During 1857-58 Whistler had a studio in the rue Compagne Première, boarding in Madame Lalouette's pension in the rue Dauphine. For some time he also shared quarters with Fantin-Latour, who, with Legros, was his most intimate friend during his student years. They saw each other daily, and it was on one of these occasions that he made the humourous sketch of Latour, depicting him on a cold winter morning seated in bed, drawing, all dressed, with a top hat on his head.
PORTRAIT SKETCH OF FANTIN-LATOUR.
They were the days of Henri Murger's "La Vie Bohême," of bon camaraderie, eccentric days when every man sought to make his mark by peculiarities of dress, soft felt Rubens' hats, velvet cloaks with the ends thrown over the shoulders, and other exotic garments. In one exhibition, in sheer audacity of youth, Whistler appeared dressed in a Japanese kimono. Think of a man in a kimono in 1855! Whistler at that time was a true Bohemian. His little studio was his workshop, his temple, his parlour, his playhouse and his dormitory. He frequented the queer, interesting quarters that students seek,—quaint old cafés where food was good as well as cheap, and character abundant.
What is there so fascinating about the Bohemian's life? The Philistine, I fear, generally considers him an eccentric, indolent man, with no thought for the morrow, no notion of economy, no home save the place which affords him temporary shelter. He never stops to think that the Bohemians are the men who make our songs, who paint our pictures, chisel marvellous creations out of wood and stone, compose our sweetest poems and write our newspapers. It is a grievous mistake to assume that they are merely a lot of idle, luckless fellows. They are men with brains of good quality, and hearts in the right place. All classes and trades of men have burdened the world with their wants and woes. Not so the Bohemian. He, too, has his heartaches and bitter disappointments, but who ever hears of them? The humourous tale over which you laugh so heartily, recounting the adventures of a poet in search of a publisher, had the author's personal experience for a basis. He could not sell his poems, but needed bread; so, out of his misfortune, he had good cheer. The ordinary man, rebuffed by fortune, would sit down and mourn himself into illness. The Bohemian utilizes these very reverses, and both he and the world are the merrier eventually for them. He lives in a world distinct from that of common men. Talent, love of comradeship, a sunny disposition—these are the magnets that will draw one toward it. It has its obligations, its trials, its code of honour, rigid as the most unbending militarism; but there is charm of companionship and an absence of jealousies and pettiness within it that makes you powerless to rid yourself of its enchantments. The Bohemian's life is apart from yours, but why chide him for it? He builds on the ruins of no other man's life, he feeds on no man's scandals, he exults in no man's misfortunes, but goes on his way, imbibing the sweetness of life from every flower, and, in his own way, scattering the perfume broadcast. He does half our thinking and originates two-third of all the movements for the social reclamation of the world. He is no hypocrite before the mighty, nor heartless in the face of the unfortunate. He covets no man's goods, but lives his own quiet, interesting, exquisite life. He asks only a share of the sunlight of life. In du Maurier's "Trilby" we find a sympathetic description of the art life of that period, but also a rather despicable type of a man, "Joe Sibley," by name, who always pretends but never does a thing and who was meant for a ludicrous satire on young Whistler (a character which was eliminated on Whistler's request from the second edition).
It is easy to draw a mental picture of him as he looked at that time. I see him studying in the Louvre, in a loose black blouse with low turned down collar and a soft black hat on his long, slightly curled hair, lost in wonder before a painting by Leonardo; or strolling along the Boulevards, cane in hand, ogling the beautiful women, and dreaming of designing some dress for the Empress Eugenie, passing by in an open phaeton. And how enthusiastic he got, no doubt, over some Japanese print or Chinese vase in some curio shop.
A certain trigness, smartness, acquired very likely at West Point where the cadets change their white duck trousers several times a day, induced him, even at this time, to take special care over the fit of his coat.
