International studio (21.1903/1904(1904))

Iing or vision proceeded from traditional ground.
He used paint not in Order to produce a beautiful
surface characteristic of oil paint, nor as if it were
an otherwise negiigible means of representation :
*n the pursuit of the one aim he achieved the
otber, and in his work we have at once the only
beautiful painting, and well-nigh all that a whole
generation of painting in England, from 1860 to
1890, has had to teil us of the aspect of things.
So it is that when one sees again a landscape of
^ histler's, a Thamesnocturne, or the old Battersea
Bridge, pictures which have discovered for us those
appearances of the town which our eyes now most
welcome, one wavers for an explanation of its
exquisite dignity. Does this sense of a repose that
reaches behind the Hight of time, and beyond the
distraction of circumstances, lie in the precious

proceed less experimentally and in the dark,
he dismiss the immediate pre-occupation of nature
and paint from sketches, his touch loses the
nerve which, under the Stimulus of observation,
found an interesting notation—even if it seem
reasonable to imitate in cool blood the unconscious
felicities of the sketch, his hand will scarcely
attain them. Modern painting seems to demand
the constant inspiration of nature, and the clean
sacrifice every time of the painting that has not
completely achieved its aim. Even were there no
tradition of many sittings, the portrait of Miss
Alexander is too full of invention, the grey, the
green, the white, the black are too exquisitely
sought, the surface is too inexplicable and various
in its fitness, to have come into existence without
elaboration upon elaboration. But the labour is

Vision discovered in the life that is most
familiär to us, or is it an effect of the just-
ness with which the brush has touched
the canvas ? It is as if the touches had
been long prepared, had waited ready, one
might almost fancy from the beginning of
time, for the eye that should one day see
the river and its buildings so shape them-
selves and take on such colours. The paint
slips into its place, it is there inevitably as
the evening upon the water, no longer the
pigment, as it was upon the palette, but a
surface of subtle texture, airy, living with
the life of the hand that created it.
The portrait of Miss Alexander shows
that Whistler was able to win what much
labour and research only could yield him,
without losing from his brush its acute
economy, without disturbance to the un-
troubled charm of surface. The modern
painter—whose inclination it is to aim,
with his first touch, at a nearer realisation
of values observed than ancient painting,
perhaps, cared to reach even in its final
operations—encounters difEculties when-
ever for any reason he feels called upon to
prolong his labour beyond the point to
which the first inspiration of his subject
has directly led him. If he continues to
paint on with his solid mixtures he troubles
his colour and his surface; the paint that
is already on the canvas is of no Service
to him, for it was not put there with the
intention and knowledge that it was to be
the preliminary stage to the achievement of
an effect which he can surely win with a
further Operation. If, in Order that he may


BY J. McNEILL WHISTLER

"BROWN AND GOLD: I.ITTLE
LILLIE IN OUR ALLEY"
f .#)'j^7*7/72'.MW77 /. /. (*<7K7H77, J

7