When Whistler painted a portrait he endeavoured to express character in the general aspect of the figure, rather than in the face.

The picture of his mother is a wonderful expression of the sweetness and peace of old age, given by the severe lines of her black dress and the simplicity and nobility of her pose.
The great painter Watts, who by the face chiefly sought to express the man, never painted a full-length figure portrait.

His long life, covering nearly the whole of the century, enabled him to portray many of the foremost men of the age--statesmen, poets, musicians, and men of letters.

In his portrait gallery their fine spirits still meet one another face to face.

But his portraits, in and through likenesses of the men, are made to express the essence of that particular art of which the man was a spokesman.