proclaiming again that the story of the lecture to the students of the
Royal Academy was, as I told it to you, no fiction.
In the presence of Mr. Waldo Story did Oscar make his prayer for
preparation; and at his table was he entrusted with the materials for
his crime.
You also shall again unearth, in the _Nineteenth Century Review_ of
Jan. 1889, page 37, the other appropriated property, slily stowed
away, in an article on "The Decay of Lying"--though why Decay!
To shirk this matter thus is craven, doubtless; but I am awe-stricken
and tremble, for truly, "the rage of the sheep is terrible!"
[Illustration]
_Just Indignation_
Oscar--How dare you! What means this disguise?
[Sidenote: Upon perceiving the Poet, in Polish cap and
green overcoat, befrogged, and wonderfully befurred.]
Restore those things to Nathan's, and never again let me find you
masquerading the streets of my Chelsea in the combined costumes of
Kossuth and Mr. Mantalini!
[Illustration]
_An Advanced Critic_
_TO THE EDITOR:_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, March 28, 1888.]
Sir--I find myself obliged to notice the critical review of the "Ten
o'Clock," that appeared in your paper (March 6).
In the interest of my publishers, I beg to state formally that the
work has not as yet been issued at all--and I would point out that
what is still in the hands of the printer, cannot possibly have fallen
into the fingers of your incautious contributor!
The early telegram is doubtless the ambition of this smart, though
premature and restless one--but he is wanting in habit, and unhappy in
his haste!--What will you? The _Pall Mall_ and the people have been
imposed upon.
Be good enough, Sir, to insert this note, lest the public suppose,
upon your authority, that the "Ten o'Clock," as yet unseen in the
window of Piccadilly, has, in consequence of this sudden summing up,
been hurriedly withdrawn from circulation.--I am, Sir,
[Illustration]
_The Advantage of Explanation_
_TO THE EDITOR:_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, March 31, 1888.]
Sir--Just three weeks after publication Mr. Whistler "finds himself
obliged to notice the critical review of the 'Ten o'Clock' that
appeared in your paper." He points out that "what is still in the
hands of the printer cannot possibly have fallen into the fingers of
your incautious contributor." I do not pretend to be acquainted with
the multitudinous matters that may be in the hands of his publishers'
printers. But I can declare--and you, Sir, will corroborate me--that a
printed copy of Mr. Whistler's smart but misleading lecture was placed
in my hands for review, and, moreover, that the notice did not appear
until the pamphlet was duly advertised by Messrs. Chatto and Windus as
ready. It is, of course, a matter of regret to me if, as Mr. Whistler
suggests, his publishers' interests are likely to suffer from the
review; but if an author's work, in the reviewer's opinion, be
full of rash statement and mischievous doctrine, the publishers must
submit to the risk of frank criticism. But it will be observed that
Mr. Whistler is merely seeking to create an impression that your
Reviewer never saw the work he criticized, which is surely not a
creditable position to take up, even by a sensitive man writhing under
adverse criticism.--I am, Sir, most obediently,
YOUR REVIEWER.
_Testimony_
_TO THE EDITOR:_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 7, 1888.]
Sir--My apologies, I pray you, to the much disturbed gentleman, "Your
Reviewer," who complains that I have allowed "just three weeks" to go
by without noticing his writing.
Let me hasten, lest he be further offended, to acknowledge his answer,
in Saturday's paper.
After much matter, he comes unexpectedly upon a clear understanding of
my letter--"It will be observed," he says naïvely, "that Mr. Whistler
is merely seeking to create an impression that your Reviewer never saw
the work he criticized,"--herein he is completely right, this is
absolutely the impression I did seek to create--"which," he continues,
"is surely not a creditable position to take up"--again I agree with
him, and admit the sad spectacle a "Reviewer" presents in such
position.
He further "declares," and calls upon you, Sir, to "corroborate"
him, "that a printed copy of Mr. Whistler's misleading lecture was
placed in my hands for review"--and moreover, that "the notice did not
appear until the pamphlet was duly advertised by Messrs. Chatto and
Windus as ready."
