James Abbott McNeill Whistler

“ In some she stands with her filmy draperies floating about her or falling in long, straight folds to her feet; in others she lies upon a couch, indolent and lovely; she dances across the paper, she bends over a great bowl, she sits with her slim legs crossed and a cup of tea in her hand, she holds a fan or a flower; but whatever she may be doing or however she may rest, she is but another expression of the beauty that haunted Whistler, the beauty that was the inspiration of the Harmonies in White and the Six Projects. ”

“ As an outsider, he was never invited to the Academy. Even little private functions, like the Johnson Club, to which J. has taken him, he did not care for. It is so easy to be bored, so difficult to be amused, on such occasions. He preferred not to run the risk.
Of gentle answers that turn not away wrath there were plenty in 1889. At the Universal Exhibition in Paris, Whistler, an American, naturally proposed to show with Americans. The Yellow Buskin and The Balcony were the pictures he selected; he sent twenty-seven etchings, knowing that, in a big exhibition, a few prints make no effect. ”

“ When the Academy rejected him, and the critics sneered at his pictures hung in other galleries, and the public took the critics seriously, he laughed the louder, and felt the more. English ears shrank from his laugh—"his strident peacock laugh," Sir Sidney Colvin called it.
"He was a man who could never bear to be alone," Mr. Percy Thomas remembers. "The door in Lindsey Row was always open," and Whistler liked to think that his friends' doors were open to him. Lord Redesdale, who came to live in the Row in 1875, said that Whistler was always running in and out. ”

“ Papers and books lay on the floor of the drawing-room, in contrast to the blue-and-white in the cases. A litter of things at times covered the sideboard in the dining-room. Everywhere you felt the cheerlessness of a house which is not lived in. When we saw Whistler in his big, shabby overcoat shuffling about the huge studio, he struck us as so old, so feeble and fragile that we could imagine no sadder or more tragic figure. It was the more tragic because he had always been such a dandy, a word he would have been the first to use in reference to himself. ”

“ Dined with Jimmy; Cyril Flower, Tissot, Story. Talked Balzac—Père Goriot—Cousine Bette—Cousin Pons—Jeune Homme de Province à Paris—Illusions perdues.
[Pg 136]
"January 6 (1876) . With my father and mother to dine at Whistler's. Mrs. Montiori, Mrs. Stansfield, and Gee there. My father on the innate desire or ambition of some men to be creators, either physical or mental. Whistler considered art had reached a climax with Japanese and Velasquez. He had to admit natural instinct and influence, and the ceaseless changing in all things.
"March 12 (1876) . Dined with Jimmy. Miss Franklin there. ”

“ He had begun by asking two or three sittings, but managed to get a great many. At last C. flatly rebelled. He used to define W. as the most absurd creature on the face of the earth."
Around this portrait many legends are gathering. Mr. F. Ernest Jackson has told us that a few years ago, one evening in Hyde Park, he was seated on a bench sketching, and an old man came up to him and, seeing he was an artist, asked if he knew Whistler. Then the old man said that his father had posed for the picture. Whether this was Carlyle revisiting the haunts of his walks or a pure invention we do not know. ”

“ NOCTURNE BLUE AND GOLD, VALPARAISO BAY
OIL
In the Charles L. Freer Collection, National Gallery of American Art
(See page 99)
[Pg 132b]
SYMPHONY IN WHITE. NO. III OIL
In the possession of Edmund Davis, Esq.
(See page 102)
[Pg 133]
It was thought that he could not live without fighting, that to him "battle was the spice of life." But he never fought until fighting was forced upon him. There were no fights, just as there was no mystery, at first. Every man was a friend until he proved himself an enemy. Whistler's temper was violent. ”

“ In London they forgot for a moment their sorrow in their visit to the Royal Academy (1849) , in Trafalgar Square, where Boxall's portrait of James was exhibited. A short visit to Preston followed, the two boys carried off by "kind Aunt Alicia" to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and then they met in Liverpool. Economy made Mrs. Whistler hesitate between steamer and sailing-packet, but, by the advice of George Whistler, she took the steamer America, July 29, 1849, for New York, where they arrived on August 9, at once going by boat to Stonington. ”

