The portrait of the æsthete, Count Robert de Montesquiou de Fezensac, who honoured this shore with a visit (painted in 1890-91), was one of the last pictures of this series. Whistler undertook several portraits of this peculiar, high-strung personality but finished only one. He explained "that it was impossible to produce the same masterpiece twice over—as difficult as for a hen to lay the same egg over twice." The pose is one of hauteur as becomes the author of "Les Hortenses Bleus." He wears a dress-suit, and a dark overcoat with a grey lining is thrown over his arm while the other arm thrusts forth a slender cane-like sword. As it is so frequently the case with Whistler's arrangement, it is more a play with colour than a character delineation. A character delineation plus tone is surely more admirable than mere tonality or mere character delineation. In his "Leyland," "Mother," "Duret," and "Carlyle" he accomplished both. In this one he only excelled in one. I also fail to see why he called it "Black and Gold," as I cannot discover the slightest suggestion of gold. It is brown and black. There is little use in reviewing each of his arrangements separately as they all carry out the same principle.
Owned by Richard A. Canfield
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GOLD: COMTE DE MONTESQUIOU.
In his two, perhaps, most important pictures, which are generally conceded to be his masterpieces, his "Carlyle" and "The Artist's Mother," both arrangements in black and grey, the painter is a trifle more precise in line. He depicted, as background, actual walls of a room and made an unusual excursion to the domain of space arrangement. Had he at the time arrived at the conclusion that a deep sentiment, no matter how vague, as that of a great philosopher and an adorable woman, can be rendered successfully by illusion rather than suggestion!
The "Carlyle" was exhibited as early as 1877, and purchased after many weary negotiations by the Glasgow City Gallery in 1891. It is a masterpiece of characterization, of tone and space composition. It is a most formidable object lesson to any portraitist. Notice how purely simple and well balanced the composition of "Carlyle" is, how all the details of dress have been eliminated, how the outline has been accentuated against the background, how naturally the figure is seated, and how well it has been placed in space. There is an atmosphere around the figure. One feels that the person is seated in a room.
City Art Gallery, Glasgow
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND GRAY: THOMAS CARLYLE.
The same can be said of the composition in the portrait of "The Artist's Mother," at the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris. It was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. In the season of 1882 it appeared in America, and then was shown at the Paris Salon in 1888. It was also seen in Munich, and was finally purchased by the French Government in 1891. The simple pose, the delicate way of handling detail in the lace cap and the hands, the masterly space arrangement, produced largely by the rectangular curtain and the silhouette of the figure, the fine sense of values, and the clever way in which he utilizes a few frames to break the monotony of the background all have been commented upon a hundred times. No modern painting has been more talked about and more frequently imitated than this one, but none of the adaptations has reached or surpassed its "pathos and tender depth of expression." Technically it is perfect.