File:Life of James McNeill Whistler, (1911) (14780450351).jpg

Identifier: jamesmcnei00penn (find matches)
Title: Life of James McNeill Whistler,
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Pennell, Elizabeth Robins,
Subjects: American Art
Publisher: J. B. Lippincott company
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
toattempt ! And look at the architecture. Claude could draw a classicalbuilding as it is ; Turner must invent, imagine architecture as noarchitect could design it, and no builder could put it up, and as it neverwould stand up—the old amateur ! They went on to the Canalettos and Guardis Whistler could notweary of—to Canalettos big red church and the tiny Rotunda at Vauxhallwith the little figures, from which Hogarth learned so much. Whistleralways acknowledged Guardis influence, though it had not led him inVenice to paint pictures like Guardi or Canaletto either. And henever tired of pointing out that great artists like Guardi and Canalettoand Velasquez, who were born and worked in the South, did not try topaint sunlight, but kept their work grey and low in tone. That day atthe National Gallery, before he could finish explaining the similaritybetween his work and Guardis, the talk came to an end, for half thecopyists in the room had left their easels. He stopped. He could336 (1896
Text Appearing After Image:
ANNABEL LEE PASTEL In the possession of Charles L. Freer, Esq. (See page 277) Alone not talk to an audience which he was not sure was sympathetic. Sureof sympathy, he would talk for ever in praise of the luminosity ofClaude, the certainty of Canaletto, the wonderful tone of Guardi,the character and colour of Hogarth. Another Italian about whomhe was enthusiastic was Michael Angelo Caravaggio, admiring his thingsin the Louvre. Whistler maintained that the exact knowledge, thescience, of the Old Masters was the reason of their greatness. Themodern painter has a few tricks, a few fads ; these give out, and nothingis left. Knowledge is inexhaustible. Tintoretto did not find his wayuntil he was forty. Titian was painting in as masterly a manner inhis last year as in his youth. And speaking of the cleverness—a term hehated—of the modern man, he said : Think of the finish, the delicacy, the elegance, the repose of alittle Terborgh, Vermeer, Metsu. These were masters who couldpaint interi

Note About Images