“That in art it is criminal to go beyond the means used in its exercise.”
And he defined the limits of the etcher’s plate, and by implication the dimensions of the water-color and pastel—art’s most fragile means.
In the famous “Propositions No. 2” he formulated the principles which governed his work as a painter, the first being:
“A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.”
And the last:
“The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter,—perfect in its bud as in its bloom,—with no reason to explain its presence, no mission to fulfil, a joy to the artist, a delusion to the philanthropist, a puzzle to the botanist, an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man.”[18]
These two sets of “Propositions,” read in connection with his one lecture, the “Ten o’Clock,” which was delivered in London, February 20, 1885, at Cambridge, March 24, and Oxford, April 30, contain his creed in art.
Many a painter has written books explanatory of his art, but none has ever stated so plainly and so tersely the principles which actually governed all he did. Whistler was so epigrammatic in utterance that he was not taken seriously, but accused of paradox. But whoever reads what he has so soberly and earnestly said will better understand his work.
And whatever may be thought of reprinting entire the “Gentle Art,” there can be no question about the great need of scattering broadcast the “Propositions” and the “Ten o’Clock.”