Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1904 (Heft 5))

WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUMS.
“ A recipe for the indefinable quality that distinguishes the true artist
is not supplied in the text-books of the State.”—George Egerton.
¶ THE WHITE chrysanthemum is my favorite flower. There are
other flowers, I grant, perhaps more beautiful, which I can not help
admiring, but the white chrysanthemum somehow appeals to me more
than any other flower. Why? That is more than I can tell. The uncon-
scious movements of our soul activity can not be turned into sodden prose.
What would be the use of having a favorite flower if one could give any
reason for liking it? It merely reveals that part of our personality, not
to be logically explained, which rises within us like the reminiscences
of some former soul existence. There are colors and certain sounds and
odors which affect me similarly. Whenever I gaze at a white chrysanthe-
mum, my mind becomes conscious of something which concerns my
life, and my life alone; something which I would like to express in my art,
but which I shall never be able to realize, at least not in the vague and, at
the same time, convincing manner the flower conveys it to me. I am also
fond of displaying it occasionally in my buttonhole; not for effect, however,
but simply because I want other people to know who I am; for those
human beings, who are sensitive to the charms of the chrysanthemum,
must hail from the same country in which my soul abides, and I should
like to meet them. I shouldn’t have much to say to them — souls are not
talkative—but we should make curtesies and hand the white chrysanthe-
mums to one another.
¶ Whistler was busy all his life painting just such white chrysanthemums.
You smile? Well, I think I can persuade you to accept my point of view.
¶ Youareprobably aware that Whistler was opposed to realism. The
realists endorse every faithful reproduction of facts. Also, Whistler believed
all objects beautiful, but only under certain conditions, at certain favored
moments. It is only at long intervals and on rare occasions that nature and
human life reveal their highest beauty. It was Whistler’s life-long endeavor
to fix such supreme and happy moments, the white chrysanthemums of
his esthetic creed, upon his canvases. Have you never seen a country lass
and thought: she should be dressed up as a page — her legs have such a
lyrical twist, as George Meredith would say—she should stand on the steps
of a throne, and the hall should be illumined with a thousand candles?
Have you never met a New England girl and thought that she was ill-suited
to her present surroundings, that she would look well only standing on the
porch of some old Colonial mansion, in the evening, when odors of the
pelargoniums and gladioluses begin to fill the garden ? Have you not noticed
that a bunch of cut flowers which looks beautiful in one vase may became
ugly in another ? And how often has it not happened to all of us that we
were startled by a sudden revelation of beauty in a person, whom we have
known for years and who has looked rather commonplace to us? Suddenly,
through some expression of grief or joy, or merely through a passing light