We deeply regret to announce the death of Mr. James McNeill Whistler, the eminent artist, at his house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, yesterday.
The death of James McNeill Whistler removes from the list of the distinguished living an artist of rare gifts and a strange and intricate personality. It is difficult to regard as belonging to the past a contemporary figure so vivid, so full of surprises, so perverse, and so brilliant; hard to have to begin now to assess that estimate of the man and his work which will be made by posterity. Yet it must be recognised that the elements which make a present estimate difficult will for future generations render the painter╒s portrait a specially living one among those of his contemporaries. It is a portrait which he himself took great pains to paint and to render somewhat difficult and obscure for those who were in any degree unsympathetic towards him. The gentle art of making enemies was by him so assiduously practised that from a pastime it became something not far short of a passion; and if to make one╒s self misunderstood be the right object for the opening of a controversy, it may be said that Whistler conducted those in which he was concerned to a thoroughly successful conclusion. Perhaps by these ingenious devices the painter secured a portrait of himself which at a right distance, as viewed by posterity, will have its charm, which in any case cannot fail to be interesting.
