New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-08-07
4 DEBT.
What England Should Do for Whistler-Gnd
Itself.

D. s. MacCoH in The Saturday Review.
If ever it is profitable to enter, as in an &C
count book, lists of merit and defects OF great
artist and, having cancelled and struck a PAL
ance to taste the intellectual satisfaction of IN
illusory process in place of the satisfaction OF
art, the morrow of the artists death is not the
moment for such exercise. stu less is II the
time for repeating anecdotes, reViving conten-
tions confusing the personal and trivial win
what of precious and eternal was his gilt lie
himself, living, may have challenged us TO at
tend to the one with the other; beside his grave
free to profit by the sacred truce. There,
even to the most resentfuI and censorious Of
fence and forbidden, and the eternal
part shines out unobscured. For Whistler,
fighter as well as artist. this truce has suddenly
been called. Beauty and mystery of the day
and night were his companions. and he made
them known to us; let these alone, with rever-
ence and gratitude. be his convoy.
But if he has this immunity from all gen
erouS spirits, our own conduct remains to be
questioned. He is buried to-day in London, and
not far from the river Beauties that river has
lost and is losing he recorded; other beauties he
first revealed that will speak of him so long as
night, the shadows and the jewels of night
turn to its luminous flood the name of Whistler
viii belong to the rich legend of the Thames
even as those of Spencer and Turner. Who will
question that If all had fallen out rightly place
or honor would have been found for his body in
the church that holds the English painters?
HonOrs. doubt, would have come to him
had he lived a few years longer. A few months
before his death there came a beginning of them,
the honorary degree conferred upon him by the
University of Glasgow. This distinction. and the
sIlceIe IeeIlHg IL expressed, gave him no little
pleasure, though the state of his health made
1t impossible for him to receive it in person.
But II is too late to speak Of recognition of this
sort; a more important and very pressing duty
remains to be performed, in the guardianship of
his works Are to be content that the last
OF them should drift away to America, while the
city that saw most of them produced possesses
for Itself not a fragment? Glasgow, in this as
In the other matter, in advance of the rest
ofThe country; the London collections are still
without a picture. If this reproaCh is to be
taken away insist that time presses, and that
must be my excuse for raising the question
anew at the present moment Only the other
day one of the few remaining portraits of the
Iate TO secure what at least ought to have
for the national collection-a portrait marine
or INTERIOR and a nocturne. What may be avail
able among pictures that remained in Mr.. Whist
Ter possession l am unable to say One charm
ing and unique piece | remember, a Venus
coming up from the sea, with flowers springing
from her footprints on the sands. But this was
a sketch, and would not be enough alone to
represent him. One thing more there is to say.
NO doubt 1t would be possible by private effort
to relieve the country. in this matter of its duty
mat has been done already in the case of sew
eraI great artists who had been ignored. If
there is no other way it must be done again.
But think this relief for those who have pub
lie responsibility makes it too easy for them to
go on ignoring it. A fund exists, left by public
spirited artist with the express intention that
the finest works of painting and sculpture exc
cuted in Great Britain should be secured, if pos
slble, for the nation. The whole conduct of that
fund has been challenged, not here alone with
out reply. / can hardly think that any of the
trustees, if they broke silence, would venture to
deny that the rare genius of Whistler claimed
worked, and therefore share in the fund they
have to administer. Will they do their duty?
We must know definitely; for somehow whoever
is detaulter. the debt must be paid.