Pausing to note that if the lecture had not seemed misleading to him,
it would surely not have been worth uttering at all, I come to the
copy in question--this could only have been a printed proof, quaintly
acquired--as will be seen by the following letter from Messrs. Chatto
and Windus, which I must beg you Sir, to publish, with this note--as
it deals also with the remaining point, the advertisement of the
pamphlet,
And, I am, Sir,
[Illustration]
The following is the letter from Mr. Whistler's publishers:--
DEAR SIR--In reply to your question we have to say that we
certainly have not sent out any copy of the "Ten o'Clock" to the
press, or to anybody else excepting yourself. The work is still
in the printers' hands, and we have for a long time past
been advertising it only as "shortly" to be published; indeed,
only a few proofs have so far been taken from the type.
Yours faithfully,
CHATTO and WINDUS.
_An Apostasy_
[Sidenote: Mr. Whistler's Lecture on Art, by Algernon
Charles Swinburne.
_Fortnightly Review_, June 1888.]
To speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth may
justly be required of the average witness; it cannot be expected, it
should not be exacted, of any critical writer or lecturer on any form
of art....
... And it appears to one at least of those unfortunate "outsiders"
for whose judgment or whose "meddling" Mr. Whistler has so imperial
and Olympian a contempt....
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
"If" indeed!
[Illustration]]
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
"Cups and fans and screens," and Hamilton vases, and
figurines of Tanagra, and other "waterflies."
[Illustration]]
Let us begin at the end, as all reasonable people always do: we shall
find that Mr. Whistler concedes to Greek art a place beside Japanese.
Now this, on his own showing, will never do; it crosses, it
contravenes, it nullifies, it pulverizes his theory or his principle
of artistic limitation. If Japanese art is right in confining itself
to what can be "broidered upon the fan"--and the gist of the whole
argument is in favour of this assumption--then the sculpture which
appeals, indeed, first of all to our perception of beauty, to the
delight of the eye, to the wonder and the worship of the instinct or
the sense, but which in every possible instance appeals also to far
other intuitions and far other sympathies than these, is as absolutely
wrong, as demonstrably inferior, as any picture or as any carving
which may be so degenerate and so debased as to concern itself with a
story or a subject. Assuredly Phidias thought of other things than
"arrangements"[34] in marble--as certainly as Æschylus thought of
other things than "arrangements" in metre. Nor, I am sorely afraid,
can the adored Velasquez be promoted to a seat "at the foot of
Fusi-yama." Japanese art is not merely the incomparable achievement of
certain harmonies in colour; _it is the negation, the immolation, the
annihilation of everything else_. By the code which accepts as the highest
of models and of masterpieces the cups and fans and screens with which
"the poor world" has been as grievously "pestered" of late years as ever
it was in Shakespeare's time "with such waterflies"--"diminutives of
nature"--as excited the scorn of his moralizing cynic, Velasquez is as
unquestionably condemned as is Raphael or Titian. It is true that this
miraculous power of hand (?)[35] makes beautiful for us the deformity
of dwarfs, and dignifies the degradation of princes; but that
is not the question. It is true, again, that Mr. Whistler's own merest
"arrangements" in colour are lovely and effective;[36] but his
portraits, to speak of these alone, are liable to the damning and
intolerable imputation of possessing not merely other qualities than
these, but qualities which actually appeal--I blush to remember and I
shudder to record it--which actually appeal to the intelligence[37]
and the emotions, to the mind and heart of the spectator. It would be
quite useless for Mr. Whistler to protest--if haply he should be so
disposed--that he never meant to put study of character and revelation
of intellect into his portrait of Mr. Carlyle, or intense pathos of
significance and tender depth of expression into the portrait of his
own venerable mother. The scandalous fact remains, that he has done
so; and in so doing has explicitly violated and implicitly abjured the
creed and the canons, the counsels and the catechism of Japan....
[Note 34: _REFLECTION:_
Because the Bard is blind, shall the Painter cease to
see?
[Illustration]]
[Note 35: _REFLECTION:_
Quite hopeless!
[Illustration]]
[Note 36: _REFLECTION:_
Whereby it would seem that, for the Bard, the lovely is
not necessarily "effective."
[Illustration]]
[Note 37: _REFLECTION:_
The "lovely," therefore, confessedly does not appeal to
the intelligence, emotions, mind, and heart of the Bard
even when aided by the "effective."
