New-York tribune., 1903-07-19
WHISTLER.

All his life long, the greatest of modern paint
ers was at odds with the world and Indifferent
to its praise. By his peers alone was Whistler
willing TO be judged, yet it is now his unique
distinction TO be mOurned by specialists and lay
men alike. His name is everywhere familiar.
There is no studio in which his artistic prin-
ciples are unknown or unhOnored and even to
those unacquainted with his work he is a living
personality. The hero of a thousand anecdotes,
well of many critical essays, he is
membered for his wit when his paintings re-
main an esoteric mystery. There is, however,
nothing that need be mysterious about Whis-
tiers art unless it be the fire of genius, which
famed steadfastly in it throughout an unusual
ly long career. He is the great exemplar of
simplicity, the one modern artist who from the
beginning to the end preached and practised
economy of materials His portraits are studies
in subdued tonality restrained in color as they
are subtly felicitous in design. That renowned
portrait of his mother, which has long adorned
the Luxembourg, is in the quietest Of keys, and
when, as may now be expected it passes after
q few years into the Louvre. it will associate
itself with the works of the old masters there
simply by virtue of its purity OF color, its flaw
less execution and its noble style.
1t was Whistler's conviction, which he shared
with all the truly great painters of the past,
that canvas could not be teased into perfection;
that the artist should know exactly what he
wanted to do, and do it with unerrng brush.
In every one Of his pictures, whether a portrait
on large scale or marine on a tiny panel, he
gives this impression of absolute balance, Sc
cured as though by some kind of effortless
magic. He hated the story telling picture. He
admitted the "human interest" into his work
only in so far as it could get there without dis
turbing the effect he sought. That was an ef-
feet of design and tone pure and simple, a thing
as admirable in itself as an arabesque on the
walls Of the Alhambra or the glaze on an ORR
entail jar. He was the high priest of art for
arts sake" but, as he happened to be great
man in his field, he never fell into the pit that
is digged for the average devotee of that
evangel.
Whstlers etchings, like his paintings were
the product at once Of imponderable genius and
of principles that can be stated He knew, and
we can learn from him, that line is the soul Of
etching; that it must have frmness, fiexibility
and individuality; that it must be handled with
discretion, since it is by what he leaves out that
the etcher is known; that the huge plate is an
abominadon. and so on. But if Whistler is one
OF the great triumvirate of etchers, his only
equals being Rembrandt and Haden, it is be-
cause he brought to his work with the needle
the incOmmunicable touch. like that of the in
spired violinist which gives power and beauty
to an artistic creation
What he was painter and etcher Whistler
was a man. himself always a figure of re-
markable originality and charm. His talk is q
precious memory TO all who have heard it, rich
in flashes Of artistic insight, coruscating with
eccentricity and impish fun. His writings, of
which '"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
gives an indefinite, if incomplete, account are
of epigram and genial malice all compact. There
has never been any one closely resembling
Whistler in the history of art We shall never
look upon his like again