Whistler was not represented at the Grosvenor, and at the Salon only by the Sarasate, which went afterwards to the "XX" Club in Brussels. His show in 1886 was at Messrs. Dowdeswell's Gallery. They exhibited and published for him the Set of Twenty-Six Etchings, twenty-one of the plates done in Venice, the other five in England, the price fifty guineas. With the prints he issued the often-quoted Propositions, the first series; the laws, as he defined them, of etching. He said that in etching, as in every other art, the space covered should be in proportion to the means used for covering it, and that the delicacy of the needle demands the smallness of the plate; that the "Remarque," then in vogue, emanated from the amateur; that there should be no margin to receive a "Remarque"; and that the habit of margin also came from the outsider. For a few years these Propositions were accepted by artists. At the present time they are ignored or defied, and the bigger the plate the better pleased is the etcher and his public. Later in the year, in May, Messrs. Dowdeswell arranged in their gallery a second series of Notes—Harmonies—Nocturnes. A few were in oil, a few in pencil, but the larger number were pastels and water-colours. They were studies of the nude, impressions of the sea at Dieppe and Dover, St. Ives and Trouville, the little shops of London and Paris, the skies and canals of Holland. Whistler decorated the room in Brown and Gold, choosing the brown paper for the walls, designing the mouldings of the dado. Mr. Walter Dowdeswell has the sketch of the scheme in raw umber, yellow ochre, raw sienna, and white; he has also preserved the brown-and-yellow hangings, and the yellow velarium. On the cover for the mantelpiece, the Butterfly, placed to one side, is without a sting. "Where is the sting?" Mr. Dowdeswell asked. "That," Whistler said, "is in my waistcoat pocket. I am keeping it for the critics." The exhibition was received with mingled praise and blame, and it would not have been a success financially had not Mr. H. S. Theobald, K.C., purchased all that earlier buyers left on Messrs. Dowdeswell's hands.
In the following summer Mr. Burr refused to stand again for the Presidency, and at a General Meeting (June 1, 1886), Whistler was elected. The excitement was intense. Whistler alone was calm and unmoved. Mr. Ingram, a scrutineer, remembers coming for Whistler's vote and being so excited that Whistler tried to reassure him: "Never mind, never mind, you've done your best!" The meeting adjourned to the Hogarth Club for supper. "J'y suis, j'y reste," Whistler wired his brother. The comic papers were full of caricatures, the serious papers of astonishment. He was hailed as "President Whistler" by his friends, and denounced by members of the Society as an artist with no claim to be called British. Younger painters rushed to his support, and one French critic, Marcel Roland, prophesied that, "l'œuvre de Whistler ne quittera son atelier que pour aller tout droit s'ennuyer à jamais sur les murs des grandes salles du Louvre. La place est marquée entre Paul Véronèse et Vélasquez." It was suggested by Mr. Malcolm Salaman that "all the rising young painters to whom we must look for the future of British art will flock to the standard of Mr.—why not Sir James—Whistler, rather than to that of Sir Frederick Leighton"—a prophecy fulfilled in the early days of the International, while the question as to whether Whistler would have accepted a knighthood has lately been discussed. He would doubtlessly, could he have done so without losing his American citizenship, but he would not have sold his citizenship for it. Honorary rank and British orders could have been conferred upon him, as they are often upon foreign politicians, social nonentities, or useful financiers without loss of their citizenship. But in British orders, as Lord Melbourne said of the Garter, "there is no damn question of merit about it."
Whistler intended going to America in the fall, but the journey was postponed. He wrote to the World (October 13, 1886), "this is no time for hesitation—one cannot continually disappoint a Continent," and he settled down to the task of directing the fortunes of a Society which looked to him for help, its members divided among themselves in their confidence in him as President.
CHAPTER XXX: THE BRITISH ARTISTS. THE FALL.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SIX TO EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT.
According to the constitution of the British Artists the President, though elected in June, does not take office until December. Whistler presided for the first time on December 10, 1886, and from that day he was supported devotedly by one faction and opposed fiercely by the other.
For the Winter Exhibition (1886-87) he decorated the galleries with the same care as his own shows. He put up a velarium, he covered the walls with muslin. The muslin gave out, leaving a bare space under the ceiling. "But what matter?" he said, "the battens are well placed, they make good lines," and they became part of the decoration. He would allow no crowding, the walls were to be the background of good pictures well spaced, well arranged. He urged the virtue of rejection. Mr. Starr says, "He was oblivious to every interest but the quality of the work shown." He told Mr. Menpes, one of the Hanging Committee, "If you are uncertain for a moment, say 'Out.' We want clean spaces round our pictures. We want them to be seen. The British Artists' must cease to be a shop."
This was resented. The modern exhibition is a shop, and as long as most painters have their way a shop it will remain. He exhibited Nocturne in Brown and Gold (afterwards Blue and Gold), St. Mark's, Venice—he told the members on varnishing day that it was his best; Harmony in Red: Lamplight, Mrs. Godwin, and Harmony in White and Ivory, Lady Colin Campbell, a beautiful portrait of a beautiful woman, one of many that have disappeared. It was not finished when Whistler sent it in, an excuse for dissatisfied members to propose its removal. The question was not put to the meeting when the matter came up, but a proposition to define the rights of the President and the President-elect was carried.
One of Whistler's first acts was to offer to loan the Society five hundred pounds to pay its debts. Mr. Starr describes him, "during this time of fluctuating finances, pawning his large gold Salon medal one day, lending five hundred pounds to the British Artists the next. He often found 'a long face and a short account at the Bank,' he said one day."