[Illustration]]
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
Of course I do mean this thing--though most imprudent
was the saying of it!--for this Art truth the Poet
resents with the people.--June 1888.
[Illustration]]
And when Mr. Whistler informs us that "there never was an artistic
period," we must reply that the statement, so far as it is true, is
the flattest of all possible truisms; for no mortal ever maintained
that there ever was a period in which all men were either good
artists or good judges of art. But when we pass from the positive to
the comparative degree of historic or retrospective criticism, we must
ask whether the lecturer means to say that there have not been times
when the general standard of taste and judgment, reason and
perception, was so much higher than at other times and such periods
may justly and accurately be defined as artistic. If he does mean to
say this, he is beyond answer and beneath confutation; in other words,
he is where an artist of Mr. Whistler's genius and a writer of Mr.
Whistler's talents can by no possibility find himself. If he does not
mean to say this, what he means to say is exactly as well worth
saying, as valuable and as important a piece of information, as the
news that Queen Anne is no more, or that two and two are not generally
supposed to make five.
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
Je reviens donc de Pontoise!
[Illustration]]
But if the light and glittering bark of this brilliant amateur in the
art of letters is not invariably steered with equal dexterity of hand
between the Scylla and Charybdis of paradox and platitude, it is
impossible that in its course it should not once and again touch
upon some point worth notice, if not exploration. Even that
miserable animal the "unattached writer" may gratefully and
respectfully recognize his accurate apprehension and his felicitous
application of well-nigh the most hackneyed verse in all the range of
Shakespeare's--which yet is almost invariably misconstrued and
misapplied--"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" and this,
as the poet goes on to explain, is that all, with one consent, prefer
worthless but showy novelties to precious but familiar possessions.
"This one chord that vibrates with all," says Mr. Whistler, who
proceeds to cite artistic examples of the lamentable fact, "this one
unspoken sympathy that pervades humanity, is--Vulgarity." But the
consequence which he proceeds to indicate and to deplore is calculated
to strike his readers with a sense of mild if hilarious astonishment.
It is that men of sound judgment and pure taste, quick feelings and
clear perceptions, most unfortunately and most inexplicably begin to
make their voices "heard in the land." Porson, as all the world knows,
observed of the Germans of his day that "in Greek" they were "sadly to
seek." It is no discredit to Mr. Whistler if this is his case also;
but then he would do well to eschew the use of a Greek term lying so
far out of the common way as the word "æsthete." Not merely the only
accurate meaning, but the only possible meaning, of that word is
nothing more, but nothing less, than this--an intelligent,
appreciative, quick-witted person; in a word, as the lexicon has it,
"one who perceives." The man who is no æsthete stands confessed,
by the logic of language and the necessity of the case, as a
thick-witted, tasteless, senseless, and impenetrable blockhead. I do
not wish to insult Mr. Whistler, but I feel bound to avow my
impression that there is no man now living who less deserves the
honour of enrolment in such ranks as these--of a seat in the synagogue
of the anæsthetic....
... Such abuse of language is possible only to the drivelling
desperation of venomous or fangless duncery: it is in higher and
graver matters, of wider bearing and of deeper import, that we find it
necessary to dispute the apparently serious propositions or assertions
of Mr. Whistler. _How far the witty tongue may be thrust into the
smiling cheek_ when the lecturer pauses to take breath between these
remarkably brief paragraphs it would be certainly indecorous and
possibly superfluous to inquire. But his theorem is unquestionably
calculated to provoke the loudest and the heartiest mirth that ever
acclaimed the advent of Momus or Erycina. For it is this--that
[38]"Art and Joy go together," _and that_[39] _tragic art is not art
at all_....
[Note 38: _REFLECTION:_
Is not, then, the funeral hymn a gladness to the singer,
if the verse be beautiful?
Certainly the funeral monument, to be worthy the
Nation's sorrow buried beneath it, must first be a joy
to the sculptor who designed it.
The Bard's reasoning is of the People. His Tragedy is
_theirs_. As one of them, the _man_ may weep--yet will
the artist rejoice--for to him is not "A thing of beauty
a joy for ever"?
