'Arrangements,' and which look like ghosts."
_Truth._
"Some figure pieces, which this artist exhibits as 'harmonies' in
this, that, or the other, being, as they are, mere rubs-in of colour,
have no claim to be regarded as pictures."--_Scotsman._
"We are threatened with a Whistler exhibition. The periodical
inflictions with which this gentleman tries the patience of a
long-suffering public generally take some fantastic form to
attract attention. It is an evidence of the painter's worldly
acuteness that this should be so, for public attention may be drawn by
such outbursts of eccentricity to such work as would never impress
sensible people on its bare merit."--_Oracle._
9.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND SILVER.
_Lent by Mrs. Leyland._
"It seems to us a pity that an artist of Mr. Whistler's known ability
should exhibit such an extraordinary collection of pictile
nightmares."--_Society._
"MR. BOWEN: 'Do you consider detail and composition essential to a
work of art?'
"MR. JONES: 'Most certainly I do.'
"MR. BOWEN: 'Then what detail and composition do you find in this
"Nocturne"?'
"MR. JONES: 'Absolutely none.'
"MR. BOWEN: 'Do you think two hundred guineas a large price for that
picture?'
"MR. JONES: 'Yes, when you think of the amount of earnest work done
for a smaller sum.'"
_Evidence of Mr. Jones, R.A.,
Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878._
10.--NOCTURNE.
IN BLACK AND GOLD--THE FALLING ROCKET.
"A dark bluish surface, with dots on it, and the faintest adumbrations
of shape under the darkness, is gravely called a Nocturne in Black and
Gold."
_Knowledge._
"His Nocturne, black and gold, 'The Falling Rocket,' shows such wilful
and headlong perversity that one is almost disposed to despair of an
artist who, in a sane moment [_sic_], could send such a daub to any
exhibition."--_Telegraph._
"For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the
purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into
the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly
approached the aspect of 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."
_Professor John Ruskin,
July 2, 1877._
"The 'Nocturne in black and gold' is not a serious work to me."
_Mr. Firth, R.A.--Evidence at Westminster,
Nov. 16, 1878._
"The 'Nocturne in black and gold,' I do not think a serious work
of art."
_The Art Critic of the "Times."
Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878._
"The Nocturne in black and gold has not the merit of the other two
pictures, and it would be impossible to call it a serious work of art.
Mr. Whistler's picture is only one of the thousand failures to paint
night. The picture is not worth two hundred guineas."
_Evidence of Mr. Jones, R.A.
Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878._
11.--NOCTURNE--OPAL AND SILVER.
_Lent by H. Theobald, Esq._
"With what feelings must we regard the mad new style, the Nocturnes in
'Blue and Silver,' the Harmonies in Flesh-colour and Pink, the Notes
in Blue and Opal."--_Knowledge._
"The blue and black smudges which purport to depict the 'Thames at
Night.'"--_Life._
12.--HARMONY IN GREEN AND ROSE.
THE MUSIC ROOM.
_Lent by Madame Reveillon._
"He paints in soot-colours and mud-colours, but, far from enjoying
primary hues, has little or no perception of the loveliness of
secondary or tertiary colour."--_Merrie England._
13.--CREPUSCULE IN FLESH COLOUR AND GREEN.
VALPARAISO.
_Lent by Graham Robertson, Esq._
"Now, the best achievement of The Impressionist School, to which Mr.
Whistler belongs [_sic_], is the rendering of air--not air made
palpable and comparatively easy to paint, by fog--but atmosphere which
is the medium of light."--_Merrie England._
14.--CAPRICE IN PURPLE AND GOLD.
THE GOLD SCREEN.
_Lent by Cyril Flower, Esq., M.P._
"I take it to be admitted by those who do not conclude that art is
necessarily great which has the misfortune to be unacceptable, that it
is not by his paintings so much as by his etchings that Mr. Whistler's
name may aspire to live."--_F. Wedmore._
15.--SYMPHONY IN GREY AND GREEN.
THE OCEAN.
_Lent by Mrs. Peter Taylor._
"In Mr. Whistler's picture, 'Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean,'
the composition is ugly, the sky opaque, the suggestion of sea leaden
and without light or motion."--_Times._
"Mr. Whistler continues these experiments in colour which are now
known as 'Symphonies.' It may be questioned whether these performances
are to be highly valued, except as feats accomplished under needless
and self-imposed restrictions--much as writing achieved by the feet of
a penman who has not been deprived of the use of his hands."--_Graphic._
"We can paint a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could
take them up; but we cannot imitate the Ocean or the Alps. We can
imitate fruit, but not a tree; flowers, but not a pasture;
cut-glass, but not the rainbow."--_John Ruskin, Esq., Teacher of
Art._
[Sidenote: [Illustration]]
16.--NOCTURNE.
