Whistler as I Knew Him

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... at every sitting he began over again as at a new picture. The result was a oneness, a freshness, quite incomparable. Whistler worked always with great firmness. He held his brush firmly and pressed hard on the canvas. There was no "dainty touch" about Whistler's handling. He worked in clean and firm sweeps. For example, if in a portrait it were necessary to bring the background up to a figure, he would mix the tone of the background, and with a large brush well pressed into the canvas would draw the line confidently, and with one firm sweep from the head right down to the heel. There was no trickery in the work. All the tones were put on in a crisp way with firmness; yet the tones came so close together in value that there was no suggestion of hard edges. As a rule, his figures were posed far into the atmosphere of the studio and more or less in gloom, while his canvas was in the light. Thus, in order to get a true representation of the model, he had to bring his tones very nearly to the same level. That is why most of Whistler's pictures appear to be what some people call flat. I noticed that when working from a half tone to a shadow he always used raw sienna, and, as a medium, turpentine and linseed oil. He used very flowing colour; and even the most solid part of a picture, such as the whites in linen, were sufficiently transparent for the ground underneath to show. Whistler never loaded his pictures with pigment, but worked in thin films of colour. He was not difficult to please in so far as posing was concerned. Almost any position a model took seemed to him a picture. There was no pulling about of drapery, no gazing through arched hands, no special placing of the body. He allowed the sitter to do what she liked, more or...