Part 1 (2/2)

And the likeness is vague and shadowy; she is only fairly representative of her class We see fairly well that she is a lady _du grand e of _les environs du ht be a French woman or an American She is a sort of hybrid Miss Rose Corder and ”the lady in the fur jacket” are equally cosmopolitan; so, too, is Miss Alexander Only once has Mr Whistler expressed race, and that was in his portrait of his mother Then these three ladies--Miss Corder, Lady Archibald Campbell, and ”the lady in the fur jacket”--wear the same complexion: a pale yellow complexion, burnt and dried With this conventional tint he obtains unison and a totality of effect; but he obtains this result at the expense of truth Hals and Velasquez obtained the sa to such meretricious methods

The portrait of the raving reminds us of the honour which France has done, but which we failed to do, to the great painter of the nineteenth century; and afterwith myself I feel sure that on the whole this picture is the painter's greatest work in portraiture

We forget relations, friends, perhaps even our parents; but that picture we never forget; it is for ever with us, in sickness and in health; and in moe s into consciousness, and onder by what strange wizard craft was accomplished the marvellous pattern on the black curtain that drops past the engraving on the wall We rey wall, on the black silhouette sitting so tranquilly, on the large feet on a foot-stool, on the hands crossed, on the long black dress that fills the picture with such solerey to white, and how _le ton local_ is carried through the entire picture, froht to the deepest shadow Note the tenderness of that white cap, the white lace cuffs, the certainty, the choice, and think of anything if you can, even in the best japanese work, more beautiful, more delicate, subtle, illusive, certain in its handicraft; and if the lace cuffs arein a small lace handkerchief are little short of ram, but appear and disappear, seen here on the black dress, lost there in the small white handkerchief And e study the faint, subtle outline of the mother's face, we seem to feel that there the painter has told the story of his soul ely alive to all that is delicate and illusive in Nature, found perhaps its fullest expression in that grave old Puritan lady looking through the quiet refine in sole life

Cohter”, if I may be permitted an expression which will be understood in studios; we are very far indeed fro which is the charm of the portrait of Miss Rose Corder There every object is born unconsciously beneath the passing of the brush If not less certain, the touch in the portrait of the mother is less prompt; but the painter's vision is more sincere and more intense And to those who object to the artificiality of the arrange in a rooed, Lady Archibald Cah incomprehensible space But what really decides me to place this portrait above the others is the fact that while painting his mother's portrait he was unquestionably absorbed in his model; and absorption in the

Still, for s of my own soul, I would choose to live with the portrait of Miss Alexander Truly, this picture seems to me the most beautiful in the world I know very well that it has not the profound beauty of the Infantes by Velasquez in the Louvre; but for pure htful? Just as Shelley's ”Sensitive Plant” thrills the innere, the portrait of Miss Alexander enchants with the harely original, a rare and unique thing, is this picture, yet we knohence it caht it into being Exquisite and happy coenius of one man-the soul of japan incarnate in the body of the irace of the silhouette, and it was that country, too, that inspired in a dies frorey But a higher intelligence rey than ever manifested itself in japanese fan or screen; the reater, and by the side of this picture the best japanese work seems only facile superficial improvisation In the picture itself there is really little of japan The painter ht teach He went to the very root, appropriating only the innerht it sufficient to copy Nature, but the japanese kneas better to observe Nature The whole art of japan is selection, and japan taught Mr Whistler, or impressed upon Mr Whistler, the imperative necessity of selection No Western artist of the present or of past time--no, not Velasquez himself--ever selected froht him to consider Nature as a storehouse whence the artist ments of his choice into an exquisite whole Sir John Millais' art is the opposite; there we find no selection; the model is copied--and sometimes only with sufficient technical skill

But this picture is throughout a selection fro been copied brutally, yet the reality of the girl is not sacrificed

The picture represents a girl of ten or eleven She is dressed according to the fashi+on of twenty years ago--a starched s, square-toed black shoes She stands, her left foot advanced, holding in her left hand a grey felt hat adorned with a long pluround

The wall behind her is grey with a black wainscot On the left, far back in the picture, on a low stool, sohest note of colour in the picture On the right, in the foreground, some tall daisies coirl's blonde head This picture see! I ht, ”If I could only see the model like that, I think Icould do it myself”, comes spontaneously into the ht is excellent criticis; no one ever saw Nature so artistically Notice on the left the sharp line of the white frock cutting against the black wainscoting Were that line taken away, howthat is advanced, and tell , I know, but there are no vulgar roundnesses Apparently, only a flat tint; but there is on the bone a light, hardly discernible; and this light is sufficient And the leg that is turned away, the thick, chubby ankle of the child, how ad; and that touch of darker colour, how it tells the exact form of the bone! To indicate is the final accomplishment of the painter's art, and I know no indication like that ankle bone And now passing fro of you to notice--it is one of the points in the picture--that jaw bone The face is seen in three-quarter, and to focus the interest in the face the painter has slightly insisted on the line of the jaw bone, which, taken in conjunction with the line of the hair, brings into pro oval only appeared at moments The painter seized one of those moments, and called it into our consciousness as a ive prominence to a certain note in a chord

