It would be difficult to find in the whole history of art writing another case of a pamphleteer who became as famous with a few manuscripts as Whistler. Both the "Gentle Art of Making Enemies," edited by Sheridan Ford, and published in 1890 by William Heineman, London; Frederick Stokes & Co., New York; and Delabrosse & Co., all in the same year, and "The Ten O'clock," delivered in London, February, 1885; in Cambridge, March 24th; and Oxford, April 30th of the following year, and published in 1888, created a sensation. They scarcely embrace five thousand words of reading matter. Whistler's diction was exceedingly terse and poignant and he managed to say, or at least to suggest to intelligent minds, in a few words a phrase or maxim, which would exact from more sluggish pens page after page of argument. Of course, his letters and replies to "It will be for the patrons of the Suffolk-street Gallery to decide whether the more than half-uncovered walls which will be offered to their view next week are more interesting than the work of many artists of more than average merit which will be conspicuous by its absence, owing to the selfish policy inaugurated. (Signed) A British Artist." Whistler answered: "Far from me to propose to penetrate the motives of such "This is a plain question of date, and I pointed out that these two gentlemen left the Society six months ago—long before the supervising committee were called upon to act at all, or make any demonstration whatever. Your correspondent regrets that I do not 'go further,' and straightway goes further himself, and scarcely fares better, when, with a quaintness of naivetÉ rare at this moment, he proposes that 'it will be for the patrons of the gallery to decide whether the more than half-covered walls are more interesting than the works of many artists of more than the average merit.' Now it will be for the patrons to decide absolutely nothing. It is, and will always be, for the gentlemen of the hanging committee alone, duly chosen, to decide whether empty space be preferable to poor pictures—whether, in short, it be their duty to cover walls, merely that walls may be covered—no matter with what quality of work. "Indeed the period of the patron has utterly passed away, and the painter takes his place—to point out what he knows to be consistent with the demands of his art—without deference to patrons or prejudice to party. Beyond this, whether the 'policy of Mr. Whistler and his following' be 'selfish or no,' matters but little; but if the policy of your correspondent's 'following' find itself among the ruthlessly rejected, his letter is more readily explained." This is some logic and delicious sarcasm. It is to the point and there is nothing unpleasant in the entire argument. His art challenges and explanations always impress us in that manner. That is why his art lecture, if it may be passed as such—it is exceedingly short as art lectures go—is so much more valuable as a literary document than his collected letters, though the latter are more amusing, and give perhaps a better insight into the author's personality. It is a concise rÉsumÉ of modern art, not only the exploitation of one man's ideas, but rather a set of theories which reflect the thoughts of most of the younger and modern painters. It is written in a subjective way but the impression derived therefrom is objective. Whistler was one of the few great representa Whistler's literary activity began about 1863, when he lived in Linsey Row, London. His pictures had been rejected from several leading London and Paris exhibitions, and, finally, when he succeeded in exhibiting his "Woman in White" at the Berner Street Galleries, during the spring months of 1862 "May I beg to correct an erroneous impression likely to be confirmed by a paragraph in your last number? The Berner Street Galleries have, without my sanction, called my picture the 'Woman in White.' I had no intentions whatsoever of illustrating Mr. Wilkie Collins' novel; it so happens, indeed, that I have never read it. My painting simply represents a girl in white standing in front of a white curtain. I am, James Whistler." The reply, in my mind, is rather commonplace. It has, as yet, nothing of Whistler's fine sarcasm and finished style. Almost anybody could have written it. The attitude of a critic to accept something as a starting point, and then to criticize a picture from that point, is such a commonplace occurrence that it was hardly worth answering. Also his second literary attempt, more than Whistler was an iconoclast, as fanatic as any, when problems of art were in question, but his image-breaking was always indirect, "inverted" as it were; he defended his position by asserting his own beliefs. He, no doubt, was prompted by his own deep-rooted convictions, but the stimulant of his literary activity was never based on didacticism: to bring out an idea because it was a great truth and ought to be brought out. The stimulant for his utterances was always personal anger, irritation and wrath. He fought for himself and his art, but not for others. He was one of the greatest egotists that ever lived. Whenever he felt hurt at some injustice and stupidity he had to set it aright, no matter at what cost, to his own satisfaction. It was not before he was forty-four that he took up letter writing seriously. In one of his earliest answers he is seen at his best; it was written as early as 1867 but never published until 1887, when it appeared in the "Art Journal." Somebody had found fault with him calling one of his pictures "A Symphony in White," because one of the girls had reddish "Can anything be more amazing than the stultified prattle of this poor person? Not precisely a symphony in white ... for there is a yellowish dress ... brown hair ... and of course there is the flesh colour of the complexions. Bon Dieu! Did this creature expect white hair and chalked faces? And does he then in his astounding wisdom believe that a symphony in F contains no other note, but a continued repetition of F, F, F, F, F?... Fool! James Whistler." In this letter he took the right attitude, that of the fighter, who, with a few penstrokes, annihilated the foolishness of his opponents. If all his feuds had been of this character, no objection would have been raised to them. Alas, he did things, frequently, merely to pose as a wit, to say