GREY AND GOLD--CHELSEA SNOW.
_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._
"Mr. Whistler sends two of his studies of moonlight, in which form is
eschewed for harmonies of 'Grey and Gold' and 'Blue and Silver;'
and which, for the crowd of exhibition visitors, resolve themselves
into riddles or mystifications.... In a word, painting to Mr. Whistler
is the exact correlative of music, as vague, as purely emotional, as
released from all functions of representation.
"He is really building up art out of his own imperfections [_sic!_]
instead of setting himself to supply them."--_Times._
17.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND SILVER--BATTERSEA REACH.
_Lent by W. G. Rawlinson, Esq._
"J. M. Whistler is here again with his nocturnes."
_Scotsman._
18.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND SILVER--CHELSEA.
_Lent by W. C. Alexander, Esq._
"Mr. Whistler confines himself to two small canvases of the nocturne
kind. One is covered with smudgy blue and the other with dirty black."
_Saturday Review._
"A reputation, for a time, imperilled by original absurdity"--_F.
Wedmore, "Academy."_
"I think Mr. Wedmore takes the Nocturnes and Arrangements too
seriously. They are merely first beginnings of pictures, differing
from ordinary first beginnings in having no composition. The great
originality was in venturing to exhibit them."
_P. G. Hamerton, "Academy."_
19.--NOCTURNE.
GREY AND GOLD--WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.
_Lent by the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham._
"Two of Mr. Whistler's 'colour symphonies'--a 'Nocturne in Blue and
Gold' and a 'Nocturne in Black and Gold.' If he did not exhibit these
as pictures under peculiar and, what seems to most people, pretentious
titles, they would be entitled to their due meed of admiration
[_sic!_]. But they only come one step nearer pictures than delicately
graduated tints on a wall-paper do.
"He must not attempt, with that happy, half-humorous audacity which
all his dealings with his own works suggests, to palm off his
deficiencies upon us as manifestations of power."--_Daily Telegraph._
20.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND GOLD--SOUTHAMPTON WATER.
_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._
"There is always danger that efforts of this class may degenerate into
the merely tricky and meretricious; and already a suspicion arises
that the artist's eccentricity is somewhat too premeditated and
self-conscious."--_Graphic._
21.--BLUE AND SILVER.
BLUE WAVE--BIARRITZ.
_Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq._
"Mr. Whistler is possessed of much audacity and eccentricity, and
these are useful qualities in an artist who desires to be talked
about. When he comes out into the open, and deals with daylight, we
find these studies to be only the first washes of pictures. He leaves
off where other artists begin. He shirks all the difficulties ahead,
and asks the spectator to complete the picture himself."--_Daily
Telegraph._
"The absence, seemingly, of any power, such as the great marine
painters had, of drawing forms of water, whether in a broad and
wind-swept tidal river or on the high seas...."
_F. Wedmore,
"Nineteenth Century."_
22.--ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN.
MISS ROSA CORDER.
_Lent by Graham Robertson, Esq._
"It is bad enough, in all conscience, to be caricatured by the gifted
pencil and brushes of the admirable Whistler; and it is surely adding
insult to injury to describe the victims and sufferers as
'Arrangements.' With regard to Mr. Whistler's Symphonies, Harmonies,
and so on, we will relate a parable. Here it is:--A lively young
donkey sang a sweet love song to the dawn, and so disturbed all the
neighbourhood, that the neighbours went to the donkey and begged him
to desist. He continued his braying for some time, and then ended with
what appeared, to his own ears, a flourish of surpassing brilliancy.
"Will you be good enough to give over that hideous noise?" said the
neighbours.
"'Good Olympus!' said the donkey, 'did you say hideous noise? Why,
that is a "Symphony," which means a concord of sweet sounds, as you
may see by referring to any dictionary.'
"'But,' said the neighbours, 'we do _not_ think that "Symphony" is the
word to describe your performance. "Cacophony" would be more correct,
and that means "a bad set of sounds."'
"'How absurdly you talk!' said the donkey. 'I will refer it to my
fellow-asses, and let them decide.'
"The donkeys decided that the young donkey's song was a most
symphonious and harmonious, sweet song; so he continues to bray as
melodiously as ever. There is, we believe, a moral to this parable, if
we only knew what it was. Perhaps the piercing eye of the '_Nocturnal_
Whistler' may find it out."--_Echo._
"Miss Rosa Corder, and Mr. H. Irving as Philip, are two large blotches
of dark canvas. When I have time I am going again to find out which is
Rose and which is Irving.
