Studio: international art (29.1903)

James McNeill Whistler

etching: "westminster bridge" (By permission of Frederick Keppel, Esq.) by j. mcneill whistler

embedded. Still, this was as it should be. How rather sad. As I mounted the stairs I heard

could we suppose that one so great would readily a dripping sound and thought it must be the

reveal himself? We were very grateful to him for cistern, but the sound got louder and louder,

giving some of us, to a certain extent, the freedom and when I reached the top of the house I realised

of his studio. We used to steal in and furtively that it came from the studio itself. When I entered

make sketches of his palette, and then meet to I found the " follower" at his easel and the model

discuss the combinations of colour that he used, on the stand, and both of them surrounded by

One of us found that he had been using black about fifty milk cans, from each of which hung

as a harmoniser, and that was so important a long blobs of colour, and the floor was a mosaic

discovery that .we called a general meeting at once of rings of coloured drippings. "Look at the

to consider it. As a find it was tremendous, and simplicity of it," he cried, "we have been wasting

so were its results. No matter how fair the sub- our time mixing our tones on a palette; what we

ject, the tones must be harmonised with black. want is our tones already mixed and in proper

This was the master's secret. Certainly at this quantities. Now just see here," he said, making a

period we were all a little feverish, but I have no dash at the canvas with a brush out of the " lip

doubt that it did us a world of good. Our mistake milk can." I heard a drip, drip, but he was so

was that we went to such extravagant extremes. excited that he did not realise that most of the
For instance, there was

a time when Whistler ,, , /
began to reduce painting Jit ... j'/Jlh ,' jf f^, l
to a system, and kept \\. j I ( , j( :fl|'7 ji j; { j ;!;,:
in his tubes mixed colours . m ; i_ . . jj 'jjj ' |/ jj ;T"
such as "flesh tone,"
" floor tone," " blue sky ^
tone," and so on. We ^
tried to carry this scheme
a little further, and the
result was—failure. And
at last the climax came.
One day I received a tele-
gram from a "follower," ? J'V . %W-?' Sjf^^^^^.A
saying "Come at once. . • ' l.tf/?-/Z'/\ r^j. a
Important." I hurried /;// /'
to his home. His wife

met me in the hall and %' /

directed me to his studio, sketch in pen-and-ink: "the beefsteak club" by j. mcneill whistler
I noticed that she looked (By permission of Walter Dowdeswell, Esq.)

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