BARBED WIT

Evening Star, Issue 21628, 25 January 1934, Page 10

BARBED WIT

THE READY WHISTLER HIS LIFE OF QUARRELS A UNIQUE ARTIST Whether the advent and career of James Abbott M'Neill Whistler constitutes a landmark in the history of art may be open to question, but the question notwithstanding it is certain that, among the people qualified to give an opinion a fair proportion would be found to be in agreement; for he came and went, the isolated exponent of a creed in esthetics which provqd sound enough to weather many bitter storms and to attain recognition in the face of obstacles, not the least ot which was the painter’s own personality, says a writer in the Melbourne ‘ Age.’ He was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1834, so that his centenary coincides with that of the Australian State of Victoria, pnd brings us into a certain line of affinity with him. At the great Ruskin trial he is said to have declared that his'birthplace was St. Petersburg, a miscalculation, due perhaps to the fact that his father. Major C. D. Whistler, was engaged at the Russian capital on important engineering business, and with his wife (a. M'Neill) and two_ children, lived there until his death in 1849. It is seldom recorded of famous painters that they were in their youth directly and deliberately dedicated to art. Parental considerations, not to say affections; natually looked, i;o other and more rational walks in life, _ the final step being invariably the result of an unexplained temperamental bias before which the will of the welhmeaning parent is but as a straw in the wind. The artist’s entry into the serious business of life was made at the, West Point Military Academy, where he-remained for three years. He nest got a'post as draftsman in the United: States const survey office, and here is was that he first made his mark as an artist hv taking an impression .of a small plate etched by himself on the margin of a survey map—-a proceeding said to have .hastened his severance with the department. LIFE IN PARIS. At the age of twenty-throe he definitely took up art as a profession, and after 'a short stay in England- settled in Paris, where ho' entered the Gle'yre studio as a, pupil. Here he came in contact with such famous men as Degas, Alphonse Legros. Bracquemond,; and Fantin Latour. while among his fellow-students were. C. E. Poynter and George du Maurier. In another studio, that of Fantin Bois Baudrnn, he further became, acquainted with Manet and Claude Monet, and it was with Baudran he had his first lesson in working from memory, and it was here also he produced his first published etchings, the- ‘ Little French Set.’ Coming to London- in 1859. he liyec] for a time with his brother-in-law, Sir Seymour Haden, a connection which gave an added impetus to his natural tendency as an etcher. His friendship with du Maurier, doomed later to go the way of most of his friendships, was strong at this 1 time, and the two. young men shared a studio in Newman street. In 1878 came the notorious Ruskin trial, in which Whistler brought an action for libel against the critic for injury sustained through a published notice of his picture in the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition. Claiming a thousand pounds, be was awarded, ns all the world knows, one farthing damages by an unsympathetic jury,- and suffered for a time both in credit and fortune, for the word of John Ruskin was in those days a force to be reckoned with., He did not, however, take this setback lying down, and, having a gift for letters as well as painting, retaliated with exceeding bitterness, . While accepting the fact of Whistler having been horn in America, no serious attempt had ever’ been made to nationalise him, or, indeed, to attribute to him any particular brand of artistry, though the term “ impressionist ” has been used to describe his outdoor work, and we know that he found in the paintings of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other famous Japanese artists a source of delight and inspiration. The eighteenth century portrait painters he may have sought to emulate, but never to imitate, for, whatever he did, whether for praise or blame, was’always in its essence personal and individual, and the very distinctiveness of his outlook from the accepted academy tradition acted as an irritant on the critical judgment of his time, and more especially the earlier part of it.. NO GREAT HELP. Though much of this was hostile, it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that it was personally so, even in Ruskin’s case; yet we cannot get over the fact that the artist’s readiness with tongue and pen to put the critic in his place—an invidious and undesirable place—had not exactly the effect of oil on troubled waters. The first record we have of him as a portrait painter is a self-portrait painted in 1857, when he-was twentythree years of age, and about two years later came ‘ At the Piano,’ shown - at the R.A. in 1860. This, ‘At the Piano,’ has been described as a work not of promise, but of perfect achievement, and was received at the time of its first showing as a masterpiece, revealing the thought and assuredness of maturity rather than the performance of a brilliant but untried painter. There were qualities in three pictures—' The Last of Old Westminster,’ ' The Blue Wave, Biarritz,’ and ' The Music Room ’—which do not appear in the later work, a divergence attributed partly to the Japanese influence, but, more definitely to the rejection of a technical method which had begun to show signs of lack of permanence. The ’seventies were prolific in portraits. There was the much-reproduced one of the artist’s mother, exhibited in London in 1872 and at the Salon, to be bought for the Luxembourg in 1874 and later removed to the Louvre. The seated figure of Thomas Carlyle became the property of the Corporation of Glasgow, and the decade saw Sir Henry Irving painted in the character of Phillip 11., and, among others Rose Corder, Miss Cicely Alexander, and Sarasate, represented selections from sitters already famous or lauded on to fame by the brush of Whistler. THE OUTDOORS. Next to his portraits comes the artist’s remarkable record as a painter of outdoor pictures; one could hardly describe them as landscapes. He raised the ire of the British-speaking public by producing these in a way different from the accepted way, and he catalogued them as Nocturnes, Symphonies, and Arrangements in Gold and Purple, instead of the familiar and explanatory ‘ Grey Day on the River,’ ‘ Sheltered Pastures,’ or ‘ Scene Near Mugby’s Pastures,’ or ‘ Scene nNear Mugby.’ [Whistler, speaks of the Nocturnes, and I