“ For there was noise, there was gaiety, and everybody was carried away by it, even the servants.
Whistler was an artist in his use of words and phrases, making them as much a part of his personality as the white lock and the eye-glass. His sudden "What," his familiar "Well, you know," his eloquent "H'm! h'm!" were placed as carefully as the Butterfly on his card of invitation, the blue and white on his table. No man was ever so eloquent with his hands, he could tell a whole story with his fingers, long, thin, sensitive—"alive to the tips, like the fingers of a mesmerist," Mr. ”

“ Cole went again to Tite Street: "After a long delay, Jimmy showed me his painting of my father, which J. can make into a very good thing."
It is said not to have been finished, but we possess a photograph of it which shows no want of finish. This also, Mr. Cole was informed, Whistler destroyed. Neither was a full-length of Eldon finished: a fine thing, to judge from the photograph we have seen. It also has vanished, though a small half-length, sent to the London Memorial [Pg 213] Exhibition, but not hung—it may be a copy—is now in New York. ”

“ Later, in Paris, he called Wilde "Oscar, bourgeois malgré lui," a witticism none could appreciate better than the Parisians. As soon as he began to make a jest of Wilde he ended the companionship to which, while it lasted, London society owed much gaiety.
The relation between Whistler and artists now coming to the studio was less that of friends than of Master and Followers, as they [Pg 230] called themselves. He was forty-six when he returned from Venice, and there were few men of the new generation who shared none of the doubts of his contemporaries, but believed in him. ”

“ He explained his code to a friend: "If a man gives you the lie to your face, why, naturally you [Pg 102] hit him." People who did not know him became afraid of him, and this fear grew and was the reason of the reputation that clung to him for years and clings to his memory.
Before Whistler's pictures went to the Royal Academy, Mr. W. M. Rossetti saw them: "March 31 (1867) . To see Whistler's pictures for the R.A. To the R.A. he means to send Symphony in White, No. III. (heretofore named The Two Little White Girls) , and a Thames picture ”

“ Whistler is not so feeble as to aim at theatrical effects in his costume. In the black clothes of ordinary wear, straight from the street, he stands at his easel. To those accustomed to studios the completeness of the arrangement ... in accordance with the scheme of the picture that is in progress is striking, as striking indeed as the personality of the artist. His whole body seems instinct with energy and enthusiasm, his face lit up with flashes of quick and strong thought, as that of a man who sees with his brains as well as with his eyes.... ”

“ Thomas it was purchased for the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
A portrait of Sir Henry Cole was begun this spring. Mr. Alan S. Cole, in his diary (May 19, 1876) , speaks of "a strong commencement upon a nearly life-size portrait of my father. Looking at it reflected in a glass, and how the figure stood within the frame." This was never finished. Whistler's executrix says it was burned.
Lord Redesdale told us of a beautiful full-length of his wife in Chinese blue silk Whistler called fair, his word then for everything he liked. ”

“ Once at a dinner of French artists given at our house in honour of Whistler, Mrs. Whistler expressed the most Gallophobe sentiments, complaining loudly of the inhospitality of the French towards her husband. Although sixty years when I knew him, he had the enthusiasm and energy of early years. His handsome grey-blue eyes sparkled with the fire of youth—they were young eyes in an old face. I think it strange that no one ever seems to emphasise his singular beauty. ”

“ Whistler was never content with half-measures. He would not have played the social game at all had he not been able to play it well, and if taking infinite pains with his appearance means dandyism, then he was a dandy. The very word pleased him, and he used it often, in American fashion, to express perfection or charm or beauty. Never was any man more particular about his person and his dress. He was as careful of his hair as a woman, though there was no need of the curling-tongs with which he has been reproached; the difficulty was to restrain his curls and keep them in order. ”

“ But he looked worse, his eyes vaguer, giving the impression of [Pg 434] a man in a stupor. He said not a word until she was leaving, and then his one remark was, "You are looking very nice."
Reports of his feebleness were brought to us by many, among others by M. Duret. In July he came to London, and was deeply moved by the condition in which he found Whistler, who, he thought, wanted to say things when alone in the studio with him, but the day of his first visit could not utter a word. ”

