"A mass of colour, giving the fairest tone of the flesh, would then be mixed and laid in the centre of the palette near the top, and a broad band of black curving downward from this mass of light flesh-note to the bottom, gave the greatest depth possible in any shadow, and so, between the prepared light and the black, the colour was spread, and mingled with any of the various pure colours necessary to obtain the desired changes of note, until there appeared on the palette a tone-picture of the figure that was to be painted, and at the same time a preparation for the background was made on the left in equally careful manner.
"Many brushes were used, each one containing a full quantity of every dominant note, so that when the palette presented as near a reproduction of the model and background as the worker could obtain, the colour could be put down with a generous flowing brush.
"Mr. Whistler said, 'I do not interfere with your individuality. I place in your hands a sure means of expressing it, if you can learn to understand, and if you have your own sight still.' Each student prepared his or her palette, in some the mass of light would exceed the dark, in others the reverse would be the case. Mr. Whistler made no comments on these conditions of the students' palettes: 'I do not teach art; I teach the scientific application of paint and brushes.' His one insistence was that no painting on the canvas should be begun until the student felt he could go no further on the palette; the various and harmonious notes were to represent, as nearly as he could see, the model and background that he was to paint.
"Mr. Whistler would often refrain from looking at the students' canvas, but would carefully examine the palette, saying that there he could see the progress being made, and that it was really much more important for it to present a beautiful appearance, than for the canvas to be fine and the palette inharmonious. He said, 'If you cannot manage your palette, how are you going to manage your canvas?'
"These statements sounded like heresy to the majority of the students, and they refused to believe the reason and purpose of such teaching, and as they had never before received even a hint to consider the palette of primary importance, they insisted in believing that this was but a peculiarity of Mr. Whistler's manner of working, and that, to adopt it, would be with fatal results!
"The careful attempts to follow the subtle modellings of flesh placed in a quiet, simple light, and therefore extremely grey and intricate in its change of form, brought about necessarily, in the commencement of each student's endeavour, a rather low-toned result. One student said to Mr. Whistler that she did not wish to paint in such low tones, but wanted to keep her colour pure and brilliant; he answered, 'then keep it in the tubes, it is your only chance at first.'
"They were taught to look upon the model as a sculptor would, using the paint as a modeller does his clay; to create on the canvas a statue, using the brush as a sculptor his chisel, following carefully each change of note, which means 'form'; it being preferable that the figure should be presented in a simple manner, without an attempt to obtain a thousand changes of colour that are there in reality, and make it, first of all, really and truly exist in its proper atmosphere, than that it should present a brightly coloured image, pleasing to the eye, but without solidity and non-existent on any real plane. This, it will be seen, was the reason of Mr. Whistler's repeated and insistent commands to give the background the most complete attention, believing that by it alone the figure had a reason to exist.
"Mr. Whistler would often paint for the students.
"Once he modelled a figure, standing in the full, clear light of the atelier, against a dull, rose-coloured wall. After spending almost an hour upon the palette, he put down with swift, sure touches, the notes of which his brushes were already generously filled, so subtle that those standing close to the canvas saw apparently no difference in each successive note as it was put down, but those standing at the proper distance away noticed the general turn of the body appear, and the faint subtle modellings take their place, and finally, when the last delicate touch of light was laid on, the figure was seen to exist in its proper atmosphere and at its proper distance within the canvas, modelled, as Mr. Whistler said, 'in painter's clay,' and ready to be taken up the next day and carried yet further in delicacy, and the next day further still, and so on until the end.
"And he insisted that it was as important to train the eye as the hand, that long accustoming oneself to seeing crude notes in Nature, spots of red, blue, and yellow in flesh where they are not, had harmed the eye, and the training to readjust the real, quiet, subtle note of Nature required long and patient study. 'To find the true note is the difficulty; it is comparatively easy to employ it when found.'