"The rest of the collection is marred by the impatience which has
prevented his achieving any finished work of Art."--_Weekly Press._
23.--"HARMONY IN GREY AND GREEN."
PORTRAIT OF MISS ALEXANDER.
_Lent by W. Alexander, Esq._
"A sketch of Miss Alexander, in which much must be
imagined."--_Standard._
"There is character in it, but it is unpleasant character. Of anything
like real flesh tones the painting is quite innocent."--_Builder._
"But what can we say of Mr. Whistler? His portrait of Miss
Alexander is certainly one of the strangest and most eccentric
specimens of Portraiture we ever saw. If we were unacquainted with his
singular theories of Art, we should imagine he had merely made a
sketch and left it, before the colours were dry, in a room where
chimney-sweeps were at work.... Nobody who sets any value upon the
roses and lilies that adorn the cheeks of our blooming girls can
accept such murky tints as these as representative of a young English
lady"--_Era._
"It is simply a disagreeable presentment of a disagreeable young
lady."--_Liverpool Weekly Mercury._
"Mr. Whistler again appears on the walls with a characteristic
full-length life-size portrait of a girl, Miss Alexander.
"This work is devoid of colour, being arranged in Black and White and
intermediate tones of grey. The general effect is dismal in the
extreme, and one cannot but wonder how an artist of undoubted talent
should wilfully persist in such perversities of judgment."--_Western
Daily Mercury._
"Miss Alexander, almost in Black and White, and about the most
unattractive piece of work in the Galleries."--_Edinburgh Daily
Review._
"A 'gruesomeness in Grey.'
"Well, bless thee, J. Whistler! We do not hanker after your brush
system. Farewell!"--_Punch._
"'AN ARRANGEMENT IN SILVER AND BILE.'
"The artist has represented this bilious young lady as looking haughty
in a dirty white dress, a grey polonaise, bound by a grey green sash,
a grey hat, with the most unhealthy green feather; furthermore, she
wears black shoes with green bows, and stands defiantly on a grey
floor cloth, opposite a grey wall with a black dado. Two dyspeptic
butterflies hover wearily above her head in search _of a bit of
colour_ ... evidently losing heart at the grey expanse around.... A
picture should charm, not depress, it should tend to elevate our
thoughts!"--_Society._
"This picture represents a child of ten, and is called a harmony in
grey and green, but the prevailing tone is a rather unpleasant yellow,
and the complexion of the face is wholly unchildlike."--_Echo._
"A large etching in oil, a 'Rhapsody in Raw Child and Cobwebs,' by Mr.
Whistler."--_Artist._
"Mr. Whistler is as spectral as ever in an unattractive portrait of an
awkward little girl, happily not rendered additionally ridiculous by a
musical title."
_Bedford Observer._
"Flattery is objectionable in art as elsewhere, but some portrait
painters seem to find it impossible to tell the truth without being
rude."--_Academy._
"Mr. Whistler has a portrait of a young lady that excites absolute
astonishment.
"What charm can there be in such colours as these? What effect do they
produce which would not have been better by warmer and less repulsive
tints?"
_Leeds Mercury._
"Mr. Whistler's single contribution is a child's portrait, posed and
painted in a rather distant, if obsequious, imitation of the manner of
Velasquez, the great difference being that whereas the Spaniard's work
is most remarkable for supreme distinction, the present portrait is
uncompromisingly vulgar."
_Magazine of Art._
24.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND SILVER--BOGNOR.
_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._
"We protest against those foppish airs and affectations by which Mr.
Whistler impresses on us his contempt of public opinion. In landscape
he contributes what he persists in calling a Nocturne in 'Blue and
Silver,' and a Nocturne in 'Black and Gold' which is a mere
insult to the intelligence of his admirers. It is very difficult to
believe that Mr. Whistler is not openly laughing at us."--_Pall Mall
Gazette._
25.--NOCTURNE.
BATTERSEA REACH.
_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._
"Under the same roof with Mr. Whistler's strange productions is the
collection of animal paintings done by various artists for the
proprietors of the _Graphic_, and very refreshing it is to turn into
this agreeably lighted room and rest on comfortable settees whilst
looking at 'Mother Hubbard's Dog,' or the sweet little pussy cats in
the 'Happy Family.'"
