If time permitted he might bring forth two, or even three, pictures, but rarely more, and always each by itself. If some visitor, presuming on his good nature,—and he was indulgent in the extreme to those he liked,—insisted on placing the pictures side by side for comparison, as is the custom in shops, he was as uneasy and unhappy as would be a poet if several persons insisted on reading aloud before him several of his poems at the same time,—for what is a picture but a poem, mute to the ear but clarion-voiced to the eye?
In public exhibitions of his works he had the same sense of the eternal fitness of things.
First of all, the room must be properly lighted, and Whistler’s paintings require a soft light. In his studio the skylight was well arranged with shades, so he could keep the light soft and constant; and frequently he would draw the shades so as to make the room quite dark, and then view portrait and sitter as they loomed up in shadow.
“Some students planned to call on him one New Year’s morning. A friendly student, not at all sure that Whistler would like it, gave him a little tip as to the surprise party.
“‘Tell them that I never receive callers,’ he exclaimed, excitedly. The student explained that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about it.
“‘Are you sure they mean well?’ he inquired, anxiously. And on being reassured, ‘Well, tell them I never receive visitors in the morning.’
“The students called in the afternoon, and found awaiting them a most genial and delightful host. He told stories and showed them his palettes to prove that he practised what he preached, and pictures and sketches were exhibited to them never seen by the public, among the surprising ones being some allegorical studies. He served them with champagne and fruits and cakes, and was most solicitous as to their enjoyment. One of them asked him how he arranged his subjects so as to produce the low tone noted in his pictures. He posed a visitor, pulled over the shades so as to shut out all light, save from one window, and there before them was a living Whistler ‘arrangement’ ready to recede behind a frame, as he says all portraits should do.”
It is a pity to ever subject his pictures to the trying light of the usual gallery, and it is a still greater pity to exhibit them at night in competition with foot-lights and foyer. His work should not be made the attraction for either a “five-o’clock tea” or a dress rehearsal. People who will not go during the day are not worth inviting.
The fact that people are content to view the best paintings of all time by artificial light, and even profess to find a “softness” and “charm” lacking by day, is but additional evidence of that want of susceptibility and fine feeling which characterizes the modern world, artists and laymen alike. For no picture that was painted by daylight should be seen at night, if all its beauties are to be felt.
A room for the exhibition of his pictures should be of precisely the right tone, and this is a matter of no little difficulty.