MR. WHISTLER’S personality was one of the most striking in the art world of the last forty years, and his death was an irreparable loss. That he will rank as one of the greatest masters of the nineteenth century there can be no doubt. As an Impressionist with a strong individuality his work requires attention in this volume.
The Whistler family came originally from England, chiefly from the neighbourhoods of Whitchurch and Goring-on-Thames. A notable ancestor was Daniel Whistler, President of the Royal College of Physicians of England in the reign of Charles II. Several references to this “quaint gentleman of rare humour” are to be found in the pages of ‘Pepys’ Diary,’ and the family trait reappeared (with emphasis) in the character of the famous artist. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834, his father being Major George Washington Whistler, for some time consulting engineer to the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway. The son was destined for a military career, and received a considerable amount of tuition at the Government College at West Point. Work as a cadet, and also on the coast survey, does not seem to have interested him. In the fifties he migrated to Paris and became a student in the atelier of Gleyre, two of his fellow pupils being Sir Edward Poynter and George du Maurier. Whistler cannot have had much sympathy with the art in vogue at that time, a degenerated style based upon a sentimental classicalism. He found his best friends amongst young Frenchmen with extremely different ideas, men such as Fantin-Latour, Bracquemond, Degas, Manet, Duret, Claude Monet, and many others. Whistler first acquired fame as an etcher, and his first set of plates, known as the “little French set,” amply justifies the welcome with which it was received. From that early date until his death he has been acknowledged pre-eminent in the etcher’s delicate and graceful art.
At the Salon de Refusés (to which frequent reference has already been made) Whistler exhibited his first important painting, the Little White Girl, Symphony in White No. 2. It created his reputation as a painter, and remains one of the most charming of his canvases. An early contribution to the Royal Academy was entitled At the Piano, and clearly showed that the artist was then dominated by the subtle influence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This influence was quickly discarded, for Rossetti’s talent was inferior to that of the gifted American.
It has often been said that Whistler was never welcomed at the Royal Academy. This point remains debatable; the fact remains that the artist was constantly in evidence during the early part of his career. In 1859 he exhibited two etchings from nature (the title given in the catalogue to one frame); in 1860 the celebrated At the Piano (which was bought by an Academician) and five other works, namely, Monsieur Astruc, Rédacteur du Journal l’Artiste (Drypoint); Thames—Black Lion Wharf; Portrait (Drypoint); W. Jones, Lime Burner, Thames Street (Etching); and The Thames, from the Tunnel Pier. In 1861 he was represented by one canvas, La Mère Gérard, together with Thames from New Crane Wharf (Etching); Monsieur Oxenfeld, Littérateur, Paris (Drypoint); The Thames, near Limehouse (Etching). In 1862 he sent two paintings, The Twenty-Fifth of December, 1860, on the Thames, Alone with the Tide; and Rotherhithe (Etching). The next year, 1863, was prolific. The catalogue contains the following titles: The Last of Old Westminster; Weary (Drypoint); Old Westminster Bridge; Hungerford Bridge (Etching); The Forge (Drypoint); Monsieur Becgis (Etching); The Pool (Drypoint). Two works were on view in 1864: Wapping and Die Lange Lizen—of the Six Marks. In 1865 he exhibited The Golden Screen; Old Battersea Bridge; The Little White Girl (with a quotation in the catalogue of fourteen lines from Swinburne); and The Scarf. Whistler was not represented in 1866, but in 1867 exhibited the Symphony in White No. 3; Battersea; and Sea and Rain. After a break of two years came The Balcony in the Academy of 1870. The next year’s catalogue does not contain his name, but in 1872 the Academy accepted that exquisite example of his art, now in the Luxembourg, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother. For six years Whistler was an absentee, being represented for the last time on the walls of Burlington House, in 1879, by Old Putney Bridge (Etching).
PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE · J. A. McN. WHISTLER
PRINCESS OF THE PORCELAIN COUNTRY · J. A. McN. WHISTLER
The majority of Whistler’s masterpieces were exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in the days when Sir Coutts Lindsay was at the head of the direction. The walls of the rooms in Bond Street were repeatedly adorned by those charming creations known as Nocturnes and Symphonies, by the remarkable Valparaiso, by many of the portraits, notably Lady Archibald Campbell, Carlyle, and the delightful Miss Alexander. Twenty years ago Whistler’s life in London and Paris was exceptionally active. In him Society discovered a wit of Gallic alertness, and he speedily became one of the most prominent characters of the day. Readers will remember the oft-told tale of how Whistler sacrificed (with a true Whistlerian light-heartedness) much costly Cordovan leather, in order that he might create a masterpiece of decoration in the celebrated Leyland mansion. Another historic story is the cause célèbre of Whistler v. Ruskin, based upon the criticism of a Grosvenor Gallery nocturne as “a pot of paint flung in the public face,” with the resultant farthing damages. The canvas which called forth this elegant banter was that entitled Nocturne in Black and Gold; the Fire Wheel, the theme being a display of fireworks in the gardens at Cremorne. From a literary point of view, as a writer of biting sarcasm the artist scarcely had a peer. One admires that lively jeu d’esprit “Ten o’clock,” and the strange mixture of correspondence entitled “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” will not be out of date until all the shining lights of the present generation have been forgotten.