Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/657

 fine painting does to nature. He took from Japanese ideals the beauties he admired, and re-created them as expressions of his own personality. The ‘Lange Leizen,’ ‘The Gold Screen,’ ‘The Balcony,’ the ‘Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine,’ are in no sense Japanese pictures, but they are full of Japanese material. Probably the finest æsthetic spark struck out by his contact with Japan is the exquisite picture variously known as ‘The Little White Girl’ and ‘Symphony in White, No. II.’ It was at the Royal Academy in 1865, with ‘The Gold Screen’ and ‘Old Battersea Bridge,’ and is now the property of Mr. Arthur Studd. In this year Whistler revisited eastern France and western Germany, and spent part of the autumn at Trouville, with Courbet for companion. In 1866 he made a sudden expedition to Chili, where he seems to have been implicated in some rather absurd war making, but found time to paint five pictures of Valparaiso, some of which are among his greater successes. At the close of this year he moved to a new house, now 96 Cheyne Row, where he remained longer than in any other of his numerous domiciles.

The years between 1866 and 1872 were busy. He exhibited more often than before or after. The chief pictures of this period were a ‘Valparaiso,’ ‘Sea and Rain,’ ‘The Balcony,’ and the famous ‘Portrait of my Mother.’ Whistler's uncomfortable relations with the Royal Academy began with the exhibition of this last-named picture. Rejected at first, it was only hung through the insistence of one member of the council. After 1872 Whistler exhibited no picture at Burlington House. Nothing of his was thenceforth seen there save an etching of ‘Old Putney Bridge’ in 1879. No doubt Whistler's irritation was deepened by the fact that, although his name remained for years on the candidates' book, he never came near to being elected into the Academy. These years about 1870 saw the production of most of his ‘Nocturnes,’ studies of tone, colour, and atmosphere to which the history of art then afforded no parallel; also the portraits of Carlyle and the fine ‘Miss Alexander’ (now belonging to Mr. W. C. Alexander). In these pictures Whistler first worked his initials into a fantastic shape resembling a butterfly, which soon became his accustomed signature.

In 1874 Whistler opened a show of his own work at 48 Pall Mall, the first of those occasions on which he appealed to the public almost as much by the setting of his pictures as by the works themselves. At this time he was also painting the famous peacock room, for Frederick Robert Leyland, in Prince's Gate: it is now at Mr. C. L. Freer's residence in Detroit. In 1877 he was represented by eight pictures, mostly loans, at the first exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery. To the same gallery he sent in 1879 a portrait of Miss Connie Gilchrist [now Countess of Orkney], ‘The Gold Girl: a Harmony in Yellow and Gold,’ which was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of New York in 1911.

One of his first exhibits at the Grosvenor Gallery, ‘The Falling Rocket, a nocturne in Black and Gold,’ was the nail on which Ruskin hung strong abuse of the artist in ‘Fors Clavigera,’ where Whistler was described as a ‘coxcomb’ asking ‘two hundred guineas for throwing a pot of paint in the public's face.’ Whistler brought an action for libel against the critic, which was heard before Baron Huddleston on 25 Nov. 1878. Burne-Jones and Frith were among Ruskin's witnesses. Whistler won his verdict, with a farthing damages, but had to pay his own costs. He set forth his view of the litigation in a shilling pamphlet, ‘Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics’ (1879, 12mo). For years before he had been ordering his life with extreme carelessness in financial matters, keeping open house, never hesitating over the cost of anything he thought necessary to his art or to his conception of his needs. All this, added to the costs of the trial and the loss of the money-making power which it involved, brought about his bankruptcy in 1879. He had left Cheyne Row at the end of 1878, and moved to the ‘White House’ in Tite Street, built for him by [q. v.], but this had to be sold with the rest of his effects in 1879. At the end of this year he went to Venice, where he spent the winter in producing a number of etchings and pastels on the commission of the Fine Art Society. They excited great interest and some controversy when shown on his return; and they sold well. From this time onward he worked much in pastel, producing those dainty notes from the model, nude and semi-nude, which were soon much sought after. He came back to London early in 1880. In 1881 his mother died at Hastings. In the same year he settled at No. 13 Tite Street, where he painted many of the best pictures of his later years. Among these were the portrait of Lady Meux, ‘M. Duret,’ ‘The Blue Girl,’ and the ‘Yellow Buskin’ (Lady Archibald Campbell), which is in the Memorial