The London public is never left for many days without a _cause celebre_
of some kind. The latest novelty in this line has been the suit for
damages brought against Mr. Ruskin by Mr. James Whistler, the American
painter, and decided last week. Mr. Whistler is very well known in the
London world, and his conspicuity, combined with the renown of the
defendant and the nature of the case, made the affair the talk of the
moment. All the newspapers have had leading articles upon it, and people
have differed for a few hours more positively than it had come to be
supposed that they could differ about anything save the character of the
statesmanship of Lord Beaconsfield. The injury suffered by Mr. Whistler
resides in a paragraph published more than a year ago in that strange
monthly manifesto called _Fors Clavigera_, which Mr. Ruskin had for a
long time addressed to a partly edified, partly irritated, and greatly
amused public. Mr. Ruskin spoke at some length of the pictures at the
Grosvenor Gallery, and, falling foul of Mr. Whistler, he alluded to him
in these terms:
"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
200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."
Mr. Whistler alleged that these words were libellous, and that, coming
from a critic of Mr. Ruskin's eminence, they had done him,
professionally, serious injury; and he asked for L1,000 damage. The case
had a two days' hearing, and it was a singular and most regrettable
exhibition. If it had taken place in some Western American town, it
would have been called provincial and barbarous; it would have been
cited as an incident of a low civilisation. Beneath the stately towers
of Westminster it hardly wore a higher aspect.
A British jury of ordinary tax-payers was appealed to decide whether Mr.
Whistler's pictures belonged to a high order of art, and what degree of
"finish" was required to render a picture satisfactory. The painter's
singular canvases were handed about in court, and the counsel for the
defence, holding one of them up, called upon the jury to pronounce
whether it was an "accurate representation" of Battersea Bridge.
Witnesses were summoned on either side to testify to the value of Mr.
Whistler's productions, and Mr. Ruskin had the honour of having his
estimate of them substantiated by Mr. Frith. The weightiest testimony,
the most intelligently, and apparently the most reluctantly delivered,
was that of Mr. Burne Jones, who appeared to appreciate the ridiculous
character of the process to which he had been summoned (by the defence)
to contribute, and who spoke of Mr. Whistler's performance as only in a
partial sense of the word pictures--as being beautiful in colour, and
indicating an extraordinary power of representing the atmosphere, but as
being also hardly more than beginnings, and fatally deficient in finish.
For the rest the crudity and levity of the whole affair were decidedly
painful, and few things, I think, have lately done more to vulgarise the
public sense of the character of artistic production.
The jury gave Mr. Whistler nominal damages. The opinion of the
newspapers seems to be that he has got at least all he deserved--that
anything more would have been a blow at the liberty of criticism. I
confess to thinking it hard to decide what Mr. Whistler ought properly
to have done, while--putting aside the degree of one's appreciation of
his works--I quite understand his resentment. Mr. Ruskin's language
quite transgresses the decencies of criticism, and he has been laying
about him for some years past with such promiscuous violence that it
gratifies one's sense of justice to see him brought up as a disorderly
character. On the other hand, he is a chartered libertine--he has
possessed himself by prescription of the function of a general scold.
His literary bad manners are recognised, and many of his contemporaries
have suffered from them without complaining. It would very possibly,
therefore, have been much wiser on Mr. Whistler's part to feign
indifference. Unfortunately, Mr. Whistler's productions are so very
eccentric and imperfect (I speak here of his paintings only; his
etchings are quite another affair, and altogether admirable) that his
critic's denunciation could by no means fall to the ground of itself. I
wonder that before a British jury they had any chance whatever; they
must have been a terrible puzzle.
The verdict, of course, satisfies neither party; Mr. Ruskin is formally
condemned, but the plaintiff is not compensated. Mr. Ruskin too,
doubtless, is not gratified at finding that the fullest weight of his
disapproval is thought to be represented by the sum of one farthing.