<Archive Obituary> James McNeil Whistler (July 17th 1903)
Bill Schenley
FROM: The New York Times (July 18th 1903) ~
Photo:
http://www.jimpoz.com/quotes/images/speakers/whistler.jpg
James Abbott McNeil Whistler, the celebrated American artist, died
yesterday afternoon at his residence, 74 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, at the
age of sixty-nine years. His death came unexpectedly, although for
some time he had been seriously ill.
This morning's papers publish elaborate obituary notices, recognizing
the distinguished and unique personality of Whistler, whose genius
greatly dominated European art of the present generation. While
admitting that it is a question for posterity to decide his exact
position as a painter, it is generally conceded that he was a
consummate etcher.
The Daily Telegraph says:
"It may safely be prophesied that the light of his genius will but
burn the brighter when his self-asserted individuality has been a
little forgotten or, at any rate, obscured."
The Daily Chronicle says:
"It is mortifying to think that there is no example of his work in the
public galleries of London, where he lived and worked for so many
years."
It is twenty-five years since the famous case, "Whistler versus
Ruskin," was tried. In the history of art it might be two hundred
years, so completely has the point of view of the critics and the
public changed, so completely has the brilliant genius of the man whom
Ruskin called a "coxcomb" been vindicated.
And yet, even now, there are no standards by which one can judge his
work, by which one can form an estimate of his true place in the ranks
of the world's great artists. That he is among them is not doubted;
just how high up among them is not so clear. It is only once or twice
in a century that the originator of a new style in art or literature
appears, and it takes at least a century for the world to recover from
the dazed condition into which it is thrown by such a man's work.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was a native of Lowell, Mass., where he
was born in 1834. He was, therefore, nearly seventy years old at the
time of his death, which will probably be a surprising fact to most
people, for if ever a man lived whose manner and behavior conveyed the
impression of youth, it was he. Details in regard to his early life
are not easily ascertained.
His father and his elder brother were among the engineers who
developed the great Russian railway system, and James was taken to
Russia when he was a child. He returned to this country when he was
twelve years old, and later he entered West Point. "If salicylate had
been a gas I should have been a soldier," he once said, in referring
to his failure to pass his examination at the Military Academy. It was
extremely lucky for the art world that salicylate is not a gas.
At West Point one can see to this day a painting which Whistler
executed when was a cadet there. There is nothing remarkable about it,
even viewed in the favorable light which a knowledge of the artist's
after achievements suggests. Later on, however, when Whistler was
connected with the Coast Survey, he engraved many a fancy head and
landscape at the side of his more formal topographic work (which habit
led to the severing of his connection with that branch of the United
States Government) that exhibited great mastery of the graver and
extraordinary promise.
In 1855 Whistler went to England, and shortly afterward moved to
Paris, and studied under Gleyre, who was a painter of classic and
early Christian subjects in the Neo-Greek style. Needless to say, one
looks in vain in Whistler's work for any trace of Gleyre's teaching.
There are no means of tracing the gradual growth of the "Whistler
manner" in the artist's work. A portrait of himself which he etched in
1859 is in existence, and shows almost all the characteristics of his
later productions. The year it was executed he began to exhibit at the
Royal Academy, and four years later he settled in London.
It was in 1863 that Whistler's first famous painting was executed. It
was the exquisite "Femme Blanche," now known as the "Symphony in
White, No. 1: The White Girl." Nowadays it is hard to believe that it
was rejected at the Salon. Such, however, was the case, though the
painting, when shown at the Salon des Refuses, made a great sensation
in the art world of Paris. In the next ten years some of the artist's
best known masterpieces were painted, including the portrait of
Carlyle and the "Portrait de Ma Mere." It was only poetical justice
that the latter picture should have been bought for the Luxembourg.
From the time he settled in London Whistler's output of work was
remarkable. One painting after another now regarded as a chef d'oeuvre
was produced. Merely to catalogue them all would take up considerable
space. The "Sarasate," the "Lady Meux," the "Harmony in Gray and
Green: The Ocean," the "Falling Rocket," the "Miss Alexander," the
"Symphony in White No. 3"--each title conveys to the art lover
familiar with the master's work an impression of tender color,
exquisite line, fluency of modeling, and refined tone values. And at
the same time Whistler was producing etchings, which collectors now
seek as eagerly as those of Rembrandt or Meryon, and which would have
made his reputation had he never held a palette in his hand.
Of Whistler the wit, the maker of paradoxes, the epigrammist, the
master of the "gentle art of making enemies," it is perhaps
unnecessary to speak. The general public is quite familiar with his
achievements in this direction, and for a long time was under the
mistaken impression that it was all done for self-advertising. It is
safe to say that this side of his career will be forgotten. His work
will remain.
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His work:
http://www.poster-und-kunstdrucke.de/images/product-pics/artist/hi/12v0087a.jpg
http://www.join2day.com/abc/W/whistler/whistler27.JPG
http://www.join2day.com/abc/W/whistler/whistler11.JPG
http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/art079.jpg