner circle, of whom I was one of the most devoted, saw the real
man but seldom. But on those rare occasions Whistler could be gentle,
sweet and sympathetic, almost feminine, so lovable was he. Whistler
treated his hair as everything about him, purely from an artist's
standpoint, as a picture, as a bit of decoration. Whistler wanted to
produce certain lines in the frock coat and he insisted upon having the
skirts cut very long, while there were to be capes over the shoulders,
which must need form graceful curves in sympathy with the long-flowing
lines of the skirt. The idea of wearing white duck trousers with a black
coat was not conceived in order to be unlike other people, but because
they formed a harmony in black and white he loved. His straight brimmed
hats, his cane, the way he held his cane, each and every detail was
observed, but only as the means of forming a decorative whole."
Less personal are Val Prinsep's remarks: "I have always thought that
behind the 'poseur' there was quite a different Whistler. Those who saw
him with his mother were conscious of the fact that the irrepressible
Jimmy was very human. No one could have been a better son or more
attentive to his mother's wishes; after his marriage I have heard that
the life of this most Bohemian 'poseur' was most harmonious and
domestic.
"The grammar of expression was a constant stumbling block to him, hence
his slowness in producing. For let it not be supposed his pictures,
which looked so simple in their execution, were produced with facility.
The late Mr. Leyland told me that when he was sitting for his portrait,
a standing full-length, Whistler nearly cried over the drawing of the
legs and bitterly regretted that he had not learned something of the
construction of the human form during his student years. He once spoke
of himself as a 'soiled butterfly.' Surely this is the first recorded
instance of a butterfly being an aggressive and vindictive insect. This
however was a mere pose of Whistler's, the result of a well considered
determination to exalt himself, which he found in the long run paid,
even as all judicious publicity is said to bring in a sum percentage of
profit."
A. Ludovici, a New York dealer, makes quite a hero of Whistler. "He soon
made me feel that I was talking to an artist of great taste and
refinement, full of love for his work and a ready wit, and, in spite of
an academic training just received in Paris, I became that moment
devoted to him and his art. The little I had seen of it at the Grosvenor
engendered a desire to learn more regarding the mysterious technique of
which he was such an undoubted master and confirmed my predilection in
favour of painting the scene of life surrounding in preference to the
making up of the conventional subject so much in vogue. I who knew him
for the last twenty years of his life always found him most simple in
his tastes, firm in his convictions, generous and open-hearted to those
whose friendship he relied on and always ready to help and oblige any
one in whom his interests had been awakened. A more brilliant and
staunch friend one could not wish to have had."
Also Alexander Harrison, the marine painter, expresses himself in a
highly enthusiastic manner: "I have never known a man of more sincere
and genuine impulse even in ordinary human relations and I am convinced
that no man existed who could have been more easily controlled on lines
of response to a fair and square apprehension of his genuine qualities.
When off his guard he was often a pathetic kid and I have spotted him in
bashful moods, although it would be hard to convince the bourgeois of
this. Wit, pathos, gentleness, affection, audacity, acridity, tenacity
were brought instantly to the sensitive surface, like a spark by rough
contact."
Mr. Percy Thomas says: "He was a man who could never bear to be alone.
Through his own open door strange people drifted. If they amused him he
forgave them, however they presumed, and they usually did succeed.
Whistler seldom painted men except when they came for their portraits,
and the models drifting in and out of the door of Linsey Row, were
mostly women. He liked to have them with him. Mr. Thomas thinks he felt
it necessary to see them about his studio, for, as he watched their
movements they would take the pose that he wanted, or suggest a group,
an arrangement. He lived at a rate that would have killed most men, and
at an expense in details that was fabulous."
Walter Gray speaks about Whistler's technique. "No one can realize who
has not watched Whistler paint the agony that his work gave him. I have
seen him, after a day's struggle with a picture when things did not go,
completely collapse, as from an illness. His drawing coat gave him
infinite trouble. Whatever his friends charge against him it seems to me
that Whistler's faults and weaknesses sprang from an unbalanced
mentality; he was a _deséquilibré_, the common defect of great painters.
Yet, underneath all his vagaries and eccentricities, one felt that
indefinable yet unmistakable being--a gentleman."
Pennell gives a most valuable description of Whistler as a painter. "The
long nights of observation of the river were followed by long days of
experiment in his studio. In the end he gave up even making notes of
subjects and effects. It was impossible for him to choose and mix his
colour at night, and he was compelled to trust his memory, which he
cultivated, when he painted his nocturnes. He reshaped his brushes,
usually heating them over a candle, melting the glue and pushing the
hairs into the form he wanted. Whistler told us he used a medium
composed of opal, mastix and turpentine. The colours were arranged upon
a palette, a long oblong board some two feet by three with the
'Butterfly' inlaid in one corner; round the edge, sunken boxes for
brushes and tubes. The palette was laid upon the table; the colours were
placed, though, more frequently, there were no pure colours at all.
