The human eye could have told the painter the same story, as the eye naturally and instinctively rests on the most pleasing part of the scene, and in so doing, puts out of focus more or less all the other parts. It is a curious fact that all the compositions of the Old Masters were out of focus. True enough they swept minor light and colour notations into larger ones, but there seldom was any definite indication in their work whether an object was in the foreground or middle distance. This way of seeing things was, no doubt, a voluntary one--they had a different idea of pictorial interpretation. In their pictures, as in nature, we continually allow our attention to flit from one point to the other in the endeavour to grasp the whole, and the result is a series of minor impressions, which consciously influence the final and total impression we receive from a picture. The impressionist is satisfied with giving one full impression that stands by itself, and it was the broadcast appearance of the photographic images in the sixties that taught him to see and represent life in focal planes and divisions.
In the catalogue of Whistler's etchings, arranged by Frederick Wedmore in 1886, we find 214 prints enumerated and commented upon. In a later edition the number had increased to 268. In the Catalogue of etchings of James McNeill Whistler, compiled by an amateur and published by Wunderlich in New York, 1902, and which claims to contain all known etchings by the artist, the number is 372.
But as Whistler was working on copper all his life, it is difficult to state how many etchings he really made. Joseph Pennell, who probably knows more about this phase of art than any living man, makes a statement as follows:
"I know little, and can say less, of the state of his plates,--and I believe he himself knew little more about them,--how many were printed, whether they exist or not, or what has become of the coppers. All I do know is that in the case of the Thames set, long after Whistler or Delâtre--I am not sure which--had pulled a certain number of proofs, long after the plates had been steeled and regularly published, about 1871, and later still, after a Bond Street dealer had been selling them in endless numbers to artists for a few shillings each, the idea was suggested to another dealer that he should purchase the copper plates, remove the lead facings and, if they were in condition, print as many as the plates would stand, or, if they were not, destroy the plates and sell them; for even Whistler's destroyed copper plates have a value. The experiment was tried, and extraordinarily fine proofs were obtained. I believe collectors resented this very much, but artists rejoiced, and the world is richer by a number of splendid examples of the master."