The Whistler book

by Sadakichi Hartmann

The subject of an Old Master, although mostly of a religious order and legible to the ordinary mind, at times may have soared beyond the ordinary faculties of comprehension, but the object represented invariably appealed to the sense of sight, as it was painted in such a way as to create an illusion. The Old Masters succeeded in suggesting on a flat surface the roundness and actual colouring of things. The modern painter depicts objects in which the beauty is not always palpable to the layman, and in a manner which is less convincing, as he suggests form rather than actually representing it, and adheres most stubbornly to individual colour interpretation. It needs connoisseurship and technical knowledge to understand and appreciate the paintings of to-day. The paintings of a Degas, Besnard or Renoir remain a myth even to the people who are fond of art. Comparatively few persons are versed in the thought-transference from colour to sentiment.

Whistler did not believe in the constant mechanical mixture of seven solar tones, which make the eye perform the work which should be done by the painter. He tried hard for the dissociation of tones by endeavouring to translate the flat tints of the Japanese into oil paintings executed in Western fashion, but was not satisfied with the result.

Living in London, with a view on the Thames, he realized that the aspects of modern life have turned grey. They have nothing to do with Oriental embroideries. Our large cities with their smoke and manifold exhalations (not to speak of communities subjected to the use of soft coal) have acquired a dust-laden, misty atmosphere. This peculiarity of city atmosphere, however, to be noticed in London and Paris as much as in Chicago and Pittsburg, is a wonderful subduer and eliminator of detail, and should prove a valuable ally in conquering new suggestions of light effects. This Whistler realized, and he used it to express what the inner life of things in modern art needed most to express, the poetry of paint expressed in tone and light. "The study of light per se" as Leon Dabo says, "had become a creed with Monet, Manet and their followers. Somehow Whistler's contribution to this naissance—for it was a real birth, first successfully carried out by Constable—has been entirely neglected for the more obvious quality of full sunlight produced by the so-called Impressionists. Whistler's paintings prove conclusively that where there is harmony of colour there is vibration of atmosphere, and, therefore, the illusion of light."

When we stand before the "Mona Lisa" of Leonardo da Vinci and before his less famous, but almost equally fascinating woman of the Liechtenstein Gallery, we do not marvel merely at the lifelike representation, which seems to actually vibrate; but at something evasive and unfathomable that we find difficult to express in words. We experience something similar when we contemplate Whistler's "Mother" or some portraits of modern masters like Blanche, Lavery, enigmatic Khnopff, or the grey men and women of Carriere, who rise so softly and mistily out of the background. Although they have not attained the mastership of the former in the representation of the living, breathing people, there is the same mysterious mood in their paintings. They seem to quiver with something that is essentially modern, and cannot emanate alone from the charm of momentary expression which is one of their main attractions. The modern figures have a less corporeal effect than those of the Renaissance; they resemble apparitions which have suddenly taken shape in the greyness of life only to dissolve again into shadows. This is more than a technical change, it is a new way of thinking. We concede a new attribute to these painters and call their achievements the "psychological style" of painting. Robert Henri's "Young Woman in Black" is an interesting attempt in this direction.

By this we wish to convey that the figures tell us something of the inner life, and that the way in which this is accomplished impresses us like a commentary on their souls. Of course this is nothing new. All the masterpieces of portraiture, no matter how different technically they may be, whether clear and sharp or soft and diffused, whether by a Raphael or a Rembrandt, Titian or Franz Hals, have the faculty to make us dream and invent some psychical annotation to the figures represented, but modern life is more analytical. We rejoice in dissecting our thoughts, sentiments and moods, and some of our foremost contemporaries, though they may wield their brushes as dexterously as the Old Masters, concentrate upon the endeavour to reflect specifically the spiritual qualities and to accentuate its functions as far as it is possible in paint.

The modern painter is fond of specializing, not only in subject, but technically, because he lacks the overflowing energy and strength to conquer all the elements of his profession in one effort. This age, at least in the upper intellectual strata, has become very skeptical. We are not concerned so much about divinities and our future state as about ourselves in the present. Religion no longer furnishes the emotional staff on which we may lean on our pilgrimage of life, and yet we need some spiritual support, some science for the soul, and we may look about for something that may mystify us and lift us above the prose of every-day existence. And this search is mirrored in the endeavour of these men who would like to paint enigmatic figures, like "Mona Lisa" and the woman of the Liechtenstein Gallery.

Conditions change, but not so much that they become entirely extinct. The possibilities for emotional art are to-day as great as ever.

For portraiture, single figure representation and character delineation gentle effects capable of subtler gradations are more desirable. They may be found in many out-of-the-way places. A modern Ribera may find endless suggestions for new light and shade combinations in an ordinary cellar, and the picturesque "tavern atmosphere" of a Caravaggio or Terborg can surely be substituted in some obscure nooks and corners of our towns. Our living-rooms show a wealth of still life that, by the play of light, could be turned into beautiful accessories. There is nothing more gratifying to the eye than a bright, haphazard shimmer on some objects while the remainder is lost in a vague, picturesque haze.

The student of light and shade will find the range of light is still a very wide one. The vivid glow of firelight, here flickering brightly, there vanishing in gloom, will always produce a striking effect. A pale splendour caressing the human form with vague reflections could be obtained by light streaming through stained-glass windows. The dazzling illumination of the hour of sunset, which pales and subdues all objects, and, concentrated on the human body, makes it look as if it had been absorbed all in light and radiated it (which Prudhon has attempted and Henner specialized), may fill our minds with new dreams of vision. Even the ghostlike rays of shimmering moonlight (as Steichen has shown in his versions of Rodin's Balzac) may open novel methods to render tone and form in the broadest and softest manner possible.

Still I do not believe in the garish effects of certain modern painters, who take special delight in reproducing the flaring vagaries of artificial light. The trend of such works is towards an affected æstheticism. They may be fascinating and "stunningly clever" but they do not ring true. They are at their best only in colour experiments specially made to startle the beholder. When Elsheimer painted his "Christ Taken Prisoner," showing the pale light of the moon in the background, while the nocturnal figures in the foreground are enveloped by the glare of torches, he ventured upon a problem that was, after all, logical and true to life. But to place a lamp on the floor merely for the purpose of throwing interesting diagonal shadows upwards on a woman's figure, is not far from being an absurdity.