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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1919)
WHISTLER AND mm AT FINE ART EXHIBITION Great Painter Described as Eccentric and Egotistical Failed at West Point ' Lived In London. LETA MOORE MEYER. " A very small picture portraying a '.irge amourit of real art it "Coast Scene," by James A. McNeill Whis tler, one of the gemi of the collec tion. Painted on t wood panel, the paint is o mixed with oil as to give it somewhat the appearance of water color. x Whistler considered his outdoor pictures symphonies, and this is a symphony in gray. It is a gray day, a storm imminent. There is a strong wind blowing from the left, not only indicated by the blowing of skirts and the sail, but felt throughout the picture. The dis tinct and subtle change from the green of the sea to the blue of the sky is masterly, still holding them together as one mass and atmos pheric entity. Although the beach is a grayish color, the yellowness it would have in sunlight is felt. None but a great master can paint a sharp Kne at the horizon like this and still keep it back in its glace, as is done here. The whole atmosphere of busy activity and of the life of the place and of the surroundings are keenly felt and expressed. This is a characteristic of Whistler's work. Failed at West Point Aside from his wonderful art which will live, Whistler is one of the most interesting figures In the rt wnrM because of his personality. Born in Lowell, Mass., in 1834, he attended West Point for a wftue but was a failure and he spent most of rii life in London. He was very eccentric and egotistical, but I won A,r titna if it were not mora a keen sense of humor. He would say to other artists, "I'm not argu Inw with vou. I'm tellinsr you." When a gushing lady said effu sively, "Oh, Mr. Whistler, no one but von and Velasquei ever knew . i a rv now o pami, nc tinwcicu, j rniitim shv Arxcr In Velasauez?" which at least shut her up. Before .he had "arrived," one time when his pictures wert refused at the salon, he went through the miles of rooms which make 110 that exhibition. As he was leaving, completely ex hausted, he saw his own pictures at the door being hauled away. He told afterwards how he was entirely rested at seeing something good after the vast amount of trash he had been forced to look at. Few 1 books are more interesting reading than his "Gentle Art of Making l?nmifi" which nartlr chronicles his lawsuit against Rnskln, which he tost. Whistler was commissioned by an Englishman, I think George Morland, to paint a large picture to h mIW "mv Ladv Porcelain. which was to hang over the mantel in a room which contained a rare collection of porcelain. Enraged His Host He was a guest in the house while doing it and one rainy day amused himself by painting peacocks pn the window blinds of rare wood. This so enraged his patron that he re monstrated snd finally ordered Whistler out of the house, who re soonded by oaintinsr large peacocks on the fine carved paneling which covered at one end of the room, say ing that all wood was as nothing ?omoared to his art. Mr. Morland then took legal steps to stop him whereupon Whistler made the peacocks gold and the spots In , their tails sheckels saying his patron thought of money more than of art And just to show his independence he stayed on in the house several months after the painting was finished. Charles W. Freer of Detroit, Whistler's closest friend and execu tor who died this fall, owned most of his pictures. He bought the pea cock room and all its contents, porcelain, picture and all, and built a room for it in his home. He be queathed Whistlers rained at more than $1,000,000, many other pictures and large sum of money to the na tion for the founding of a national gallery is Washington. Majority Not for Sale. The tiny Whistler here is valued at $6,800. Several of the pictures are valued at from $12,000 to $15,000, and most of them are worth more than $4,000, but the majority are not . for sale. The collection here in one room is valued at something over $400,000. The one water color shown is "Forebodings, by our own Wins low Homer, the great painter of the sea. The fisherwomen, looking anx iously with tense feeling, are a fine maea ftf ffarV acreine th liorhr while other workers are just suggested in the surf. While painted with water color, this is called gouache or ' body color, white paint being mixed with the color for the Jights instead . of leaving the white paper, as is done in a regular aquarelle, thus ap proaching the seriousness of an oil, while retaining the -delicacy of a water color. This picture corroborates the statement of Mr. Brockwell at the . Friends of Art dinner that good pic tures are an excellent investment from a financial standpoint, as well as from an educational one. Three years ago "Forebodings" was priced at $250. Its price now is $4,500. Fvftn Inhnsnn Suffers From Galling Near-Beer London, Nov. 14 W. E. Johnson, American prohibition campaigner in this exceedingly "wet" country, is suffering from near-beer and the like, says the Daily Mail. As the Daily Mail doesn't like Johnson, it gives considerable prom- ' snence 10 inis statement, wnicn, 11 declares, Johnson made to its re porter in an interview: "It's your temperance drinks," Johnson said, shaking a medicine ottle., "Why, just now the whole room was going round and round and turning upside down. Your soft drinks I've been taking too much of them." The Mail is probably "pulling; somebody's leg," but such anti-anti propaganda as that will be read with pleasure bar most British ad- 8 (W 3 Orlie A.Wilson vict pre J. and sale? ncn. II YOf. 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