On the night of the election which ended the Whistler dynasty there was great excitement, and the younger members let off steam by playing in the passages during the counting of the votes.
(In the possession of Mrs. L. Knowles)
In this impression of grey sea-weather we have the colour equivalent of that expressive economy which Whistler practised with his line; and the butterfly touch—like a butterfly alighting.
The Society had come into existence with aims of its own. An order of art was represented which had to be represented somewhere. A great amount of capable work for which the Academy had not room was on view here, representative of the everyday activity of London studio life. It was amusing to think of Whistler as the President of this Society as it was constituted in those days—and absurd. He could have nothing in common with its homely aims. But it was an advertisement for the Society and for him, he probably did not share the illusions of his followers that he was in the right place.
When in after years the leaders of the modern movement formed themselves into the International Society, in 1898, through the organisation of Mr. Francis Howard, it was inevitable and natural that Whistler should be the President, but at the British Artists it was simply a case of cuckoo and the sparrow’s nest. With his success, the original element of the Society must have gone elsewhere leaving him in possession of their building.
It was fitting that Sir Joshua Reynolds should be the President of an Academy whose theories he embraced but exposited with greater genius. But Whistler’s theories had no relation whatever to the body of which he was thus made the head, and he did not surpass in everything as Sir Joshua; the significance of his genius resting rather with the fact that it is epochal.
However, as all this affair happened just at the time when paradox was coming into vogue, there was that much only about it that was fitting. After these events Whistler, who was invited on to the Jury of the “New Salon” then forming, left for Paris.