There must have been a day in Mr Whistler's life when the artists of japan convinced him once and for ever of the primary importance of selection In Velasquez, too, there is selection, and very often it is in the same direction as Mr Whistler's, but the selection is never, I think, so much insisted upon; and sometimes in Velasquez there is, as in the portrait of the Admiral in the National Gallery, hardly any selection--I mean, of course, conscious selection Velasquez sometimes brutally accepted Nature for what she orth; this Mr Whistler never does But it was Velasquez that gave consistency and strength to what in Mr Whistler ht have run into an art of trivial but exquisite decoration Velasquez, too, had a voice in the corave The palette of Velasquez is the opposite of the palette of Rubens; the fantasy of Rubens'

palette created the art of Watteau, Turner, Gainsborough; it obtained throughout the eighteenth century in England and in France Chardin was the one exception Alone ahteenth century painters he chose the palette of Velasquez in preference to that of Rubens, and in the nineteenth century Whistler too has chosen it It was Velasquez who taught Mr Whistler that flowing, li of that blonde hair there is so more than a souvenir of the blonde hair of the Infante in the _salle carree_ in the Louvre

There is also so of Velasquez in the black notes of the shoes

Those blacks--are they not perfectly observed? How light and dry the colour is! How heavy and shi+ny it would have become in other hands!

Notice, too, that in the frock nowhere is there a single touch of pure white, and yet it is all white--a rich, luallery seeht the handling is! Hoing, how supple, infinitely and beautifully sure, the music of perfect accomplishment!

In the portrait of the mother the execution seems slower, hardly so spontaneous For this, no doubt, the subject is accountable But this little girl is the very finest flower, and the cul point of Mr Whistler's art The eye travels over the canvas seeking a fault

In vain; nothing has been o has been included that ht have been oer, but nothing in this world ever seemed to me so perfect as this picture

The portrait of Carlyle has been painted about an arabesque siht almost say identical, to that of the portrait of the mother But as is usually the case, the attempt to repeat a success has resulted a failure Mr Whistler has sought to vary the arabesque in the direction of greater naturalness He has broken the severity of the line, which the lace handkerchief and the hands scarcely stayed in the first picture, by placing the philosopher's hat upon his knees, he has attenuated the symmetry of the picture-frames on the walls, and has oh the earlier picture And all these alterations seeh which the eternal son has run out A pattern like that of the egg and dart cannot be disturbed, and Colu fro, we notice at once that the balance of colour, held with such exquisite grace by the curtain on one side and the dress on the other, is absent in the later work; and if we examine the colours separately we cannot fail to apprehend the fact that the blacks in the later are not nearly so beautiful as those in the earlier picture The blacks of the philosopher's coat and rug are neither as rich, not as rare, nor as deep as the blacks of the own Never have the vital differences and the beauty of this colour been brought out as in that gown and that curtain, never even in Hals, who excels all other painters in this use of black Mr Whistler's failure with the first colour, e compare the two pictures, is exceeded by his failure with the second colour We h notes--the cap and cuffs; and the place of the rich, palpitating greys, so treround of the earlier picture, is taken by an insignificant grey that hardly see, and is only just raised out of the commonplace by the dim yellow of two picture-frames It must be admitted, however, that the yellow is perfectly successful; it may be alreys in chin, beard, and hair h they are not so full of charreys in the portrait of Miss Alexander

But if Mr Whistler had only failed in these ht have still produced a ainst the picture A portrait is an exact reflection of the painter's state of soul at thedown to paint We read in the picture what he really desired; for what he really desired is in the picture, and his hesitations tell us what he only desired feebly Every passing distraction, every weariness, every loss of interest in the model, all is written upon the canvas Above all, he tells us ht about his model--whether he was moved by love or contempt; whether his moods were critical or reverential And what the canvas under consideration tells ot his own personality in that of the ancient philosopher He came into the room as chirpy and anecdotal as usual, in no way discountenanced or put about by the presence of his venerable and illustrious sitter He had heard that the Chelsea sage wrote histories which were no doubt very learned, but he felt no particular interest in the e of Carlyle there is no trace on the canvas; and looked at from this side the picture may be said to be thea man as you”, to put it bluntly, was Mr Whistler's attitude ofCarlyle I do not contest the truth of the opinion I reat portraiture is done

The drawing is large, aorous, beautifully understood, but not very profound or intimate: the picture seems to have been accomplished easily, and in excellent health and spirits The painting is in Mr Whistler's later and most characteristic manner For many years--for certainly twenty years--his manner has hardly varied at all He uses his colour very thin, so thinly that it often hardly a is laid over painting, like skin upon skin Regarded e could hardly be surpassed; the , of which none except Mr Whistler possesses the secrets

What the painter saw he rendered with incoed pensiveness of the old philosophers is as beautiful and as shallow as a page of De Quincey We are carried away in a flow of exquisite eloquence, but the painter has not told us one significant fact about his model, his nationality, his teeneral way that he was a thinker; but it would have been impossible to draw the head at all and conceal so salient a characteristic Mr Whistler's portrait reveals certain general observations of life; but has he given one single touch intimately characteristic of his model?