[Illustration]]
[Note 39: At what point of my "_O'clock_" does Mr.
Swinburne find this last--his own inconsequence?
[Illustration]]
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
Before the marvels of centuries, silence, the only
tribute of the outsider, is by him refused--and the
dignity of ignorance lost in speech.
[Illustration]]
... The laughing Muse of the lecturer, "quam Jocus circumvolat," must
have glanced round in expectation of the general appeal, "After that
let us take breath." And having done so, they must have remembered
that they were not in a serious world; that they were in the fairyland
of fans, in the paradise of pipkins, in the limbo of blue china,
screens, pots, plates, jars, joss-houses, and all the fortuitous
frippery of Fusi-yama.
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
If an æsthete, the Bard is no collector!
[Illustration]]
It is a cruel but an inevitable Nemesis which reduces even a man of
real genius, keen-witted and sharp-sighted, to the level of the critic
Jobson, to the level of the _dotard and the dunce_, when paradox is
discoloured by personality and merriment is distorted by malevolence.(!)
No man who really knows the qualities of Mr. Whistler's best work will
imagine that he really believes the highest expression of his art to
be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer,
of Japanese womanhood as represented in its professional types of
beauty; but to all appearance he would fain persuade us that he does.
In the latter of the two portraits to which I have already referred
there is an expression of living character.... This, however, is an
exception to the general rule of Mr. Whistler's way of work: an
exception, it may be alleged, which proves the rule. A single
infraction of the moral code, a single breach of artistic law,
suffices to vitiate the position of the preacher. And this is no
slight escapade, or casual aberration; it is a full and frank
defiance, a deliberate and elaborate denial, hurled right in the
face of Japanese jocosity, flung straight in the teeth of the theory
which condemns high art, under penalty of being considered
intelligent, to remain eternally on the grin.
[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_
A keen commercial summing up--excused by the "Great
Emperor!"
[Illustration]]
If it be objected that to treat this theorem gravely is "to consider
too curiously" the tropes and the phrases of _a jester_ of genius, I
have only to answer that it very probably may be so, but that the
excuse for such error must be sought in the existence of the genius. A
man of genius is scarcely at liberty to choose whether he shall or
shall not be considered as a serious figure--one to be acknowledged
and respected as an equal or a superior, not applauded and dismissed
as _a tumbler or a clown_. And if the better part of Mr. Whistler's
work as an artist is to be accepted as the work of a serious and
intelligent creature, it would seem incongruous and preposterous to
dismiss the more characteristic points of his theory as a lecturer
with the chuckle or the shrug of mere amusement or amazement.
Moreover, if considered as a joke, a mere joke, and nothing but a
joke, this gospel of the grin has hardly matter or meaning enough in
it to support so elaborate a structure of paradoxical rhetoric. It
must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so
taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more
characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a
certain phrase of Molière's which at once passed into a proverb--"Vous
êtes orfèvre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered,
was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated to restore a
drooping young lady to mental and physical health as the present of a
handsome set of jewels. _Mr. Whistler's opinion that there is nothing
like leather--of a jovial and Japanese design--savours somewhat of the
Oriental cordwainer._
"_Et tu, Brute!_"
Why, O brother! did you not consult with me before printing, in the
face of a ribald world, _that you also misunderstand_, and are capable
of saying so, with vehemence and repetition.
Have I then left no man on his legs?--and have I shot down the singer
in the far off, when I thought him safe at my side?
Cannot the man who wrote _Atalanta_--and the _Ballads_ beautiful,--can
he not be content to spend his life with _his_ work, which should be
his love,--and has for him no misleading doubt and darkness--that he
should so stray about blindly in his brother's flowerbeds and bruise
himself!
Is life then so long with him, and _his_ art so short, that he shall
dawdle by the way and wander from his path, reducing his giant
intellect--garrulous upon matters to him unknown, that the scoffer may
rejoice and the Philistine be appeased while he takes up the
parable of the mob and proclaims himself their spokesman and
fellow-sufferer? O Brother! where is thy sting! O Poet! where is thy
victory!
How have I offended! and how shall you in the midst of your poisoned
page hurl with impunity the boomerang rebuke? "Paradox is discoloured
by personality, and merriment is distorted by malevolence."
