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Like Pater, Whistler took notice of "the abstract qualities of music ; in music and almost in music alone, it is possible for the artist to appeal to his audience directly, without the intervention of a medium of communication in common use of other purposes" (Herbert Read, "The Meaning of Art"). And he gave to his works such titles of musical terms ; symphony, harmony, arrangement and so on. One of them is "Nocturne", which he used for his night pieces. More important than this terminology, however, is the fact that he systematically developed his thought on art, depending upon "the abstract qualities of music". Especially arranging colors, which Baudelaire had already made much of in Delacroix's paintings, led him to a conception "la science de la couleur". Hilary Taylor says in her book about Whistler ("James MacNeil Whistler", London 1978) that the Nocturnes of the seventies or the tiny paintings of the nineties are "examples of abstract thinking" which "can only be matched in some of the most sophisticated painterly experiments of this century". The relation between Whistler and the abstract painters of the twentieth century has been hardly studied, but it was in 1881 that Theodre Duret used a phrase "une sorte d'abstraction" in explanation of the Nocturnes. Even if it were not to be a direct relation, it may safely be said that he made the first step in the development of the abstract art.
1979-12-30