THE PLACE OF WHISTLER

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 68

THE PLACE OF WHISTLER

To the new number of the Nineteenth Century, and After, Mr Frederick Wedmor© contributes an article, "Tho Place cf Yvhistl&r.'' Himself an artist in words — a, writer from whom precision of phrase and a jus-b balance between thought and word can always be expected — Mr Wedmore is better equipped than most to anticipate the filial judgment on Whistler. It is part of his claim to be heard that he has Avaited, wisely waited, until the dust of faction hag been laid — until, indeed, it is possible to obtain a patient hearing for views that incline neither to the side of those who would rank Whistler with Titian or Velasquez or Rembrandt, nor to those others who long- since have classed (him with the charlatans. In what niche, then, is Mr WedmoTo prepared to "place" the artist? Assuredly he will have the assent of all schools of criticism in suggesting that Whistl°r might have been among the great decorative painters of the world. Character, as his portraits have told us, was not an absorption with him. It interested him, mainly, in Mr Wedmore's phrase, "in the naivete or pretty pensiveness of youth orthe accumulated experience, the wisdom and iondorness of an age that still stops short of visible decay." His designs were first of all decorative — whate\ er he set himself to paint it must, at least, have an agreeable po.tfcern of oolou.r and line. In this, of course, he differed not at all from any artist who laj-s down his composition vipon a definite pattern, who is thus seeking hi 9 agreeable arrangement in tones and line. But the essential point in Whistlers art, a<3 Mr Wedmore indicates, was his withdrawal from anything approaching dramatic or anecdotic painting with its inevitable suggestion of literature, and his entire absorption in a decorative aim suggested by Ts'atuac, but "not bound by Nature."

Tlie variety of Whistler's mediums was marvellous. In oils, in water colours, in pastels, in pencil, in lithography, and in etching- ho <bas expressed himself in va.rying degrees of perfection, and here Mr Wcclmoic notes that hardly once in his long career did he mistake or misuse the medium iv which he was to execute his task. He loved change and hated grooves, which were for him fatal to spontaneity. In etching. Mr Wedmore places him by ihe side o£ Rembrandt and Mcryon. Had Mr Wedivore been less of a connoi&-e,ur he might havo omitted Meryon in. this connection. Great, undoubtedly, the Frenchman was though Whistler rneered at him always but his themes lay in a restricted area. The uniformity of his excellence in other media allows Mr Wedmore. to rank his uork variously with the impre^sious of Constable, the> late Turner water-colours, tho "genre" pictuies of Alfred Stevens, the brilliant studies of Charles E>en-e, with the work cf Fantm. Courbet, and Manet.

But it was in liis complete acceptance o£ his isurroundings, of mod-cm life, of its ugliness and e^eiydav aspect, that Whistler 1 sl'f-wed srreatno«s. Hero he was a pioneer, who earned the artistic tradition one step msier to the heart of mankind. Mr Wc-d-mcic very acutely record; tho contradiction bofvrron tlie man and his performance. "Whistler, with a nature -essentially aristocratic — knowing well, in the depths of hi<» brinsr, that art of any kind and the 'mam jn the ?trccL" have nothing in common, that what is called the 'plain man' and art are for over divided — y>et accepted the veiy things that aro mo>>t commonplace to com* monjjlacp people, and showed vis their in* terest." Mr Wedmorc's essay may have it* points of dispute, but it deserve; study from all students* of Whistler.— E. R. Halkett, in tlie Pall Mall Gazette.

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