Who are you, deserting your Muse, that you should insult my Goddess
with familiarity, and the manners of approach common to the reasoners
in the marketplace. "Hearken to me," you cry, "and I will point out
how this man, who has passed his life in her worship, is a tumbler and
a clown of the booths--how he who has produced that which I fain must
acknowledge--is a jester in the ring!"
Do we not speak the same language? Are we strangers, then, or, in our
Father's house are there so many mansions that you lose your way, my
brother, and cannot recognize your kin?
Shall I be brought to the bar by my own blood, and be borne false
witness against before the plebeian people? Shall I be made to
stultify myself by what I never said--and shall the strength of your
testimony turn upon me? "If"--"If Japanese Art is right in confining
itself to what can be broidered upon the fan" ... and again ...
"that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be
realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer"
... and further ... "the theory which condemns high art, under the
penalty of being considered intelligent, to remain eternally on the
grin" ... and much more!
"Amateur writer!" Well should I deserve the reproach, had I ventured
ever beyond the precincts of my own science--and fatal would have been
the exposure, as you, with heedless boldness, have unwittingly proven.
Art tainted with philanthropy--that better Art result!--Poet and
Peabody!
You have been misled--you have mistaken the pale demeanour and joined
hands for an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual
earnestness. For you, these are the serious ones, and, for them, you
others are the serious matter. Their joke is their work. For me--why
should I refuse myself the grim joy of this grotesque tragedy--and,
with them now, you all are my joke!
[Illustration]
_Freeing a Last Friend_
Bravo! Bard! and exquisitely written, I suppose, as becomes your
state.
[Sidenote: _The World_, June 3, 1888. Letter to Mr.
Swinburne.]
The scientific irrelevancies and solemn popularities, less elaborately
embodied, I seem to have met with before--in papers signed by more
than one serious and unqualified sage, whose mind also was not
narrowed by knowledge.
I have been "personal," you say; and, faith! you prove it!
Thank you, my dear! I have lost a _confrère_; but, then, I have gained
an acquaintance--one Algernon Swinburne--"outsider"--Putney.
[Illustration]
_An Editor's Anxiety_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 26, 1889.]
It is reported that Mr. Whistler, having received word that a drawing
of his had been rejected by the Committee of the Universal Exhibition,
arrived yesterday in Paris and withdrew all his remaining works,
including an oil painting and six drawings. The French consider that
he has been guilty of a breach of good manners. The _Paris_, for
instance, points out that, after sending his works to the jury, he
should have accepted their judgment, and appealed to the public by
other methods.
_Rassurez vous!_
_TO THE EDITOR:_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 27, 1889.]
Sir--You are badly informed--a risk you constantly run in your haste
for pleasing news.
I have not "withdrawn" my works "from the forthcoming Paris
Exhibition."
I transported my pictures from the American department to the British
section of the "Exposition Internationale," where I prefer to be
represented.
"The French" have nothing, so far, to do with English or American
exhibits.
A little paragraph is a dangerous thing.
And I am, Sir,
Chelsea.
[Illustration]
_Whistler's Grievance_
_AN ENTRAPPED INTERVIEW._
[Sidenote: _New York Herald_, Paris Edition, Oct. 3,
1889.]
The _Herald_ correspondent saw Mr. Whistler at the Hôtel Suisse, and
asked the artist about his affairs with the American Art Jury of the
Exhibition.
"I believe the _Herald_ made the statement," said Mr. Whistler, "that
I had withdrawn all my etchings and a full-length portrait from the
American section. It all came about in this way: In the first place,
before the pictures were sent in, I received a note from the American
Art Department asking me to contribute some of my work. It was at that
time difficult for me to collect many of my works; but I borrowed what
I could from different people, and sent in twenty-seven etchings and
the portrait."
"You can imagine that a few etchings do not have any effect at all; so
I sent what I could get together. Shortly afterwards I received a note
saying: 'Sir--Ten of your exhibits have not received the approval
of the jury. Will you kindly remove them?'"
"At the bottom of this note was the name 'Hawkins'--General Hawkins, I
believe--a cavalry officer, who had charge of the American Art
Department of the Exhibition.