That sort of a title is precisely what he condemns for his paintings. It is, however, one of the very few instances where his titles suggest anything more than the obvious subject. For the most part he was consistent in choosing names that do not distract. Even the portraits he did not care to have known as “Portrait of Mr. A----,” or “Portrait of Lady C----,” thereby catering first to the vanity of a sitter, then to the idle curiosity of the multitude. His portraits were compositions in line and color, and, as such, were artistic creations. That they happened also to be portraits of certain individuals was a mere coincidence. The portrait feature, upon which people lay so much stress, was of the least consequence to him; and just because he did not permit the photographic element to move him, he secured results which are far beyond the art of the “portrait-painter.” * * * * * The sense of color is so lost to painters, as well as to laymen, that to talk of color compositions as one speaks of sound compositions is to challenge doubt and occasion surprise. And yet there is a music of color even as there is a music of sound, and there should be a delight in color composition even as there is a delight in sound composition; and this delight should be something fundamentally distinct from any interest in the subject of the composition. The subject may be a man, or a woman, or a field, or a tree, or a wave, or a cloud, or just nothing at all--mere masses or streaks of color; the perfection or the imperfection of the color arrangement remains the same. That the color-sense is lost to laymen, critics, and painters is evidenced by the ridicule that for thirty years was heaped upon Whistler for calling his pictures “harmonies,” “symphonies,” “nocturnes,” etc.; for adopting the more or less abstract nomenclature of sound compositions--music--to describe color compositions. One paper described them as “some figure pieces, which this artist exhibits as ‘harmonies’ in this, that, or the other, being, as they are, mere rubs-in of color, have no claims to be regarded as pictures.” Another says, “A dark bluish surface, with dots on it, and the faintest adumbrations of shape under the darkness, is gravely called a ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold.’” Again, “Two of Mr. Whistler’s ‘color-symphonies,’ a ‘Nocturne in Blue and Gold,’ and a ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold.’ If he did not exhibit these as pictures under peculiar and, what seems to most people, pretentious titles they would be entitled to their due meed of admiration. But they only come one step nearer pictures than delicately graduated tints on a wall-paper do.” And so in endless iteration and reiteration.