International studio (15.1901/1902(1902))

The International Society

It is true that Mr. Whistler, as is his custom,
protests directly in words as well as in paint. In
the pages of the catalogue he champions, not on
his own behalf, but in connection with the work of
two pupils, “ the
low in tone,” the
“grey,” the “quiet
in colour,” which
was once found
so vexatious in his
own pictures. But
that was many
years ago. The
position he main-
tains has long
been won for him.

A whole genera-
tion has followed
him into grey and
low tones, as if
that were all, and,
looking round
upon its works,
one sees how little
it matters. Of
the work shewn by
his two appren-
tices, it is to be
said that the little
doorways and
shop - fronts are
reminiscent of a
very exquisite
thing --the little
doorways and
shop-fronts of
the master.

Whether this
close repetition,
not merely of a
method, but of one particular story among the
many that genius found to tell, is a good
beginning—on the question, namely, that most
calls for an answer, who will venture a judgment
at a time when apprenticeship is unfamiliar
and all doctrine is up by the roots ? As
for the pupils’ portraits, La Fine Fleur and
Monsieur le Massier, they have at least one dis-
tinction over the other canvases in the galleries :
what is incompetent in them has, after patience
and striving, modestly been left to look—incom-
petent. I doubt whether there is another square
inch of confessed incompetence to be found on
the walls.

Indeed, in reviewing the pictures of the painters
who have exhibited here, the spectator is most
struck by the complacency, the positive and pleased
assurance, with which they have accepted some

more or less ad-
vanced form of
technical rude-
ness. They are
all masters, they
have all arrived.
You may see a
picture by the
artist who has
painted for years
with taste and
ability, and is yet
no nearer to the
possession of a
subtle and ex-
pressive language;
you may see
another by one
who has arrived
at an end after a
shorter beginning.
Both are satisfied.
The ability of the
one has turned
out to be rather
adaptability, and
he has spent the
years during
which he has
turned out pic-
tures which, cer-
tainly, we would
rather have seen
than not, in listen-
ing to the echoes
of other voices
rather than in developing a voice of his own ; the
other has pulled up at a more elementary stage
on the way that leads out from the schools with
all the airs and circumstance of a traveller who is
going to stay. And the spectator, in his inno-
cence, is disappointed that the one, with his
ability and his taste and his many considerable
pictures behind him, should be satisfied, at this
hour, to build up out of his knowledge a
wall of other people’s paint between himself
and nature; he is surprised with the other,
who has left on the canvas not a sign of that
indecision which suggests the possibility of an
advance.

“THE NEIGHBOURS” BY J. MCNEILL WHISTLER

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