New-York tribune., 1903-07-26

whose 1nfantas clad IN tnesthetie hoous are an
WORKS OF Art Of the same quality as the EIgin
marbles.
Art the cruel jade h,es her off m the
East TO md: among the opium eaters Of Nan
caressing his blue porcelain and painting his
coy maidens. and marking his plates with her
slN marks Of choice-indifferent in her com
panionship with him, to all save the virtue of
his refinement
He ii is who calls her-he who holds her!
And again TO the West that her next lover
may bring together the Gallery at Madrid ana
show TO the world how the Master towers above
she, in this knowledge: and he knows the happi-
ness untasted by other mortaIs.
With the man then. and not with the multi
tuue, are her intimacies; and in the book of her
life the names inscribed are few-scant indeed
the list OF those who have helped to write her
story OF love and beauty.
From the sunny morning when, with her
gior1ous Greek relenting, she yielded up the
hers' together they marked in marble. the
measured rhyme OF lovely limb and draperies
moving IN unison, TO the day when she dipped
me spaniard's brush in light and air, and made
his people live within their frames, and stand
upon their legs, that all nobility and sweetness
ana tenderness and magnihcence should be
theirs by right, ages had gone by, and few had
been her choice.
Could these words have been written by a
man who cared nothing for the old masters?
He thought that The Milky Way of Tntor-
etto. in the National Gallery. was the greatest
picture in the world Beneath a proof of one Of
Renbrandts etchings. the Clement de Jonghe"
o. the "Silvius,'' I forget which he wrote
without flaw. Beautiful as Greek marble or
q canvas by Tintoret. a masterpiece in all its
elements. beyond which there is nothing" He
was not a devotee Of Turner but he yielded to
no man in appreciation Of certain of the works
OF that painter. He was not lavish of praise
where his contemporaries were concerned.
Though he could say pleasant things about
them IN q rather vague way, calling some young
painter z good fellow and so on words Of
explicit admiration he did not promscuously
bestow. The truth is, there was an immense
amount OF stuff which he saw in the exhibitions
which he frankly detested Yet conversation
With him did not leave the impression that he
was man grudging Of praise II was rather
that picture had 10 be exceptionally good TO
excite his emotions. One point is significant.
II was not the hashy and popular painter that he
invited TO share in the gatherings for which his
Partisan studio was noted it the painter
like Puvis de Chayannes, the man who had
greatness in Ism.
Stories about him viii always be in crcua-
ton and many Of them viii doubtless preserve
the memory Of his least engaging traits his
vanity, his insolence his dogmatism his malice,
But the influence Of these must ultimately yield
70 that Of the truer portrait Of him which viii be
drawn as the Tapors Of prejudice and personal
enmity fade away and the essential truths are
known. Whistler looked upon life as upon
kind OF warfare. He was no respecter Of per
sons. and as he was constantly quarreling with
somebody. one sees him as a militant figure
mundane to the tips Of his fingers. But as he
looked out upon the world he saw other things,
this, for example: The evening mist clothes
the riverside with poetry as with a veil, and
the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim
sky and the tall chimneys become campaniIi
and the warehouses are palaces in the night
and the whole city hangs in the heavens and
fairyland is before US" He was free Of that
fairyland. Breathing its finer airs, he painted
portraits and pictures, produced water colors,
etchings. Autographs and pasteIs and made
them ali beautiful He was of the world
If ever there was one but he was a man Of
genius also, q great artist, with something Of
the poet IN his nature. RC