* * * * * “Do you say that this is a correct representation of Battersea Bridge?” “I did not intend it to be a ‘correct’ portrait of the bridge. It is only a moonlight scene, and the pier in the center of the bridge may or may not be like the piers at Battersea Bridge as you know them in broad daylight. As to what the picture represents, that depends upon who looks at it. To some persons it may represent all that is intended; to others it may represent nothing.” “The prevailing color is blue?” “Perhaps.” “Are those figures on the top of the bridge intended for people?” “They are just what you like.” “Is that a barge beneath?” “Yes. I am very much encouraged at your perceiving that. My whole scheme was only to bring about a certain harmony of color.”[5] * * * * * Most painters are so intent upon the _subjects_ of their work they give little thought to color harmonies. Whistler was the one great modern exception; his first thought was to produce _beautiful effects_ in line and color, hence his titles, “Nocturnes,” “Symphonies,” “Arrangements,” and so on. He did not like to give his portraits the names of his sitters. Where other painters emphasize the “subjects” and the “stories” of their pictures he tried to suppress both and direct the attention of the beholder to the painting. He was the forerunner of recent attempts to do with line and color what the musician does with sound. He was the leader of the revolt against the “story-telling” picture. * * * * * Millet is a good illustration of the painter to whom “subject” was everything, and technic of quite secondary importance. I think it is generally conceded that as a painter, a master of technic, he did not rank very high, but he had a faculty for painting subjects, scenes from life, that grip. As a painter Whistler was incomparably superior to Millet, but just because he was a great master of technic and quite indifferent to the story-telling side of his pictures he did not become so popular.[6] * * * * * There are many actions and reactions in art, many evolutions and involutions, but the great rhythmical sweep of the pendulum is from, let us say, _studio_-art to _nature_-art, and back from _nature_-art to _studio_-art. From works of _observation_ to works of _imagination_, and back from the use of the _imagination_ to the use of _observation_. For a time men work feverishly in the seclusion of their closets painting, writing, modelling, composing beautiful things, pure products of their imaginations, then comes the reaction and they feel the need of renewing their vigor by touching heel to earth. They draw aside their curtains, throw open their doors and go out into the sunlight to breathe the fresh air and gain new inspirations from contact with nature. That is what happens in art once in so often.