farthing damages which Whistler received in a mock trial were scarcely
as valuable as the universal admiration this picture receives.

There never was a painter who manipulated paint with more regard for the
medium than did Whistler. His portrait of Mrs. Milicent Cobden has a
noble beauty of restraint. It is very sensitively painted, and tender
almost to the point of thinness. It fascinates in its subtle appeal,
which the observer is induced to supplement by his own emotion. This
quality of subtlety is the one attribute which makes his work so beloved
by the artist and so difficult of understanding for the layman, who, try
as he may, is not equipped with sufficient technical insight to do
Whistler's paintings full justice. Uneven as his work is, as every
painter admits, it will always be more and more cherished by the
profession and remain more or less of a mystery to the puzzled public,
who would like to follow this painter into the realm of his interests.

The six figural compositions on the opposite wall show Whistler as
concerned with design pure and simple, rather than meaning or
psychological expression. They are beautiful for the fragrant looseness
of their spacing of delightful, tender areas of neutralized colour,
emphasized here and there by a stronger note of vermilion. Things like
these express his attitude far more than any other thing he ever did.
They show his understanding of the fundamentals of painting - a small
part in the whole unity of beauty of which the world consists. His work
as a painter is, after all, negligible in comparison with the principles
he preached by his many artistic activities. His historical position, as
time goes on and as his associates die, becomes more and more mystical,
and even at this moment his personality has assumed an almost
mythological character.