358 
THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 
mulas which he afterward ably employed: 
but it can be incontrovertibly proved 
that he never saw or knew of the works 
of the greatest Oriental painters which 
his own most closely resemble. He was, 
therefore, it will be seen, not the imita¬ 
tor of these early Eastern painters, but 
instead the continuer of their ideas. He 
saw things as they had seen them, felt 
them as they had felt them, and gave ut¬ 
terance to his feelings in like manner, 
not because he had been led in the same 
way, but because, being like-natured, he 
could not do otherwise. Herein is dem¬ 
onstrated the universality of art. 
There is, it has been said, no fixed 
standard of art criticism. What is 
lauded to-day is discarded to-morrow, 
and even connoisseurs disagree bewilder- 
ingly; but, glancing back over the ages, 
it will be found that the discord has been 
caused by technical divergence, and that 
in every land, and among all peoples, the 
truly beautiful has been generally recog¬ 
nized and correctly esteemed. No one 
questions to-day the beauty of the Greek 
temple or the charm of the Babylonian 
pottery; it does not require trained eyes 
to recognize the merit of an Oriental 
flower-painting or to find delight in one 
of Whistler’s nocturnes. The funda¬ 
mentals in each instance are the same: 
rhythmical line, fair proportions, and 
harmonious coloring. We have to be 
led oft-times up the ascent of art, and 
there is much discussion concerning the 
by-ways; but once on the height, all dis¬ 
sension ends, and we no longer need a 
guide. 
As Whistler caught up the thread 
which, after being carried through suc¬ 
cessive generations in Babylonia, China, 
Korea, and Japan, had been dropped, so, 
after him, on still another continent, 
Try on and Dewing and Thayer have 
equally independently and unintention¬ 
ally become the continuers of the early 
Oriental ideal. 
Though Mr. Freer was one of the first 
in America who began collecting Mr. 
Whistler’s works, he did not meet the 
painter until 1888, when, at the con¬ 
clusion of a business trip to London, it 
chanced that he had a day to spare and 
abruptly determined to call upon Whistler. 
Warned of the artist’s peculiarities, he 
went with unreasoning confidence and 
without an introduction, and was re¬ 
warded by a cordial welcome and a last¬ 
ing friendship. Whatever Mr. Whistler 
may have seemed to the outside world, he 
actually was the generous-hearted, im¬ 
pulsive comrade, the great man, and the 
true artist. Through untiring effort 
Mr. Freer has sought to collect and pre¬ 
serve the works of Whistler, providing 
for them by his gift to the Smithsonian 
Institution a permanent place of safety 
and honor, but his letters, his associations, 
his personal knowledge, even the spirit of 
his confidence, he holds as sacred, and 
consistently refuses to make public. Mr. 
Freer was with Mr. Whistler at the time 
of his death, and has assisted as adviser 
in the management of his estate; but he 
is not, as has been currently reported, his 
art executor. Miss Rosalind Birnie- 
Philip, Mr. Whistler’s sister-in-law, as 
executrix, has had full charge of all de¬ 
tails. 
Enumerated in the inventory made to 
the Smithsonian Regents last spring, 
there are by Whistler fifty oil paintings, 
forty water colors, thirty pastels, a hun¬ 
dred and twenty-three sketches, over six 
hundred etchings, and twenty-two etched 
plates, about one hundred and fifty litho¬ 
graphs, and, finally, the famous pea¬ 
cock room complete. The last was ac¬ 
quired in the summer of 1904, after the 
death of Mr. F. R. Leyland, for whom, 
thirty years earlier, it had been decorated, 
and in the last twelve months has been 
perfectly reset in a stone building erected 
for the purpose in the rear of Mr. Freer’s 
home. The work of replacing this re¬ 
markable creation has been carried on 
with the utmost success, and neither in 
transportation nor in resetting has it 
suffered the least violence. It is so well 
known that minute description is unnec¬ 
essary, but something may be said of its 
general character and of its quiet splen¬ 
dor. The peacock has been taken as the 
unit of design; the walls and ceiling, 
which are covered with leather, are deco¬ 
rated respectively with conventional de¬ 
signs evolved from the breast feathers 
and eyes; the window-shutters, of which 
there are three pairs, reaching from the 
floor almost to the ceiling, bear each a 
golden bird; and on a large panel at one 
end of the room two others are splendidly 
portrayed. “La Princesse du Pays de la 