more - particularly of the “ Battersea Bridge, with the keenest admiration, and marvels at the hostility and lack or understanding with which they were first received. One reason he puts forth is that they left the critic nothing to say/ nothing on which to expound. He says: “ They mean nothing, they teach nothing, and the critic, who, after all, poor man, must have his theme, is rendered mute, possibly with admiration, but with an irritating sense of being de trop.” Whistler’s technique was not elaborate, and it varied to some extent during different periods, and at one time he experimented with brushes three feet long. His palette was the top of an oblong table, on which was arranged the colours in prepared tones, his general later system resulting in a series of repaintings rather than the deliberated progressive method employed by the normal portrait painter. He had exceptional gifts ns a writer, and also excelled as an etcher and lithographer, his work with the plate and needle show a leaning to riverside subjects, as witness the very beautiful and deftlylined Thames series, and kindred motives seen in France and Holland. The Venetian series is, in accordance with the nature of the subject matter, more decorative and architectural. The London pictures of Wappiug and Lyme Regis may be in some degree reminiscent of Meryon, but the treatment and conception of the Italian palaces and. waterways is purely Whistlerian. The artist was the first president of the international Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Engravers, and held the position till his death at Chelsea on July-17. 1903. The society held a representative memorial exhibition of his work in London in 1905. which was repeated later at tlidjleaux Arts in Paris, in which city ho had always been accorded a full measure otknppreeiation. The personality of Whistler has been a subject of widespread interest, and' a fountain of material for the aiiec-, dotist. READY TONGUE. He had a gift for repartee, and . for witty comment, which, however appo-! site, was seldom kindly, and his normal attitude towards In’s fellow-man was lightly but . consistently aggressive, Schopenhauer advocates somewhere then policy or veiling one’s contempt for mortals of common clay, who were cap-; able, if provoked, of a cold, truculent ferocity which might prove dangerous. Whistler, to do him justice, did not use the veil, and in this, though it cost him friends and sharpened the tongues of his detractors, is to his credit as. a fair dealer with the world-in which he found himself. ; ■ One of ,his ■ projects to earn money Was the establishment of.a school of art in London, where, according to accounts, he attracted many eccentric •seekers after knowledge who had failed to find ' enlightenment from other sources. One of those, a lady, protested, in the face of his directions, that she; liked to keep her colour pure, whereon Whistler promptly told her that, in that ease, she had better keep it in the tubes. Many stories told were, ot ,course,. works of fiction. There is -no truth, though possibly a moral, in the tale that Frith, calling in question Whistler’s lack of pictorial concentration, said: “ Look at ray ‘ Derby Day.’ When I painted that picture 1 put my whole mind into it,” to which Whistler, as one suddenly enlightened, exclaimed : “ Oh, that’s where it went to.” For some reason he did not like Charles Conder, who, meeting him in the street, sought to renew an acquaintance made some time before at a friend’s house. “You remember me? ” he, said to the apparently forgetful Whistler “ Charles Conder.” - “Of course, of course,” said the expert in the gentler art of making enemies, “ Good-bye, Mr Conder.”