A Child's Guide to Pictures

by Charles H. Caffin

He might have made his problem easier by throwing a strong light upon the figure from one side. This would have made some parts of the dress shine out with the brightness of very high lights, and would have caused the figure to cast a shadow on the wall. This would have produced a harmony of contrasts; a bold contrast of color values, easier to paint. But Whistler was intent on something very subtle—a harmony of similarities. So he placed the figure in a dull light, that was evenly distributed over the rug, the figure, and the wall, with the result that the distinctions between the color values were very slight, very subtle. This means that it was difficult to make the different masses of white distinct from one another. The artist, you see, had to make it appear that the girl’s white figure was nearer to us than the white wall; to make us feel that, while the wall is flat, the figure has roundness and bulk; and that, while the wall is an upright surface, the rug represents a horizontal one. Yes it was indeed a very difficult problem, because the only possible way of solving it was to render the very slight differences in the quantity of light, reflected from each and every part of the white surfaces, according to the angle at which the light reached any part, and the distance each part was from the eye of the artist. And no doubt the keen mind of Whistler was interested in the subtlety of the problem. But this was not all. His feeling as an artist was equally subtle. It delighted in the subtleties of color values.

However, he also enjoyed effects of brighter color. I have asked you to imagine this picture of Whistler’s because it illustrates the first meaning of “values”—namely the different quantities of light that may be contained in one and the same color. I wish to illustrate now the other meaning of “values”—which has to do with the quantity of light contained in one color as compared with that in another color; for example, with the percentage of light contained in red as compared with that contained in blue, or green, or white, or any other color. For this purpose I have chosen the second in Whistler’s series of symphonies in white: The Little White Girl. You can look at the reproduction and see for yourself that part of the color scheme, or color harmony, certainly the most important part, consists of the figure of the girl in white. You will notice how it illustrates what we have been saying about the other white girl. It is evenly lighted, there are no contrasts of extreme light and dark; the dress is a woven tissue of subtly different values of white. But in this case Whistler has treated the white dress as the theme or chief motive, as a musician would say, and has woven around it a composition of variations. It is the variations that I wish you now particularly to notice. They may be put under two heads. First, the reflection of the girl’s head in the mirror; second, the various spots of color that surround her.

Suppose we begin with the latter. On the mantel-shelf, close to the flesh-color of the girl’s hand and the white of her sleeve is a Japanese jar, decorated in white and blue, and beside it a Japanese box covered with that smooth shiny surface called lacquer, and of a scarlet color, like a geranium. Down below appear the sprays of camelias with dark green glossy leaves and white and rosy blossoms. The fan repeats these colors, but with a difference. There is red in it, but of a different value to the red of the box and flowers; blue, but of another value than that on the vase; green, which differs in value from the leaves. Secondly, in the mirror is a repetition of the girl’s head and of certain colors in the room. But the reflected head, as you can see in the reproduction, is in a lower key than the real one. The colors are lower in value; there is not so much light in them; for the mirror has absorbed some of it. You may test a mirror’s appetite for light by holding your handkerchief close to it. You will see that the white of the reflection is much greyer than the handkerchief, or according to the quality of the glass, it may seem slightly blue. At any rate its value will be lower than that of the handkerchief; just as in this picture, the reflected colors of the

The Little White Girl. J. M. Whistler.

flesh and hair are lower in value than the actual head.

Now, looking at the picture, we note that the figure occupies about one half of the composition. It illustrates, as did The Sower, the use of a main diagonal line, though the feeling suggested by it is different. In The Sower, you will remember, the diagonal helped to give vigor and alertness to the figure; while here, on the contrary, its suggestion is one of very gracious quiet. For the slope of this diagonal is not so steep as in the other picture; nor do the directions of the arms and head present such abrupt contrasts. The left arm it is true, is nearly at right angles—itself a strong contrast; but it is so quietly laid along the mantel-shelf, which supports its weight, that there is no suggestion of effort. Meanwhile, the other arm, hanging so easily, is almost parallel to the main diagonal. The line also of the neck gently carries on the lines of the shoulders, and, as the head is slightly tilted back, its downward pressure is supported by the shoulder that rests on the shelf. The whole suggestion of the figure, in fact, is one of rest. There is no conscious bodily effort to interfere with the reverie in which the girl’s mind is wrapt. She may be buried in her thoughts or she may be absorbed in the beauty of the box and vase, at which she seems to be looking. “Seems,” I say, for it is difficult to be sure that she is conscious of them. Her gaze seems fixed to a far vision, as if she had begun by looking at these objects, and then, as her thoughts passed beyond them, had let the gaze of her eyes follow. She seems buried in some girlish reverie, wrapt “in maiden meditation, fancy free.” To me it is a very lovely figure not because of the features of the face—opinions may differ about the face being beautiful in the ordinary sense of having beautiful features. Its beauty to me lies in its expression; in its expression of some lovely mood of a girl’s spirit. And I find the figure beautiful, because all through it is the movement of the same expression. This must have been in Whistler’s mind when he painted her. But he was conscious, perhaps, of another side of her nature; that she had moods of brightness as well. At any rate he chose to contrast with the pensive calm of the girl herself the bright animated spots of color that surround her.

These spots of color, if you examine the picture carefully, really play the part of the shadows in the chiaroscuro of old pictures. Chiaroscuro, you remember, is the pattern of light and dark. Here the red box and the blue of the vase and the green and rose, of the camelias, yes, and even the face in the mirror, the marble shelf and fireplace—all represent the dark spots. But not dark in the old way of being shadows. They are dark as compared with the white of the dress, because their colors reflect less light than the white; their values are lower. Thus they serve the purposes of a dark contrast and yet they themselves are very light. This, in a nutshell, is what the new study of values, that was learnt from Velasquez and from Vermeer, and the other Dutchmen, really means. It has enabled the artist to be even more true to life in the representation of objects, and at the same time to make his color-harmonies purer, clearer and more transparent; in one word, luminous; permeated, that is to say, with a suggestion of light, that in nature permeates the atmosphere and brings all objects into an appearance of harmonious unity.