Large quantities of different tones of prevailing colours in the fashion
and his paints were mixed, and so much medium was used that he called it
'sauce.' Mr. Greaves says, that the nocturnes were mostly painted on
very absorbant canvas, sometimes on panels, sometimes on bare brown
holland sized. For the blue nocturnes the canvas was covered with a red
ground, or the panel was of mahogany, which had the advantage of forcing
up the blues. Others were done in a practically warm black ground. For
the fireworks there was a lead ground, or if the night was grey--the
canvas was grey.
[Illustration: IN THE SUNSHINE (ETCHING).]
"So much 'sauce' was used that, frequently, the canvas had to be thrown
flat on the floor to keep the whole thing from running off. He washed
the liquid colours on the canvas, lighting and darkening the tone as he
worked. In many nocturnes the entire sky and water is rendered with
great sweeps of the brush exactly the right tone. How many times he may
have wiped out that sweeping tone is another matter. Some one remembers
seeing the nocturnes set out along the garden wall to bake in the sun,
sometimes they dried out like body colour in the most unexpected manner.
He had no recipe, no system.
"In his painting it was surprising to see how much he accomplished in a
short time. He would decide upon any local tone, putting it on with five
or six big strokes, any variation of tones would be added in the same
way. In a given time he would put down more facts than any man I ever
knew. In the beginning of a pastel he drew his subject crisply and
carefully in outline with black crayon upon one of the sheets of tinted
paper which fitted the general colour of the motives. A few touches with
sky tinted pastels produced a remarkable effect. He never was in a hurry
in his work, always careful and accomplished much. Every subject
contrived some problem for nature which he wished to convey on canvas."
The portraits painted and etched by himself and various artist friends
also comment favourably upon his personality. William Michael Rossetti,
in his diary of February 5, 1857, mentions seeing in Whistler's studio
"a clever, vivacious portrait of himself," believed to be that belonging
to the late George McCullough and which appears as the frontispiece to
Pennell's book. Another portrait sketch of this period or a little later
was shown at the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1910.
Another portrait sketch can be seen in the Freer collection.
In 1874 Whistler planned a big picture similar to Fantin-Latour's
"Hommage à Delacroix", only less serious and more eccentric in
conception. Whistler was to be the centre figure and to be surrounded by
the "Woman in White" on a couch and a kimonoed lady walking about the
studio, while Albert Moore and Fantin-Latour were chosen to serve as
black notes. One of the studies, Whistler in his studio, is illustrated
in Pennell. A chalk drawing belonging to Thomas Way is likewise in the
same book. There are three etched portraits in existence. A very early
one dated 1859, the "Whistler with the White Lock," which appeared as
frontispiece in Ralph Thomas' "Catalogue of Etchings and Drypoints of
Whistler," and an etching very similar to the 1867 portrait, dated 1874.
In 1894 he was painting a portrait of himself in a white jacket which,
according to the Pennells, was changed into a dark coat after the death
of his wife. A full length portrait in long overcoat was in the Paris
Exposition of 1900, under the title of "Brown and Gold." Another half
length is known to belong to George W. Vanderbilt.
A dry-point by Helleu, drawn in 1878, has many admirers, but is rather
superficial as a characterization. The most important portrait is the
Mephistophilean interpretation by Boldini, painted 1897 and shown at the
Exposition in 1900. But I almost prefer a certain photograph which shows
him with top-hat, and overcoat over his shoulder. It reminds me of the
glimpse I caught of him that afternoon, in Paris years ago, when I was
still carefree and had not the slightest idea that I would one day write
a book about the man I passed so nonchalantly.
The few paragraphs that are cited in this chapter may not do his
personality full justice, but they must suffice. A personality can not
be recalled from the shades. We can only produce a mental image, and an
abundance of notes would only confuse the outlines. His work remains,
that is the principal thing. Even the greatest painters of the past are
mere ghosts and visions to us. And although Whistler, more than any
other modern painter, has the chance of marching down posterity,
unforgotten and wreathed in glory, a curious high-seasoned personality
not unlike Benvenuto Cellini, the author of these lines must refrain, as
he can add nothing new or original.
Prophets or seers, call them what you will, in the arts or in the
sciences, must of necessity be few and far between, and in advance of
their age. Whistler is to me one of these, in his absolute and genuine
love of his profession, for the resolve to win out at any cost, for his
conquests in various realms of art and the triumph of ideas they
represent.
I admire his colossal vanity and egotism, but, more than all, I admire
him for the seriousness with which he took himself and his business of
being a painter. It is so rare a quality. Velasquez was so much of a
solemn cavalier that he was almost ashamed of being a painter. It
offended him to be reminded of his profession. It was a serious sport to
him, but only a sport. He was like Goethe: a distinguished and
conscientious amateur. Their exalted position in life enabled them to
treat art with such ease and condescension. But Whistler had to climb to
the very heights from which they started, and all the battles and
victories, struggles and temporary defeats, magnificent successes and
lavish praises were the result of his personal efforts. Whistler needed,
and had the true autolatry of the artist; he could conceive genius only
under an artistic guise; he entertained the absolute faith that the
faculty of painting is something so hugely superior to anything else
that it confers a sort of sacred character on its owner. And it is for
this wholesome artistic seriousness, this salutary egotism, that I
admire Whistler, the man.
[Illustration: THE POOL (ETCHING).]