The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, 1895-06-08
WHITTIER.


born in Lowell, Mass, in 1884. So he
is now 81 years old. He was educated
at West Point. After leaving school he
studied for two years at the studio Of
Gleyre in Paris. In 1863 he went to
London and within three years he has
settled in Paris.
He has become cosmopolitan, not
through love of cosmopolitanism, but
because he is Disguised with America
and England. He is conceited, eccen-
trio, aggressive. He possesses mag
netism which pushes away from him
friends and admirers. The history OF
his life is record OF assertions.
He wrote the Gentle Art OF Making
Enemies to show how to convert
friendship into enmity, to cut himself
loose from all who opposed him and to
prove to everybody how little he cared
for anybody. Truly the book shows
how to make enemies. And the publ
city has made reconciliation impossible;
but his third object is not accomplished.
He would not have published the book
had he cared not at all for the loss OF
his friends. He cannot keep the bitterness
of their loss from out Of his pages.
Under these conditions it is difficult
to consider him and his works with i'm
Partially. His pugnacious attitude
puts us either on the defensive or else
behind him where we face his enemies
with somewhat Of his own spirit.
Hostile criticism has affected to some
extent his work, though think fair
critic will not call his painting, on the
whole, eccentric. Some parts Of some
pictures are painted in spirit OF
brayado aud defiance. as for instance
the foot of the little girl in the portrait
exhibited at the Worlds Fair. The
master pieces, by which he must be
judged, are superb examples Of drawing.
Whistler's influence on modern art is
tremendous. Younger and less ag.
gressive artists have yielded to his in
fiuence and picture buyers have testified
to the soundness of his principles by
their patronage. Not the founder Of
the impressionist school, he was an i'm
pressionist before the word was. Prob
ably Edouard Manet, of France. born in
1888 had more to do with the founding
of this school than Whistler. At any
rate Whistler's early work shows Manet's
influence. Poor Manet died in 1888 be-
fore the tide of appreciation, then turn
ed his way, had reached him. Nor had
he fully expressed himself. But the
hints which his work gave of another
starting point than the academic one
were enough for keenly modern mind
like Whistleris.
A late French review Of the work
Whistler has in the Musee du
Luxembourg shows the alteration the
French feel for his work.
The most illustrious among its mem
bers, NJ. Jas. Mcneil Whistler, is today
one Of our citizens, and it is even among
us here that he has studied in 1854 in
the Atelier OF the Gleyre. still he can
not be attached to this school nor pre-
cisely TO any other contemporary school.
His art, profoundly original, is made up
of sensations of dreams and OF fantasy,
of stratagems. of implications and of
mystery; it seems to have come from
the palette Of Velasquez and Of Goya; it
is relieved by point Of irony and of
British ecceDtricity, with something,
you cannot tell what, captivating and
unexpected, taken at caprice from the
imagination of the Orient. LIE Musee