The Whistler book

by Sadakichi Hartmann

"Whistler was extremely frugal and abstemious. He ate and drank most moderately the plainest fare. He liked dainty dishes and rare old wine, but had a horror of the 'groaning board' at huge set feasts and formal banquets. He could cook quite decently himself, and sometimes made an omelet or scrambled eggs, but these culinary feats I never saw performed; as to the Master's knowledge of wine, it was very limited indeed. I have seen him mistake a heavy vintage of champagne for 'Tisane.' I never saw him cook anything, even in his poorest days, in Venice, but I know that he liked a good dinner at a club even when it was punctually served and consisted of quite ordinary delicacies such as other men delight in."

The notes from his childhood are rather scarce. In his mother's diary, written during the stay in Russia, we find the following reference to him when he was twelve years old: "... Jimmie's eagerness to attain all his desires for information and his fearlessness often make him offend and it makes him appear less amiable than he really is." And at some other place, when they had watched some parade with the Empress passing: "He behaved like a man. With one compassing arm he guarded me, and with the other kept people at a proper distance, and I must confer, brilliant as the spectacle was, the greatest pleasure was derived by the conduct of my dear and manly boy." Miss Emma Palmer, his cousin, describes Whistler at this period as "tall and slight, with a pensive, delicate face, shaded by soft brown curls. He had a foreign appearance and manners, which, added to his natural abilities, made him very charming even at that age. He was one of the sweetest, loveliest boys I ever knew and was a great favourite."

"Whistler, as a boy, was exactly what those who knew him as a man would expect: gay and bright, absorbed in his work when that work was in any way related to art, brave and fearless, selfish, if selfishness is another word for ambition, considerate and kindly above all to his mother. The boy, like the man, was delightful to those who knew and understood him, 'startling' and 'alarming' to those who did not."

Joseph Pennell, in his excellent book, has given us a most fascinating description of Whistler as a student in Paris and a young painter in England. No one can refuse to admire the loyalty of this writer, who has gathered with such loving care every note of interest in Whistler's life. The following paragraphs are from his Quartier Latin chapter; "To Whistler the Frenchman was more sympathetic than the English, in his serious as in his light hours. His fellow students brought back to England the impression that he was an idler; it is hard to-day to make people believe that he was anything else in his youth. And yet he worked in Paris as prodigiously as he played. To us it is incomprehensible how he found time to read as a student, and yet he knew the literature of the period thoroughly, and always the charm of his manner and his courtesy made it delightful to do anything for him. Few men ever ate less than Whistler, but few were more fastidious about what they did eat—no man ever shrank more from thought, or at the mention of death than Whistler. There was always in life so much for him to do and so little time in which to do it.

"He was popular with the children, and delighted in music, though he was not too critical, for he was known to call the passing hurdy-gurdy into his garden and have it ground under his windows. Occasionally the brother (Greaves) played, so that Whistler might dance. He was always full of drolleries and fun. He would imitate a man sawing, or two men fighting at the door, so cleverly that his brother never ceased to be astonished when he walked into the room alone and unhurt. He delighted in American mechanical toys and his house was full of Japanese dolls. One great doll, dressed like a man, he would take with him not only to Greaves, but to dinners at the Little Holland House, where the Princess then lived, and to other houses, where he put it through amazing performances." Many notes are quoted from the writings of his associates. Here are some of the most interesting of them: Mr. Luke Ionides writes: "He was a great favourite among us all, and also among the grisettes we used to meet at the gardens where dancing went on. I remember one especially, they called her the tigress. She seemed madly in love with Jimmie and would not allow any other woman to talk to him when she was present. She sat for him several times with her curly hair down her back. She had a good voice and I have often thought she suggested 'Trilby' to Du Maurier. One time in a rage she tore up a lot of drawings, when Whistler came home and saw them piled high on the table, he wept." If Whistler had money in his pockets, Mr. Ionides says, he spent it royally on others.

Mr. Rowley, "Taffy," writes: "It was in 1857-8 that I knew Whistler, and a most amusing and eccentric fellow he was, with his long black thick curly hair and large felt hat with a broad black ribbon around it. I remember on the wall was a representation of him, I believe done by Du Maurier, a sketch of him, then a fainter one and then finally an interrogation—very clever it was and very much like the original. In those days he did not work hard."

"Whistler was never wholly one of us," Mr. Armstrong tells us; Drouet does not think that Whistler worked hard, certainly not in usual student fashion at the schools. He was every evening at the Students' ball, and as he never got up until ten or eleven in the morning, where was the time for work?

The personal observations and a glance at one of Whistler's self-portraits of this period should give us a fair vision of the young Whistler at Paris. The earliest known self-portrait in oil is the one painted in Paris about 1859, the Whistler with a hat, engraved by Guérard, which was lent by Samuel P. Avery to the Memorial Exhibition at Boston. It shows him with a slight mustache, a large Rubens hat, a big dotted tie, and a coat with a velvet collar. It is a good example of a dark silhouette against dark arrangement. The face has a few strong headlights, the remainder of it in middle tints, while the rest of the figure—the hat, the hair, the bust—are darker than the background. The space arrangement and position of the head are clever, but the shape of the bust is awkward, and, I fear slightly contorted.

Mrs. Jameson writes: "The man, as I knew him, was so different from the descriptions and presentations I have read of him, that I would like to speak of the other side of his character. It is impossible to conceive a more unfailingly courteous, considerate and delightful companion than Whistler as I found him, and I never heard a complaint of anything in my simple household arrangements from him. Any little failure was treated as a joke. His courtesy to servants and maids was particularly charming, indeed. I cannot conceive of his quarrelling with any one without provocation. His talk about his own work revealed a very different man to me from the self-satisfied man he is usually believed to have been. He knew his powers, of course, but he was painfully aware of his defects—in drawing for instance. To my judgment he was the most absolutely truthful man about himself that I ever met. I never knew him to hide an opinion or thought—nor to try to excuse an action."