But if the portrait of Carlyle, when looked at from a certain side, must be admitted to be not wholly satisfactory, what shall be said of the portrait of Lady Meux? The dress is a lu, the ht and its texture and its character of fold; but of the face it is difficult to say more than that it keeps its place in the picture Very often the faces in Mr Whistler's portraits are the least interesting part of the picture; his sitter's face does not seem to interest him more than the cuffs, the carpet, the butterfly, which hovers about the screen After this admission, it will seem to many that it is waste of time to consider further Mr Whistler's claireat portrait painter, though he cannot take measurereat painters, he has kno to introduce har from others just as ht successfully assimilate I have spoken of his assimilation and combination of the art of Velasquez, and the entire art of japan, but a stillinstance of the power of assiinal natures possess, is to hand in the early but extremely beautiful picture, _La femme en blanc_ In the Chelsea period of his life Mr Whistler saw a great deal of that singular h he had never seen Italy; and though writing no language but ours, still writing it with a strange hybrid grace, bringing into it the rich and voluptuous colour and fragrance of the south, expressing in picture and poe sense of Italy--opulence of women, not of the south, nor yet of the north, Italian celebration, endary pane Of such hauntings Rossetti's life and art were made

His hold on poetic form was surer than his hold on pictorial form, wherein his art is hardly more than poetic reminiscence of Italian missal andpane Yet even as a painter his attractiveness cannot be denied, nor yet the influence he has exercised on English art Though he took nothing from his contemporaries, all took from him, poets and painters alike Not even Mr Whistler could refrain, and in _La fe and seeing The type of wo eyes and abundant hair And in this picture we find a poetic interest, a moral sense, if I h you search Mr Whistler's work fro by her lass, an appearance that has co no lass when she herself hasshadows thrown on an illuminated cloth She thinks of her soft, white, and opulent beauty which fills her white dress; her chin is lifted, and above her face shi+nes the golden tumult of her hair

The picture is one of the most perfect that Mr Whistler has painted; it is as perfect as the h it has not the beautiful, flowing, supple execution of the ”symphony in white”, I prefer it for sake of its sheer perfection It is h there is nothing in it quite so extraordinary as the loving gaiety of the young girl's face

The execution of that face is as flowing, as spontaneous, and as bright as the s like haze about the edge of the woods, and the flesh tints are pearly and evanescent as dew, and soft as the colour of a flowering ure is not so perfect, and that is why I reluctantly give ain to this picture, I would fain call attention to the azalias, which, in irresponsible decorative fashi+on, coht and clear on the black-leaded fire-grate; and it is in the painting of such detail that Mr Whistler exceeds all painters For purity of colour and the beauty of pattern, these flowers are surely as beautiful as anything that man's hand has ever accoinal He has never attempted to reproduce on canvas the discordant and discrepant extravagancies of Nature as M Besnard and Mr John Sargent have done His style has always been marked by such extreme reserve that the critical must have so, and ask themselves where was the innovator in this calculated reduction of tones, in these forht with far ard for superfluous detail than Hals, for instance, had ever dared to show The still race of this art, must have often asked themselves what, after all, has this painter invented, what new subject-ht that Mr Whistler set his seal and sign-manual upon art; above all others he is surely the interpreter of the night

Until he canificant as any pitch barrel; it was he who first transferred to canvas the blue transparent darkness which folds the world from sunset to sunrise The purple hollow, and all the illusive distances of the gas-lit river, are Mr Whistler's own It was not the unhabited night of lonely plain and desolate tarn that he chose to interpret, but the difficult populous city night--the night of tall bridges and vast water rained through with lights red and grey, the shores lined with the laht is the vast blue and golden caravanry, where the jaded and the hungry and the heavy-hearted lay down their burdens, and the contemplative freed from the deceptive reality of the day understand humbly and pathetically the casualness of our habitation, and the limitlessreality of a plan, the intention of which we shall never know Mr Whistler's nights are the blue transparent darknesses which are half of the world's life

Soht, and his picture is but luraduated, as in the nocturne in M Duret's collection--purple above and below, a shadow in the middle of the picture--a little less and there would be nothing

There is the celebrated nocturne in the shape of a T--one pier of the bridge and part of the arch, the e in the current, the strange luue purple and illusive distance, and all is so obviously beautiful that one pauses to consider how there could have been stupidity enough to deny it Of less dranificance, but of equal esthetic value, is the nocturne known as ”the Creely pale; one of those suht veil of darkness is drawn for an hour or more across the heavens Another of quite extraordinary beauty, even in a series of extraordinarily beautiful things, is ”Night on the Sea” The waves curl white in the darkness, and figures are seen as in drea, and beyond theue sense of illimitable sea