CHAPTER X WHISTLER'S ICONOCLASM

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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 critics were written largely for effect. A well turned phrase was to him the ideal of diction and no doubt he rewrote every sentence a dozen times before he allowed it to go out to the public. It was to him a part—and a most serious part—of his profession. And whenever he did not deal with personalities and approached the technical principle on which his practice as artist was based, as in his "propositions," his observations and theories became lucid and convincing. Read his reply to the criticism which was caused by the withdrawal of two members from the Society of the British Artists, who left voluntarily knowing that changes of policy were inevitable under the presidency of Whistler. The attack in the London Daily News ended as follows:

"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."

ARCHWAY, VENICE (PASTEL)

Owned by Howard Mansfield
ARCHWAY, VENICE (PASTEL).

Whistler answered:

"Far from me to propose to penetrate the motives of such withdrawal, but what I do deny was that it could possibly be caused—as its strangely late announcement seemed sweetly to insinuate—by the strong determination to tolerate no longer the mediocre work that had hitherto habitually swarmed the walls of the Suffolk-street.

"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 representatives of modern art, and if such a man has the gift to express his idea in a clear manner, a gift which most painters lack, he will necessarily reflect the aspirations of his contemporaries. As a piece of literature aside from the idea conveyed in it, I would compare it to Fromentin's "Le Desert," a charming treatise on colour and atmosphere, but as soon as it treats the more serious problems of art it becomes of deeper significance, and I, for my part, would not hesitate to mention it in the same breath with Lessing's "Laokoon." It has neither the dignity nor logical sequence of the Hamburgh philosopher, but the statements in it are more important, or at least, more significant to us than any theories of the German critic. I do not know of any book which is more reflective of modern art than Whistler's "Ten O'Clock." It filled a big gap, and its influence on the reasoning power (which, true enough, is small in many instances) of the modern painter has been far-reaching.

THE JAPANESE DRESS (PASTEL)

Owned by Howard Mansfield
THE JAPANESE DRESS (PASTEL).

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 (before sending it to Paris), it called forth a storm of derision and ridicule. His answer to a most silly criticism in the "AthenÆum," that the face of his "Woman in White" was well done, but that it was not that of Mr. Wilkie Collins' heroine was his first attempt at repudiation. It was as follows:

"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 ten years later, when he objected to having one of his pictures called "The Yacht Race: A symphony in B sharp," had little merit except that of indignation.

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 hair; and a yellow dress, a blue ribbon and a blue fan had been introduced into a white tonality. He replied in his vigorous fashion:

"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, stating that it had an e too many for French, and an f too few for Italian. Whistler does not attempt to justify his orthographical error, but, by telling an anecdote, endeavours to ridicule all criticism which pretends to such accuracy. It is cleverly told, but after all it is silly.

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 all his pictures from the Paris Exposition, because the American colonel, C. R. Hawkins, had refused a few of his etchings in a rather impolite manner. The real reason was lack of space, and one could hardly expect from an American colonel the manners of a Chesterfield. Surely, Whistler did not possess them himself. He, at all times, practised more "manner" than manners, his language had at times an irritating touch of rudeness and coarseness. The feuds were endless. He continually baited his fellow artists. He called the pre-Raphaelites "What a damn crew." Legros, Val Prinsep, W. P. Frith, Sir Frederick Leighton and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were at one time or another recipients. Everybody who came in contact with him, William M. Chase, "the masher of the Avenues," Theodore Child, who had to bear the brunt of a pun on his name, etc., all have some queer experiences to tell about him.

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 career. Even his oldest friend and supporter, Kennedy, the picture dealer, was finally bespattered with the mud of Whistler's invectives. His bon mots and repartee in ordinary life were as significant as those in his pamphlets, letters and catalogues. We all remember his "Why drag in Velasquez!" his "Goodness gracious! you don't fancy a man owns a picture because he bought it," or "Indeed! it is not every man in England I paint for." Then again talking about Leighton, "Yes, and he paints too." In meeting Du Maurier and Wilde at one of the exhibitions Whistler burst forth: "I say, which one of you invented the other, eh!" The famous repartee, Whistler:—"Nature's creeping up." Oscar Wilde: "Heavens, I wish I had said that!" "You will," dryly replied Whistler.

MR. KENNEDY: PORTRAIT STUDY

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York
MR. KENNEDY: PORTRAIT STUDY.

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 Whistler _v_. Ruskin libel suit was gotten up, I believe, largely for effect. It happened naturally enough, but Whistler made the most of it. And, from the press agent's point of view, it was the opportunity of a life time.

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, to his own or our desire, the result may be yet incomplete. Scarcely so much can be said for any other pictures of the modern school; their eccentricities are most always in some degree forced, and their imperfections gratuitously, if not impertinently indulged. For Mr. Whistler's sake, no less than for the protection of the purchasers, Sir Coutts Lindsey ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of the wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

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 no connection whatever. All this is amusing but smacks of the mountebank.

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, although they were never on terms of "commonplace" amity and acquiescence. Nor did ever his American acquaintances advance to "warm personal friends." H. W. Singer says in his little monograph that "Perhaps Whistler's human soul was occupied by a double portion of malice, invidiousness and pettiness, so that his artistic spirit might be entirely free and unfettered in its greatness." As good an explanation as many others.

