In 1896 he exhibited some seventy lithographs in the rooms of the Fine Arts Society, and they were a revelation of the possibilities of the process in the hands of a master of line.
The Way catalogue, now out of print, contained one hundred and thirty, purporting to cover those printed down to and including 1896.
To this list must be added at least eight more which are well known, and possibly others.
There are, therefore, in existence nearly four hundred etchings and dry-points by Whistler, and probably not less than one hundred and fifty lithographs,—a large volume of work for one man, even if he produced nothing else.
Stress is here laid upon the mere volume of his work to meet some remarkable views which have been put forth concerning him and to correct the popular impression that his controversies diverted him from his art.
He was but sixty-nine when he died. His first etchings appeared in 1857-58. For the remainder of his life he averaged twelve plates and lithographs a year,—one a month; and of this great number, it is conceded by conservative experts, the percentage of successful plates and stones is much larger than that of any of his great predecessors. In fact, there are no failures. Some of the plates were more sketchy and of slighter importance than others, but every one is the genuine expression of the artist’s mood at the moment of execution, and precious accordingly.
Not many years ago there was in a certain city an exhibition of the slight but pretty work of a famous French illustrator. By his grace, and especially by his happy facility in the drawing of children in checked frocks and gray or brown or blue stockings and stubby shoes, the work attracted attention, and, as always happens with the pretty and the novel, aroused an enthusiasm quite out of proportion to its real merit.
Two men fell into a dispute over the merits of the little drawings, one siding with the throng and maintaining they were great, the other insisting they were simply pretty,—too pretty to be good and really quite hard and mechanical in execution,—in fact, quite inconsequential as art.
“Look,” said he, “at this figure of a child. See how the outline is painfully traced in black and then the colors filled in as mechanically and methodically as if a stencil had been used. What would a Jap say to that?”
“He would say it is fine. It is Japanese in color and motive.”