The Whistler book

by Sadakichi Hartmann

Whistler's influence, in my opinion, was most beneficial in the arrangement of exhibitions. An exhibition of paintings, or any work of art, is solely an æsthetic venture, and should be harmonious at any cost. It is just in this that most exhibitions fail. They show the most incongruous backgrounds, frames of the most incredible malformations, floors that are either bare or loudly carpeted and pictures that are hung without the slightest consideration for their colour values. With the simple use of distemper, matting and muslin Whistler performed wonders. During his short reign as president of the Society of British Artists he transformed the Suffolk Street galleries from a barn into a dignified exhibition hall. Pictures, frames, walls, floors, lighting and decorations, each element had its due place, the one supplementing the other, and harmonizing, instead of conflicting with it, as is so often the case.

Every year saw some fresh assertions of his leadership. He took a great deal of interest in the arrangement of his own exhibitions, making some of them occasions for the exploitation of his views in new and original ways. His initial exhibition in Pall Mall, 1874, where, for the first time, walls were brought into harmony with the pictures upon them, and successes in Bond Street, at the Fine Arts Society, and at Dowdswell's, are accepted facts in the art history of London. Each one of these exhibitions especially embodied the demonstration of a colour scheme or problem of decoration. So there came to pass, in their turn, the arrangement in "Flesh Colour and Grey," the harmony in "Gold and Brown" and the arrangement in "Yellow and White," and others, equally characteristic and original.

With scrupulous love of detail, he neglected nothing and devoted unusual attention to the make-up of the catalogue. The brown-covered paper catalogue of the exhibition of etchings held at the Fine Art Society Gallery, in 1883, was issued with the imprint of the artist's home in Tite Street, Chelsea, and represented his peculiar views of typography as well as the art of slaying incompetent and hostile reviewers with their own weapons. After the title of each etching was printed a quotation from some criticism, under the general motto (on the title page) "Out of Their Own Mouths Ye Shall Judge Them."

"Prodigious amateur—there are years when Mr. Whistler gives great promise—In this instance criticism is powerless—Mr. Whistler is eminently vulgar—General absence of tone—Mr. Whistler has produced too much for his reputation"—are some of the quotations. The Gallery, on this occasion, was hung with white and yellow, had yellow matting on the floor, yellow chairs and yellow flower pots. The attendants at the door were in yellow and white livery, while the artist wore yellow socks, and his assistants yellow cravats.

For the catalogue of the exhibition of paintings held in 1884, Whistler prepared a page of "propositions" called "L'Envoie," which we quote elsewhere, and he repeated in the catalogue of "his heroic kick in Bond Street" in 1892, the use of quotations from the critics, for each title entry. The mottoes on this occasion were: "The Voice of a People" and a sentence from the speech of the General Attorney at the Whistler v. Ruskin trial, "I do not know when so much amusement has been offered to the British public as by Mr. Whistler's pictures." The artist triumphed, the success of the exhibition proved the futility of the early judgments. A perusal of this queer document, even to-day, elicits a smile; it is delicious humour and at the same time a splendid assertion of artistic power and self-adulation.

The first New York exhibition of work by Whistler was held in the old Wunderlich Gallery, on Broadway, in March, 1889, when sixty-two "Notes," "Harmonies" and "Nocturnes" were shown, with some accessories of yellow hangings, flowers, furniture and footmen imitation of the London exhibition of 1883. But this sort of thing is rarely successful in this country. It is apt to be misinterpreted, and somehow looks out of place.

One of the finest achievements of the painter is the frame which rightly bears his name. The official exhibitions still insist on the usual monotony of gilt frames, and the painters seem to have neither any particular inclination nor the opportunity to create frames of lovely forms and well-balanced repeating patterns of their own. The frame-makers and art-dealers are masters of the situation, and their interests are strictly mercenary ones.

"Attractive enough at first sight, hopelessly inartistic on further inspection," is the verdict which one has to give of the average frame of to-day. Only a few of our painters oppose the mechanically manufactured frames. They have their frames specially designed for each picture, Stanford White having been the designer of quite a number of them. Their frames are wide and flat, without corners and centrepieces, the repeating pattern is generally a simple, classic ornament, with a tendency toward parallel lines. The architectural designs, with Greek columns in the upright sides, are rather heavy and less recommendable. Whistler's frames, which served as inspiration to all these later-day designers, were conceived in simple planes, broken with parallel grooves that were restful to the eye as sole ornamentation. They were original inventions, free from any taint of imitation. The gaudy burnished gold effect was substituted by pale gold and bronze that could be tinted and glazed according to the principal colour note of the pictures the frame was designed for. They are so simple that it is difficult to improve their design. But he did not make them for general use, he merely suggested to other painters the advantageousness of designing their own frames, as is now largely customary.