“Weel, man, you have given me a clean collar, and that is more than Meester Watts has done.”
The portrait was begun and ended as a labor of love, and for nearly twenty years it remained unsold.
After Carlyle died some citizens of Glasgow, from purely patriotic motives, and with no appreciation whatsoever of the painting, thought it should be purchased, and a public subscription was started.
When the amount first talked of—quite a small sum—had been nearly subscribed, Whistler learned that the subscription paper expressly disavowed all approval of himself and his art, whereupon he promptly more than doubled the price, to the dismay of the canny Scots, who wished to buy the portrait without the art; and when they hesitated, he again raised the price, to their utter discomfiture, and the picture was not purchased until 1891.
It is now owned by the corporation of Glasgow, and hangs in the public gallery surrounded by a mass of lesser works which completely dwarf its great proportions and render adequate appreciation impossible.
It is worth while to visit Glasgow to see this portrait, but until the authorities have the good judgment to give it a room, or at least a wall to itself, the journey will prove an exasperation.
The hanging of pictures is a “lost art;” and most of the art of pictures is lost in the hanging.
A picture is painted in a certain environment of light, color, and tone,—and to Whistler this environment was a vital consideration. For the time being the canvas is the one conspicuous thing in the studio, of even greater importance than subject or model. From this environment of creation, and with which it is in perfect harmony, it is violently forced into conjunction with great squares of atrocious gilt frames and expanses of clashing canvases.
A gallery of pictures is the slaughter-house of art; annual exhibitions are the shambles of beauty.
So far as galleries are concerned, the advantage is usually with the dealer, for he knows the value of arrangement and shows his best things more or less detached. One by one the gems of his collection are presented to the customer and time given for appreciation.