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, sometimes praising him for qualities a painter would blush to possess and again heaping unmerited blame on admirable achievements. Things really irritated him and he worked himself into a white fury, often over nothing. Later on his love for notoriety and his pose made him exaggerate the importance of events. As in the case of every master, there were, of course, followers and disciples. To these, the master held forth, now instilling a principle of art, now relating an encounter with this or that critic. Mr. Menpes speaks quite truthfully when he says: "All the same, he was one of the true fearless champions that art ever had, he fought with the dignity of the artist, demanded consideration and courteous treatment, and upheld dignity of workmanship, never tired of exposing and exploiting the ignorance of the average press critic."

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 comprehension. Yet there were times when Whistler gave of his best simply and sincerely to all who had the perception to receive his gift. Such an occasion was that on which he delivered for the first time his immortal lecture on art, "Ten O'Clock." He chose this title because he did not want the people to rush to him from the dinner table, as to the theatre. Ten o'clock was early enough. The audience and critics who greeted him in Prince's Hall, London, on that never to be forgotten occasion, were puzzled by what they chose to regard as Whistler's "new pose." As a matter of fact, he was not posing at all, but had called them to him that he might impart to them, out of his very heart, the standard of artistic faith by which his life was ruled. It was a revolt not so much against the conclusions of modern paintings nor a plea for Japanese art (he does not mention Japan except once in the beautiful final sentence: "The story of the beautiful is already complete, hewn in the marble of Parthenon—and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai at the foot of Fusiyama") as against the pedantic and realistic methods in art, a fierce crusade for the ideals of painting. His style is virile, individual, marvellously condensed and suggestive. It contains a number of beautifully put phrases like: "Art happens—no hovel is safe, no prince can depend upon it."

THE LIME BURNER (ETCHING)

THE LIME BURNER (ETCHING).

"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 usefulness. Beauty is confounded with virtue and, before a work of art, it is asked: 'What good shall it do?'"

"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. They are all three open to criticism, and in a way (like all things, according to Walt Whitman) have done as much harm as good.

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 painters. But how about Chavannes, Whistler, Israels? I suppose they are both. There we are in a dilemma. They oppose subject painting; the beauty of the object, the poetry that is inherent in what they see before them, is supposed to be sufficient. But they object to the phrase that they are merely interested in surface beauty, they assert that they search for character and the inner meaning of things as much as anybody else. In this they contradict their own and Whistler's argument. Whistler himself was all his life a subject painter. Of course he has avoided telling stories, but he has suggested them, and given to each picture that vague note of interest which every true painting should possess. The main purpose is to make the picture more interesting. And you cannot make a picture more interesting without adding something. Painting for painting's sake is an impossibility. One cannot translate nature and life into colour without the help of the imagination. A little more or less, what is the difference?

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 imitative talent. Whistler said: "There is no such thing as English art—art is art when it is good enough." This is at its best merely a truism. We perfectly agree that only good workmanship makes a painting worthy of the name of art, but surely Hogarth, Gainsborough and Constable have a true native flavour in their work, which they could have gained nowhere but on British soil. All art, when perfect, can command universal appreciation, but it is perfect in most instances only when it has, perhaps not so much a local interest, but a local motive or stimulant, i. e. it must have inhaled the atmosphere of some peculiar locality and the faculty to exude it again. I believe, Whistler used his argument largely as a subterfuge, to hide his own enthusiasm for Japanese art. He understood how to amalgamate the foreign influences and his own individuality (this I have analyzed at length in some other chapter). His art in a sense was cosmopolitan, but merely because he was the first to adopt the new principles of an Eastern art; and it is just as easy to trace American as Japanese or Old Master traits in his work. I claim that all great art is local, and mention only three of the greatest painters, Velasquez, Rembrandt, and DÜrer, to prove my argument. They surely were imbued with the spirit of their time and country. And I am equally certain that a painter who would express America as it is to-day (as Whitman has done in his time in literature) would be a greater man than Whistler. The foremost masters of the nineteenth century, Monet, Manet, Chavannes, and Whistler, were all innovators in technical problems, for they discovered new mediums of expression, and, in a way, only prepared the way for more concentrated expressions of art.

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 is glad, and laughs aloud, and is happy in his strength, and is merry at the pompous pretension—the solemn stillness that surrounds him."

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 has divided the critics, but there is no argument necessary to make any reader believe that authors like Hawthorne, the Goncourts, Guy de Maupassant, Paul Heyse, MallarmÉ, knew how to write about art.

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. When the public, composed of people whose energy is drained almost to exhaustion by daily associations and occupations, suddenly encounters a new phase of art, it can no more formulate a just opinion of it than it could when placed face to face with the tablets of Karnak and Sakkarah. Just as the electrician in a new invention must explain the working of natural forces, so must the "critic" explain the work of the artistic forces which come into play in the production of a picture. Most artists have become popular—as far as the true artist can become popular—only after the eyes of the public have been opened by some critic. Such artists as find no apostle to proclaim their creed die unattended. Many an artist left his family in poverty; but after his death critics dwelt at length upon the beauties of his pictures, and only then the public began to pay enormous prices for them.

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 "that there is something rotten" in our art appreciation. Old Japan and the Primitifs knew them not. He is harmless, however, as he has absolutely nothing to do with art. He is a necessary evil produced by the shortcomings of the time. Anatole France's remark about art criticism, that it should be the adventure of one's soul among masterpieces, is enough, but he forgets that the adventure should be the experience of a literary artist. For the only criticism that is lasting is either biographical in tendency or artistic commentary, which by a new work of art reflects the beauty of the original. If a picture is really beautiful, one should be able to write a poem about it, or express it in music, dancing or some other art.

PORTRAIT OF STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ (LITHOGRAPH)

PORTRAIT OF STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ (LITHOGRAPH).


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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