_Liverpool Courier._
"A few smears of colour, such as a painter might make in cleaning his
paint brushes, and which, neither near at hand nor far off, neither
from one side nor from the other, nor from in front, do more than
vaguely suggest a shore and bay, was described as a Note in Blue and
Brown.... One who found these pictures other than insults to his
artistic sense could never be reached by reasoning."--_Knowledge._
26.--GREEN AND GREY.
CHANNEL.
_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._
27.--PINK AND GREY.
CHELSEA.
_Lent by Cyril Flower, Esq., M.P._
"... of the insolent madness of that school of which Mr. Whistler is the
most peccant--we wish we could say the only--representative."--_Knowledge._
28.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND GOLD--VALPARAISO.
_Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq._
"'A Nocturne' or two by Mr. Whistler--and here we have it in the usual
style--a daub of blue and a spot or two of yellow to illustrate ships
at sea on a dark night, and a splash and splutter of brightness on a
black ground to depict a display of fireworks."
_Norwich Argus._
29.--GREEN AND GREY.
THE OYSTER SMACKS--EVENING.
_Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq._
"Other people paint localities; Mr. Whistler makes artistic
experiments."--_Academy._
30.--GREY AND BLACK.
SKETCH.
_Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq._
31.--BROWN AND SILVER.
OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE.
_Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq._
"Nor can I imagine any one acquainted with Mr. Whistler's works
speaking of any of them as 'completed.'"--_Letter to "Pall Mall."_
32.--NOCTURNE.
BLACK AND GOLD.
33.--SYMPHONY IN WHITE, No. 11.
THE LITTLE WHITE GIRL.
_Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq._
"Another picture, 'The Little White Girl' was exhibited about the same
time, containing the germ of that paradoxical Whistlerian humour
lately so fully exemplified in various places about London. It was
called 'A Little White Girl' in the catalogue, and yet its colour
generally was grimy grey."--_London._
"The white girl was standing at the side of a mirror where the laws of
incidence and refraction would unfortunately not permit her to see her
own beauty."
_Merrie England._
34.--NOCTURNE.
BLUE AND SILVER--CREMORNE LIGHTS.
_Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq._
"I have expressed, and still adhere to the opinion, that these
pictures only come one step nearer than a delicately tinted wall
paper."
_The Art Critic of the "Times"
Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878._
"Paintings, like some of the 'Nocturnes' and some of the 'Arrangements,'
are defended only by a generous self-deception, when it is urged
for them that they will be famous to-morrow because they are not famous
to-day."
_Mr. Wedmore,
"Nineteenth Century."_
35.--GREY AND SILVER.
CHELSEA WHARF.
_Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq._
36.--GREY AND SILVER.
OLD BATTERSEA REACH.
_Lent by Madame Coronio._
37.--BLUE AND SILVER.
"He has no atmosphere and no light. Instead of air he studies various
kinds of fog--and his 'values' are the relative powers of darkness,
not of light. He never paints a sky."--_Merrie England._
38.--NOCTURNE.
_BLUE AND GOLD--ST. MARK'S, VENICE._
_Lent by Monsieur Gallimard._
"The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in
the whole range of art....
"... It gives no one single architectural ornament, however
near--so much form as might enable us even to guess at its
actual one; and this I say not rashly, for I shall prove it
by placing portions of detail accurately copied from Canaletto
side by side with engravings from the daguerreotype.
"... There is _no_ stone drawing, _no_ vitality of architecture
like Prout's."--_Prof. Ruskin, Art Teacher._
[Sidenote: [Illustration]]
"In Mr. Whistler's productions one might safely say that there is no
culture."--_Athenæum._
"Imagine a man of genius following in the wake of
Whistler!"--_Oracle._
"The measure of originality has at times been overrated through the
innocent error of the budding amateur, who in the earlier stage of his
enlightenment confuses the beginning with the end, accepts the
intention for the adequate fulfilment, and exalts an adroit sketch
into the rank of a permanent picture."
_F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."_
39.--CREPUSCULE IN OPAL.
_Lent by Fred. Jameson, Esq._
"Mr. Whistler is eminently an 'Impressionist.' The final business of
art is not with 'impressions.' We want not 'impressionists' but
'expressionists,' men who can say what they mean because they know
what they have heard. [_Sic!_]
"We want not always the blotches and misty suggestions of the
impressionist, _&c._"--_Artist._
40.--HARMONY IN FLESH COLOUR AND GREEN.
THE BALCONY.
