Whistler's predilections were natural. He was too shrewd a promoter of his own artistic welfare not to make the best of this dispute of nations. He could not have prevented it anyhow, and the question of his nationality will be disputed for many years to come. Of course, one can simply settle the matter by saying that as he was born in America of American parents, he is an American.
The English differ; they choose to do in this case what we have always done with our immigrants. After a person has lived for any length of time in the country we make him a citizen and consider him an American. How about Carl Schurz, General Siegel and Roebling, the bridge builder? They were all born abroad and yet their names are inscribed on our roll of honour. Of what nationality was Lafcadio Hearn, who, born on the Ionian Islands, of Irish and Greek parentage, living for years in New Orleans and New York, finally selected Japan as the country of his choice, where he lived the remainder of his life and was buried? And yet we class him as an American writer. It seems that the party most concerned in it; the personality itself, should decide the question. Hearn wished to be considered a Japanese. We are not quite sure what Whistler's opinion was on the matter. He claimed to be a cosmopolitan. But that is no answer, as it does not settle the dispute. It leaves others to settle it, and the trouble starts anew.
There is another much subtler point, open to argument. Is his art in any sense American? Has it a flavour, a peculiarity of its own, that could be derived from any source except that of American birth and parentage? To this question I answer emphatically yes. True enough his subject matter was, with the exception of "L'Américaine" and a few portraits, strictly Continental. But the spirit was strictly Japanese and—American. Or, I would rather say, his form of art conception was Oriental, but the essence, the under-rhythm of his personality, was after all American. He was somewhat of a snob and a precieux, like his friend Comte Montesquiou. He had all the polished manners, the spirit, the grace of a foreign aristocrat and yet he was neither a Frenchman nor an Englishman in his habits or views on art. He remained an alien, as any man in a foreign climate must remain to some extent, when the change of domicile is made as late as the twentieth year.
His wit and sarcasm was American. It was not pointless, neither brusque nor frivolous but it was at times flat like Mark Twain's. His self-exploitation revealed the shrewdness of an intellectual Barnum. His attitude in society was that of a "Yankee at King Arthur's Court." Besides there are vague traits in his art which reveal the premises of his origin. His women, "The Fur Jacket," "Lady Archibald Campbell," "L'Américaine," and "Miss Alexander," have a natural finesse, direct grace and elegant frailty that can be found nowhere but in America. His power of adaptability, his disregard for ancient culture for modern purposes, his technical fanaticism, his adventurous tastes and theories, all have an American physiognomy. If there is anything that will make him an American it is the aptitude for labour, free association, and practical adaptation.
That he left America never to return again is no compliment to our country, but he, no doubt, acted wisely. If we remember the sad unsuccessful lives of Whitman and Poe, we shun to think what might have become of Whistler had he stayed on these shores. He, no doubt, would have become one of our best painters, but he would never have become the Whistler we know to-day.
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND WHITE: "L'AMÉRICAINE."
Like all our painters of merit, Fuller, Abbott Thayer, Winslow Homer, Homer Martin, to mention but a few, he would have retired into solitude, he would have become a hermit at a much earlier stage in his career. In England it was revolt, fight and victory; here it would have been stagnation. There would have been no fight because there would have been nobody to fight with.
When a man is young, he is strong because he is impulsive and because he has absolute faith in his beliefs. As he grows older his views broaden, he is not quite as certain of himself, and there will come a time when he will vacillate from one point to another, trying his faculties in different directions and searching for the final path on which his inborn talent may blossom forth in fullest strength and beauty. This is the time when a man needs encouragement, some patron no matter how stingy, some order no matter how humble, some friends and supporters who champion his cause—or he will succumb. He may not give up the battle, but his development will be marred and retarded for years.