STORIES OF WHISTLER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

STORIES OF WHISTLER

ARTIST AND MAN

BT KOTARE

Whistler had a laugh so suggestive of cencentrated malignity that, when Irving was working up his interpretation of Mephistopheles, he mado the artist his model, and constituted the Whistlerian cachinnation an essential part of stage tradition. That horrible gloating cacophany still survives, and doubtless will for long remain as Whistler's unconscious contribution to stage history. Some have held that he was abnormally sensitive, and created a sort of defensive armour compact of bitter irony and rudeness. He may have been a skilled actor for ever playing a part. But he seems to have been utterly lacking in consideration for other people's feelings, and to have taken a sort of sadistic pleasure in impaling the unfortunates who had chanced to offend him. Ho got on very well with children, but ho said frankly that he could not afford to make friends. Consequently his intimate personal relationships on a friendly basis were confined to a small group of flatterers who encouraged him in his savage denunciations of all who disagreed with him. Enemies were necessary to keep his talents in this direction from languishing in idleness. If a man chooses to nso his wit on personalities, and has no scruples about making people suffer, ho is always sure of his audience. Human nature loves personal abuse. A great deal of conversation with any bite in it deals with the foibles of our fellow men. It is easy for even a tenth-rate mind to secure listeners and applause if it confines itself to rudo personal comment. Anyone can secure a reputation for wit with no more equipment than that. And Whistler was a genius, with a passion for making others objects of ridicule. Small wonder that most of tho stories of him that survive are of this kind. His Admirers Sometimes he turned on his admirers. The jargon of the art schools naturally had a part in his own methods of instruction. He had to uso the familiar terminology of art criticism, although he tried to charge it with new values. He once asked a class if they fully understood what he meant when he used the words tone, value, light, shade, quality, movement, construction. Oh, yes, Mr. Whistler," came back the obedient chorus. The cant of art especially annoyed him, and he hurled back at his students: " I'm glad, for it's more than I do myself." He may have been the champion poseur himself, but he saw through affectation in others.

Not often was he hoist with his own petard, but occasionally he did not get tho best of his verbal encounters. Mark Twain visited his studio and was examining a painting that was just finished. Mark assumed the role of a connoisseur. Ho grudgingly admitted to the outraged Whistler that his latest masterpiece was not bad, not at all bad. Then he pretended to rub out with his finger a cloud effect which he claimed spoiled the picture. "I would do away with that cloud if 1 were you," ho commented airily. Tho painter shouted in anger and consternation: " Do be careful there; don't you see tho paint is rot yet dry?" Oh, don't mind that," said Mark as ono grateful for a warning. " I'm wearing gloves, you see." The Artist's Rights

Whistler could not see that he had lost the ownership of a picture when a wealthy man had bought it. I think it was Augustus John w"ho in recent years applied to have Lord Leverhulme restrained from cutting the border of a portrait he had paid artist handsomely to paint for himT Tho theory is that the artist still has rights in his work, and that the buyer simply lias the privilege of placing it in his gallery. Whistler, who had collected from their owners a number of his pictures for a loan exhibition, described them in his catalogue as "kindly lent their owners," a malicious and pungent parody on the usual formal acknowledgment, " lent by their owners." Ho used his catalogues not only to explain his pictures but even moro to retaliate upon his critics. "Out of their own mouths ye shall judge them" he would print on hiß title page; within would be a collection of the hard and foolish things the critics had said about each picture. Sometimes ho turned upon his sitters. Ho had painted the portrait of a worthy man who was moro anxious to have a picture that looked like his idea of himself than to be the proud possessor of a Whistler masterpiece. Ho indicated his displeasure courteously enough, and the artist defended himself and his picture on the highest artistic grounds. The disappointed sitter tried to meet Whistler in his own field. "After all. you can't call that a great work of art." Whistler could not resist tho inevitable mocking jibe. "Perhaps not," he said, "but then you can't call yourself a great work of nature." Fellow-Artists Of course, Whistler was almost as hostile to the majority of his brother artists as he was to tht> art critics. They were an equally easy mark for his bitter invective. He was for two years President of tho Society of British Artists. When the rank and file objected to his high-handed methods of control, ho withdrew from tho society. A group of his followers left with him. He explained what had happened. "The artists camo out," ho said, "the British remain." The Koyal Academy as a repository of tradition seemed to him the supremo stronghold of British Philistinism. A circular had been sent to him addressed "care of tho Academy, England." It went to tho PoyaJ Academy and was foolishly endorsed by one of the officials: "Not known at the 11.A." Whistler sent the circular to the press with this caustic comment: "It is my rare good fortune to be able to send you an unsolicited, official, and final certificate of character."

To a gushing lady who asked him if he thought genius was hereditary he replied that he was unable to say, as heaven had granted him no offspring. A young artist who had brought along a, picture for Whistler's criticism became uneasy at the master's prolonged silence. "Don't you think it is a tolerable picture?" he asked diffidently. "What is your opinion of a tolerablo egg?" flashed back Whistler. In one of his published works Whistler revealed that he always used Irish models for the hands of his portraits. "Irish girls have tho most beautiful hands, with long slender fingers and delightful articulations." American girls' hands come next; they are a little narrow and thin. The hands of English girls are red aud coarse. The German hand is broad and flat; the Spanish hand is full of big veins." Whistler has his secure place among the immortals. Apart altogether from his artistic achievements he will be long remembered gratefully as one that added considerably to the gaiety of the nations,