In 1879, the great etcher went to Venice, at the instance of the Fine Art Society, and there, in line extraordinarily expressive and vivacious, he recorded, not so much the recognized beauties of the town, as the vividness and variety of his personal impressions. That was his true business. Some of these etchings were exhibited before they were properly finished—finer effects remained, I mean, to be obtained from the plates. Hence they were received, perhaps, with more than customary coldness, though the fairy-like “Little Venice,” nearly perfect to begin with, was always an exception to the rule. There is nothing of Rembrand, there is nothing of Méryo, besides which this diminutive masterpiece may not most fitly be placed. Power of selection, power of composition, delicacy of handling, all say their last word in the “Little Venice.” Art does not go any further.
Since 1880, when they were first exhibited, many of the plates done in Venice have been taken up and perfected. The “Piazzetta,” for instance—unattractive at first: a ragged thing, or a skeleton—has somewhat lately been brought to the highest level that is attained by any etche art. And, several years ago, Mr. Whistler perfected for the limited issue by the Messrs. Dowdeswell, the “Twenty-six” plates—most of them Venetian in theme—which had, fortunately, been bought by hardly anybody (I may suppose) until, in 1886, their excellence was achieved. In this set, the entrancing freedom and inexhaustible suggestiveness of “The Balcony” and “The Garden” demand note: the balcony that, with drapery flung upon it, hangs over and overlooks the Grand Canal: the garden which passing humanity peers into, and peering, perhaps reflects with the Greek poet whose youth was gone:
“Spring for the tree and herb; no spring for us.”
It was in 1886 that I published my “Whistle Etchings: a Study and a Catalogue.” About two hundred and fourteen etchings had then been executed; and these—the work of what must necessarily be the better part of Mr. Whistle lifetime—were carefully described as well as appreciated. I hope the book was not
J. McNEIL WHISTLER. “THE PIAZZETTA.”
without effect, in England and America, on the demand for Mr. Whistle prints, many of which, however, were already unobtainable, so narrowly limited had been their issue, and so various, during all those years, the fortunes of the plates. But if old etchings were difficult to get, new ones were not wanting. There cropped up, under my notice, ingenious but insignificant croquis, declared by dealers, interested in them, to be valuable, because they were “undescribed.” Why were they “undescribed?” Because, it seems, they had only at that moment been done. Plates with a few scratches on them—clever, since they were Whistle, but each plate less important than the last—passed quickly into the hands of men who had, presumably, much money and only a little knowledge.
During the last five or six years, with a creditable and natural reaction from what would seem to have been a fever of immature fruitfulness—in the midst of which, after all, this exquisite and ever dainty artist did, of course, nothing ugly, though much that was rather provokingly thin—Mr. Whistler has, from time to time, produced a few new plates of serious interest and of finest accomplishment. The Brussels group belongs, in spirit, if not precisely in fact, to these latest years; and charming is the seeming intricacy, yet assured lightness, of the Whistlerian treatment of Flemish house-front. Again, there are delightful little things wrought in the country of the Loire: not solid records, but, as it were, fleeting visions of its architecture, and very fascinating. But the best of all the later work, and it is among the very latest that has yet been seen, is the quite admirable “Zandaam,” over whose stretched line the breeze from across dyke and fen and Zuyder Zee, stirs here, stirs there, stirs everywhere, the wings of the windmills of Holland.