“ In an exhibition of oil paintings and pastels by Whistler held in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in March 1910, a painting was shown entitled Sketch of Mr. Whistler. It was lent by Mr. Charles L. Freer and was sold to him by an art dealer. We are by no means certain that it is genuine, though we have only seen the reproduction, the frontispiece of the catalogue. J. recently went to Detroit, but in Mr. Freer's absence he was not allowed to see the painting. If it is genuine, it is most likely a study by Whistler of the Chinese dress in which he posed for Fantin. ”

“ For two or three years no one was more with Whistler than Sir Rennell Rodd. He writes us:
"It was in '82, '83 that I saw most of him. Frank Miles, Waldo and Julian Story, Walter Sickert, Harper Pennington, and, at one time, Oscar Wilde, were constantly there. Jimmy, unlike many artists, liked a camarade about the place while he was working, and talked and laughed and raced about all the time, putting in the touches delicately, after matured thought, with long brushes. ”

“ It is easier to make than to lose the reputation for eccentricity, fatal to success in a land of conservatism. Whistler saw the Englishmen who had studied in Paris with him laden with honours; Poynter a prosperous painter, Leighton a perfect President, Du Maurier the popular idol of Punch, Armstrong a State functionary at South Kensington, while he remained, officially, on the outside, at fifty less honoured than at twenty-five, because, it was said, that he had not realised the promise of his youth. ”

“ Serjeant Thomas brought Delâtre from Paris, the only man, he thought, who could print Whistler's etchings as the artist would have printed them himself. "Nobody," Ralph Thomas wrote, "has ever printed Mr. Whistler's etchings with success except himself and M. Delâtre," and to-day many people are of the same opinion. Whistler's relations with the firm were pleasant while they lasted. ”

“ Whistler knew that to carry on tradition was the artist's business. Rembrandt, Hals, Velasquez, Claude, Canaletto, Guardi, Hogarth, Courbet, the Japanese, in turn influenced him. Some see, at this period, the influence of Albert Moore, which, if it existed, was as ephemeral and superficial as Rossetti's. It could be argued with more truth that Whistler influenced Albert Moore, who, in at least two pictures, Harmony of Orange and Pale Yellow, Variation of Blue and Gold, borrowed Whistler's titles. ”

“ Lord Redesdale told us Whistler would come to him in the morning at breakfast, or in the evening after dinner, to read the latest correspondence, discovering the dullness of the enemy.
Whistler delighted in society, finding in it the change most men find in sport or travel. He hated anything that stopped his work. Hunting and fishing were an abomination. ”

“ Harriet, married Captain Phelan, also of the army; Caroline—eight months old when her father built Fort Dearborn—was married in Detroit, in 1840, to William R. Wood, of Sandwich, Georgia.”
When the army was reduced in June, 1815, Major Whistler was retired, and in 1818 appointed military storekeeper at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. He died at Bellefontaine, Missouri, in 1827. “He was a brave officer and became the progenitor of a line of brave and efficient soldiers.”
To a visitor from Chicago the artist once said:
“Chicago, dear me, what a wonderful place! ”

“ West Point had made of them men—Americans. West Point must do the same for him. Through the influence of George Whistler with Daniel Webster, he was appointed cadet At Large by President Fillmore, and on July 1, 1851, after two years at Pomfret school, within ten days of his seventeenth birthday, he entered the United States Military Academy, West Point, where Colonel Robert E. Lee was Commandant. Whistler was not made for the army any more than Giotto for Tuscan pastures, or Corot for a Paris bonnet shop. It was inevitable that he should fail. ”

“ Whistler looked back to West Point with equal affection. He failed, but West Point was the basis of his code of conduct. As a "West Point man" he met every emergency, and his bearing, his carriage, showed the influence of those days when he liked to look back to himself "very dandy in grey." For the discipline, the tradition, the tone of the Academy he never lost his respect. He knew what it could do in making men of boys. "From the moment we came," he said to us, "we were United States officers, not schoolboys, not college students. ”