Studio: international art (30.1904)

James McNeill Whistler

ling or vision proceeded from traditional ground, proceed less experimentally and in the dark,
He used paint not in order to produce a beautiful he dismiss the immediate pre-occupation of nature
surface characteristic of oil paint, nor as if it were and paint from sketches, his touch loses the
an otherwise negligible means of representation: nerve which, under the stimulus of observation,
in the pursuit of the one aim he achieved the found an interesting notation—even if it seem
other, and in his work we have at once the only reasonable to imitate in cool blood the unconscious
beautiful painting, and well-nigh all that a whole felicities of the sketch, his hand will scarcely
generation of painting in England, from i860 to attain them. Modern painting seems to demand
1890, has had to tell us of the aspect of things. the constant inspiration of nature, and the clean

So it is that when one sees again a landscape of sacrifice every time of the painting that has not
Whistler's, a Thames nocturne, or the old Battersea completely achieved its aim. Even were there no
Bridge, pictures which have discovered for us those tradition of many sittings, the portrait of Miss
appearances of the town which our eyes now most Alexander is too full of invention, the grey, the
welcome, one wavers for an explanation of its green, the white, the black are too exquisitely
exquisite dignity. Does this sense of a repose that sought, the surface is too inexplicable and various
reaches behind the flight of time, and beyond the in its fitness, to have come into existence without
distraction of circumstances, lie in the precious elaboration upon elaboration. But the labour is
vision discovered in the life that is most
familiar to us, or is it an effect of the just-
ness with which the brash 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 difficulties 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 "brown and gold: little by j. mcneill whistler

' lillie in our alley''

further operation. If, in order that he may (By permission of J. J. Cowan, Esq.)