[Illustration: WAPPING, ON THE THAMES (ETCHING).]
"That the custom of 'Remarque' emanates from the amateur and reflects his foolish facility beyond the border of his picture, thus testifying to his unscientific sense of its dignity."
"That, indeed, there should be no margin on the proof to receive such 'Remarque.'"
"That the habit of the margin, again, dates from the outsider, and continues with the collector in his unreasoning connoisseurship--taking curious pleasure in the quantity of the paper."
"That the picture ending where the frame begins, and in the case of etchings, the white mount, being inevitably, because of its colour, the frame, the picture thus extends itself irrelevantly through the margin of the mount."
"That wit of this kind would leave six inches of raw canvas between the painting and its gold frame, to delight the purchaser with the quality of the cloth."
We may not agree with his conclusion on the margin and remarque. The latter, no doubt, was introduced by the artist to please the purchaser. It is therefore, if a fault at all, that of the artist as much as of the collector. The question of margin is an individual one. There is little difference between a mat and a margin, and the Japanese print and the framing of black and whites in general have taught us the utility of uneven spacing around the picture. The remainder of the argument is excellent, theoretically as well as æsthetically.
Whistler's composition, excepting the French set, was strictly impressionistic. One merely has to look at the "Cadogan Pier," "The Little Pool," "Old Hungerford Bridge," "Little Wapping," "The Velvet Dress," "The Dam Wood," "The Long Lagoon," etc., to come to this conclusion.
[Illustration: OLD HUNGERFORD BRIDGE (ETCHING).]
The word impressionism is rather difficult to explain. It is on the tongue of everybody, and yet few mean exactly the same thing when they make use of it. The term applied formerly to every art expression--as every artist endeavoured to render an impression--has been specialized in the latter half of the last century. It has become the nickname of a definite number of painters, who have adopted a new palette (as suggested by scientific researches) and introduced a new method of laying colours on the canvas. In recent years the term has undergone another change--it has become a general claim for individuality of subject and treatment.