The Whistler book; a monograph of the life and positin in art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a careful study of his more important works (1910) (14769989361)

Mother of Pearl and Silver: The Andalusian by James McNeill Whistler
Identifier: whistlerbookmono00hart (find matches)
Title: The Whistler book; a monograph of the life and positin in art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a careful study of his more important works
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Hartmann, Sadakichi, 1867-1944
Subjects: Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903
Publisher: Boston : L.C. Page & company
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library



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tion of light. The famous colour harmony of Italianpainters, red, green and violet, which arousedaction successive^ in the whole field of visionwithout exhausting it, seemed meaningless.Strange, apparently discordant combinationsof green and blue and yellow, orange and red,which stimulate only certain portions of theretina at the expense of others, obtruded them-selves upon his optical consciousness. It be-came apparent that light does not emphasize,but that it generalizes, and that colours andtones, although more varied, are less decisivethan in the painting of the Old )\Iasters. Thecharm of pictorial illusion seemed to haveshifted from the juxtaposition of contrast tothe more subtle and less powerful variety ofhalf tones. It is not so much the richness andfullness of colour the modern painter strivesfor, as Raffaelli has pointed out, but the com-bination of colours which yield a sensation oflight, w^hich, in a way, is a reflection of our tem-porary light conditions. That the Impres-
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Owned by John H. Whittcmore landalusienne. On Light and Tone Problems 87 sionists banished black from their palette issignificant itself. Ever since the semi-darkness of the INIiddleAges was dispelled, the minds of painters hadbeen occupied with the invention of a newmethod of painting. Chardin and Watteau,who crosshatched and stippled pure colours intheir pastels and water colours, were really theforerunners of impressionism. Delacroix wasthe first master-painter who scientifically con-cerned himself with light and colour notation,as Turner (rz2. Ruskin) introduced the empha-sis of the colour of shadows at the expense oftheir tones. But not before science came to theassistance of the painter, was he able to perfecthis system of open air mosaics, of producingtone by the parallel and distinct projection ofpure colours. And it is Che\Teul, Young, Helmlioltz andOgden Rood, who, after analyzing colour sen-sations from a physiological viewpoint andtracing them to their causes, supplied the