something that would make London society laugh, caring little in how malicious and vituperative a manner he would couch his words. Even when he was wrong and knew that he was wrong he would fight, as in the CafÉ Orientale incident. A correspondent of the "World" attacked the title, Nearly all his friends, sooner or later, were forced into crossing swords with him. The list is a long one and embraces many well-known names. He fought with his brother-in-law, F. Seymour Haden, because he had admired Frank Duveneck's etchings and mistaken them for Whistler's. He advised Harry Quilter, an art writer, "his bitterest enemy," to employ his sense of smell in preference to his eyesight; he calls the art critic P. G. Hamerton, "a certain Mr. Hamerton." He wrangled with Sir William Eden and even his friend Leyland about the price for ordered pictures, in each case making the whole transaction public; he attacked Tom Taylor and F. Wedmore for misquotations in their writings (he who had been guilty of the same thing himself), he quarrelled with the Academy when they repainted an old sign of his, "the famous Lion and Butterfly wrangle;" and wrote most insulting letters to Wyke Bayliss, who has succeeded him in the presidency. He withdrew George Moore, who had stood so gallantly by Whistler's side, was thrown over without much ado as soon as he remained neutral, and did not join the front ranks of the fighting host in the Sir William Eden episode. Swinburne did not fare better; nor his friend Stott of Oldham, on whom he had passed such exaggerated eulogies in the beginning of his Most of his adversaries were smaller men or, at any rate, lacked the faculty of repartee, and for a witty man it was easy enough to mock them out of existence. Only Oscar Wilde, who himself made a profession of scattering corrosive epigrams, occasionally got the best of him. His sarcastic remark, "With our James, vulgarity begins at home; would that it might stop there," was one of the sentences that made Whistler lay aside his pen for a while and ponder on reciprocity. The famous In 1877 Sir Coutts Lindsey had organized an independent gallery in opposition to the London Royal Academy. Among the exhibitors were Burne-Jones, Millais, Leighton and Whistler. The works of the pre-Raphaelites were praised but Whistler's nocturnes were ignored or sneered at. He perhaps would have taken no notice of the ordinary criticisms, but when John Ruskin, who then was in the prime of his fame, wrote in his "Fors Clavigera," an art publication, a short and most obtrusive paragraph about the pictures, he put on his paint and feathers once more and went on the war path. It is incredible how a man like Ruskin could have ever been so bitter and pedantic, to write the following paragraph: "Lastly the mannerisms and errors of these pictures (by Burne-Jones), whatever may be their extent, are never affected or indolent. Their work is natural to the painter, however strange to us; and it is wrought with utmost conscience of care, however far, John Ruskin." The suit went to trial before Judge Huddleston and a special jury, November 25th, 1878, and Whistler won the case, although one farthing damages were allowed him. He published a small brown covered paper pamphlet: "Whistler v. Ruskin—Art and Art Critics," the same year. Not satisfied with his scant victory, he endeavoured to strike back at his still powerful adversary by publishing a hodge-podge rÉsumÉ of Ruskin's writings and deliberately stringing together a number of well known sentences in such a way that they have The Mortimer Menpes incident shows a different side of his nature. It was a controversy as to who was "the father of the decorative revolution," Menpes or Whistler. Intensely sympathetic with the work of Japan's great painters and craftsmen, Menpes' impressions of her cities, temples, shrines, theatres, gardens, and museums, received during a few months' stay in that land of delight, are worthy of consideration, but he had no claim to the decorative innovation, not even to the pink hue of his house, as Whistler had mixed the colour himself one summer afternoon, when Menpes was still his pupil. When a dispute was of real importance Whistler was apt to ignore it entirely, and let others fight it out for him. It was too serious a matter for exchange of witty remarks. This shows that Whistler, at times, realized the value of silence. Even as there were friends and acquaintances and associates with whom he never quarrelled, he liked Carlo Pelligrini to the very end. He never picked a quarrel with Sarasate, nor with the Comte Montesquieu, though most people did. Charles Keene, the caricaturist, never writhed under Whistler's "strong arm." Even Sheridan Ford came out unscathed, al He wrote down those records he thought important as did Casanova his amours and Cellini his assassinations and, collected into a book, they form a sort of autobiography to those who can read between the lines. He had a way, as Pennell tells us, half-laughing, half-serious, of calling it his Bible. "Well, you know, you have only to look, and there it all is in the Bible," or "I am afraid you do not know the Bible as you should," he would reply to some question about his work or his experiences as an artist. As remarked previously, his attacks were remarkably free from all personal and domestic references, they referred solely to art transactions related to the profession. Whistler was an artist, and naturally over-sensitive. He could not help being impatient of criticisms that utterly failed to see the aim of his work, The real Whistler, then, as his closest friends saw him, was an impulsive, quixotic, erratic, if you like, but, above and beyond everything else, an artist of indisputable genius who fought a losing battle for a quarter of a century; jested through it all, and finally triumphed magnificently. His minor accomplishments were illumined by the flare of newspaper polemics; his greater and nobler qualities were too often obscured by the lack of com "Colours are not more since the heavy hangings of night were first drawn aside, and the loveliness of night revealed." "If art be rare to-day it is seldom heretofore." In these aphorisms he puts his finger on the secret of literary expression—the application of the simplest and subtlest means to the most complicated and inexistent subject. Paragraphs