_Lent by John Cavafy, Esq., M.D._
"It is perhaps a little difficult for any critic to be quite
absolutely just to Mr. Whistler at present, on account of his
eccentricities and his apparent determination to make us forget the
qualities of the artist in our amusement at the freaks and fancies of
the man."--_P. G. Hamerton, in the "Academy."_
"_A Variation in Flesh Colour and Green._ The damsels--they were not
altogether meritorious. The draughtsmanship displayed in them was
anything but 'searching.'"--_F. Wedmore._
"At about the same time the artist exhibited other sketches (we ask
indulgence for the word) of a like character, notes of impressions of
white dresses, furniture, balconies, and incidental faces and
figures."
_Merrie England._
"The 'evolution principle' has been visibly in operation for a dozen
years or so in the successive Whistlers put before the public during
that time. First of all we remember pictures of ladies pale and
attenuate poring with tender interest over vermilion scarfs. The taint
of realism was on them, but even in them were hints of the pensive
humour that was to fetch mankind in the well-known 'arrangements' at a
later time. A good deal was left to the spectator's imagination even
in them."--_London._
"We note his predilections for dinginess and dirt."
_Weekly Press._
41.--ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK.
LA DAME AU BRODEQUIN JAUNE.
"All these pictures strike us alike.
"They seem like half-materialised ghosts at a spiritualistic _séance_.
I cannot help wondering when they will gain substance and appear more
clearly out of their environing fog, or when they will melt altogether
from my attentive gaze."--_Echo._
"He has placed one of his portraits on an asphalte floor and against a
coal-black background, the whole apparently representing a dressy
woman in an _inferno_ of the worldly."--_Merrie England._
"Mr. Whistler has a capricious rendering of a lady dressed in black,
in a black recess, on a dark green floor. She is turning affectedly
half-round towards the spectator as she buttons the _gant de
suède_ upon her left hand, _&c._ _&c._ Its obvious affectations render
the work displeasing."--_Morning Advertiser._
42.--ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK.
THOMAS CARLYLE.
_Lent by the Corporation of Glasgow._
"The purpose of this picture is a form of hero-worship which would
certainly not have received the approbation of Carlyle.
"... This very doubtful masterpiece--unhappy ratepayers of
Glasgow."--_Dundee Advertiser._
"... and to have recorded on a doleful canvas the head and figure of
Carlyle...."--_F. Wedmore._
"... The rugged simplicity of Mr. Carlyle ... to have painted these
things alone--however strange their mannerism or incomplete their
technique."
_Nineteenth Century._
"The portentous purchase by the civic authorities of Mr. Whistler's
senile Carlyle renders it necessary for that section of the community
who are not enamoured of Impressionism to watch with some vigilance
the next steps taken by that body towards the formation of the
permanent collection.
"A portrait which omits entirely to bring out the individuality of
the sitter, stands but little chance of recognition even from
immediate posterity."
_Letter to "Glasgow Herald," March 4, 1892._
"We cannot forget his encounter some years ago with Mr. Ruskin, nor
the contemptuous terms in which that foremost of art critics denounced
his work. It has been left to Glasgow to rectify Mr. Ruskin's blunder
in this matter, and it vindicates the merits of the American artist
over whose artistic vagaries--his nocturnes and harmonies in blue and
gold--the _whole press of Britain_ made merry."
_Dundee Advertiser._
"There is, among portraits of great writers, Mr. Whistler's portrait
of Carlyle. It is a picture whose story is complete, whose honours
have been gathered abroad--in Paris, in Brussels, in Munich. Its
destiny has been accomplished; it belongs to the City of Glasgow, and
from the corporation of that city was borrowed for the Victorian
Exhibition. The corporation lent it in good faith; the borrowers have
treated it with all the indignity it is in their power to bestow on
it.
"Could there be a better epitome of the recent history of art in
England? One work of Mr. Whistler's is received with high honour
in the Luxembourg on its way to the Louvre; and at that very moment
another work of his, worthy to rank with the first, is hoist with
equally high disrespect to the ceiling of a gallery in London."--_N.
Y. Tribune, Jan. 17, 1892._
43.--HARMONY IN PINK AND GREY.
PORTRAIT OF LADY MEUX.
_Lent by Sir Henry Meux._
"Portrait of Mrs. Meux, in which it was not so much the face as the
figure and the movement that came to be deftly suggested, if hardly
elaborately expressed."--_F. Wedmore._
"All Mr. Whistler's work is unfinished. It is sketchy. He no doubt
possesses artistic qualities, and he has got appreciation of qualities
of tone; but he is not complete, and all his works are in the nature
of sketching."
_The Art Critic of the "Times,"
Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878._
44.--ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK.
PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER'S MOTHER.
_Photograph of Picture._