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MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR

EDITED BY--T. LEMAN HARE


WHISTLER

1834-1903




IN THE SAME SERIES

    ARTIST.             AUTHOR.
  VELAZQUEZ.          S. L. BENSUSAN.
  REYNOLDS.           S. L. BENSUSAN.
  TURNER.             C. LEWIS HIND.
  ROMNEY.             C. LEWIS HIND.
  GREUZE.             ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.
  BOTTICELLI.         HENRY B. BINNS.
  ROSSETTI.           LUCIEN PISSARRO.
  BELLINI.            GEORGE HAY.
  FRA ANGELICO.       JAMES MASON.
  REMBRANDT.          JOSEF ISRAELS.
  LEIGHTON.           A. LYS BALDRY.
  RAPHAEL.            PAUL G. KONODY.
  HOLMAN HUNT.        MARY E. COLERIDGE.
  TITIAN              S. L. BENSUSAN.
  MILLAIS.            A. LYS BALDRY.
  CARLO DOLCI.        GEORGE HAY.
  GAINSBOROUGH.       MAX ROTHSCHILD.
  TINTORETTO.         S. L. BENSUSAN.
  LUINI.              JAMES MASON.
  FRANZ HALS.         EDGCUMBE STALEY.
  VAN DYCK.           PERCY M. TURNER.
  LEONARDO DA VINCI.  M. W. BROCKWELL.
  RUBENS.             S. L. BENSUSAN.
  WHISTLER.           T. MARTIN WOOD.
  HOLBEIN.            S. L. BENSUSAN.
  BURNE-JONES.        A. LYS BALDRY.
  VIGEE LE BRUN.      C. HALDANE MACFALL.
  CHARDIN.            PAUL G. KONODY.
  FRAGONARD.          C. HALDANE MACFALL.
  MEMLINC.            W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE.
  CONSTABLE.          C. LEWIS HIND.
  RAEBURN.            JAMES L. CAW.
  JOHN S. SARGENT     T. MARTIN WOOD.

_Others in Preparation._




[Illustration: PLATE I.--OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE. Frontispiece

(In the National Gallery)

This nocturne was bought by the National Collections Fund from
the Whistler Memorial Exhibition. It was one of the canvases
brought forward during the cross-examination of the artist in the
Whistler v. Ruskin trial.]




Whistler

BY T. MARTIN WOOD

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR


[Illustration]


LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK

NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  Plate
     I. Old Battersea Bridge                            Frontispiece
          In the National Gallery
                                                                Page
    II. Nocturne, St. Mark's, Venice                              14
          In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq.

   III. The Artist's Studio                                       24
          In the possession of Douglas Freshfield, Esq.

    IV. Portrait of my Mother                                     34
          In the Luxembourg Galleries, Paris

     V. Lillie in Our Alley                                       40
          In the possession of John J. Cowan, Esq.

    VI. Nocturne, Blue and Silver                                 50
          In the possession of the Hon. Percy Wyndham

   VII. Portrait of Thomas Carlyle                                60
          In the Corporation Art Galleries, Glasgow

  VIII. In the Channel                                            70
          In the possession of Mrs. L. Knowles




[Illustration]

I


At the time when Rossetti and his circle were foregathering chiefly at
Rossetti's house, quiet Chelsea scarcely knew how daily were
associations added which will always cluster round her name. Whistler's
share in those associations is very large, and he has left in his
paintings the memory of many a night, as he returned beside the river.
Before Whistler painted it, night was more opaque than it is now. It had
been viewed only through the window of tradition. It was left for a man
of the world coming out of an artificial London room to paint its
stillness, and also to show us that we ourselves had made night more
beautiful, with ghostly silver and gold; and to tell us that the dark
bridges that sweep into it do not interrupt--that we cannot interrupt,
the music of nature.

The figure of Whistler emerges: with his extreme concern as to his
appearance, his careful choice of clothes, his hair so carefully
arranged. He had quite made up his mind as to the part he intended to
play and the light in which he wished to be regarded. He had a dual
personality. Himself as he really was and the personality which he put
forward as himself. In a sense he never went anywhere unaccompanied; he
was followed and watched by another self that would perhaps have been
happier at home. Tiring of this he would disappear from society for a
time. Other men's ringlets fall into their places accidentally--so it
might be with the young Disraeli. Other men's clothes have seemed
characteristic without any of this elaborate pose. He chose his clothes
with a view to their being characteristic, which is rather different and
less interesting than the fact of their becoming so because he,
Whistler, wore them. Other men are dandies, with little conception of
the grace of their part; with Whistler a supreme artist stepped into the
question. He designed himself. Nor had he the illusions of vanity, but a
groundwork of philosophy upon which every detail of his personal life
was part of an elaborate and delicately designed structure, his art the
turret of it all, from which he saw over the heads of others. There is
no contradiction between the dandy and