as the following must excite the admiration of every literary man. "Alas! ladies and gentlemen, Art has been maligned. She has naught in common with such practices. She is a goddess of dainty thought—reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others." "She is, withal, selfishly occupied with her own perfection only—having no desire to teach—seeking and finding the beautiful in all conditions and at all times as did her priest Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not Greeks." Or again: "Humanity takes the place of art, and God's creations are excused by their useful "Hence it is that nobility of action in his life is hopelessly linked with the merit of the work that portrays it; and thus the people have acquired the habit of looking, as who should say, not at a picture, but through it, at some human fact, that shall, not from a social point of view, better their mental or moral state. So we have come to hear of the painting that elevates, and the duty of the painter—of the picture that is full of thought and of the panel that merely decorates." Whistler fought principally for three big ideas: "That the main object of painting was to express the beauty of the technical medium unalloyed by any exterior motive, independent of time and place." "That art was not restricted to any special locality, but universal, cosmopolitan." "That art could be understood only by the artist and that all criticism consequently was futile occupation." All these arguments have sifted down into the rank and file of the profession, they have become common property and are continually used in the every-day conversations of artists. That the main object of art is art, cannot be confuted. But what is art in painting! Is all poetry and sentiment in a painting to be expressed by the actual handling of the colours, the process of handling and the mechanism of brushwork! Can all the poetry be contained in the objects themselves and the way they are painted? It has become the fashion of artists to say that they are painters, not artists. Now what do they mean by this? What is a painter? A person who can handle the brush and who knows colour, or, in other words, who masters the tool of his trade. And what is an artist? The term artist is not limited to one profession. It applies to a musician or a sculptor as well as painter. In calling somebody an artist we mean to convey that he has a poetic conception in his work. But he must surely possess an equal mastery of technique or he would be unable to express it. And is the painter absolutely void of poetic conception? Surely not. He tries to get the poetry out of the medium itself, while the artist adds something from the outside to the medium. In that sense Abbott Thayer, Ryder and Inness are artists, Sargent and Chase are The second claim, that all art is cosmopolitan, has been welcomed by all our ex-patriots, who have neither the strength nor the inclination to discover virgin material in their own country and to translate it into beauty. It furnishes a marvellous loop-hole for the imi The third great theory of the essay, which consists largely of Whistler's arrogant assertions as to the superiority of the artist and his own hatred for so called connoisseur, dilettante, and critic, has made a very proud man of the painter. Imagine an ordinary wielder of the brush reading the following sentence: "Vulgarity—under whose fascinating influence 'the many' have elbowed 'the few,' and the gentle circle of Art swarms with the intoxicated mob of mediocrity, whose leaders prate and counsel, and call aloud, where the gods once spoke in whispers. "And now from their midst the dilettante stalks abroad. The amateur is loosed. The voice of the Æsthetic is heard in the land, and the catastrophe is upon us. "The artist in fulness of heart and head Whistler lashed himself into the belief that he was the sole judge of his work. This is a very erroneous attitude. Creation is an unconscious process. Few artists have the critical faculty to analyze their work, and years pass before he is able to get a clear view of his own work. If we were an art-loving nation things would be different, but interest in painting has become a privilege of the rich and of museums; it is too remote to be considered an immediate pleasure. It needs some kind intermediator to bring about more sympathy between the public and the artist. What writers, who can write and to whom the smell of paint is not unfamiliar, see in a picture, is one thing. What a painter desires to express is an entirely different proposition, but this is no reason to find fault with the writer. What he says may be explanatory and interesting. A work of art is made to arouse sensations, pure or Æsthetic, emotions and vagrant thoughts, and they will differ vastly in every beholder. This may be beyond the pale of unattached writers and gentlemen clerks of collections and appointed preachers, into which Whistler also laughed at the pretence of the state as a fosterer of art. In this he was right. Art can not be forced upon a community. It is a matter of individual appreciation. It is a matter of conquest. But this is, after all, a busy world we are living in, and unless things are pointed out to us we may overlook them or not even learn of their existence, no matter how hungry we may be for new sensations. And that is the crucial point where the art writer may prove useful. The majority of artists entertain no kindly feeling towards art writers. In their just anger with critics, who arrogate to themselves the right of telling an artist how he should have done his work, they forget that the real writer on art, misnamed critic, has quite a different aim, and is their best friend. For he takes upon himself the duty of mediating between artist and public. Without him, we may say, the true artist is nowhere. True art (in opposition to commercial work and all vulgar practices to which pictorialism is put) is a difficult matter to comprehend. And Whistler himself! Does he not refute his own contempt by his Barnum-Boulanger-like use of the press? True enough all his little squibs and elaborate bids for notoriety had some underlying truth which he wished to express. But if ever an artist realized the power of type it was Whistler. As for the ordinary critic—he deserves our deepest sympathy. He proves beyond dispute |