Chapter 13

"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._

"This canvas is large and much of it vacant.

"A dim, cold light fills the room, where the flat, grey wall is only broken by a solitary picture in black and white; a piece of foldless, creaseless, Oriental flowered crape hangs from the cornice. And here, in this solemn chamber, sits the lady in mournful garb. The picture has found few admirers among the thousands who seek to while away the hours at Burlington House, and for this result the painter has only to thank himself."--_Times._

"'Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother,' is another of Mr. Whistler's experiments.

"It is not a picture, and we fail to discover any _object_ that the artist can have in view in restricting himself almost entirely to black and grey."--_Examiner._

"The 'arrangement' is stiff and ugly enough to repel many."--_Hour._

"Before such pictures as the full-length portraits by Mr. Whistler, critic and spectator are alike puzzled. Criticism and admiration seem alike impossible, and the mind vacillates between a feeling that the artist is playing a practical joke upon the spectator, or that the painter is suffering from some peculiar optical delusion. After all, there are certain accepted canons about what constitutes good drawing, good colour, and good painting, and when an artist deliberately sets himself to ignore or violate all of these, it is desirable that his work should not be classed with that of ordinary artists."--_Times._

"He that telleth a tale to ... Carlyle's majority speaketh to one in a slumber: when he hath told his tale he will say, What is the matter?"

_RÉSUMÉ._

"It is impossible to take Mr. Whistler seriously."

_Advertiser._

"A combination of circumstances has, within the last year or two, brought the name and work of Mr. Whistler into special publicity....

"At the Grosvenor Gallery the less desirable of his designs aroused the inconsiderate ire of a man of genius and splendid authority.

"If it be Mr. Whistler's theory that that which all the world of greatest artists (?) has mistaken for mere means has been in very seriousness the end, then the aim of Art is immeasurably lowered!...

"If there be anything to the point, it is to implore us to take a stone for bread, and the grammar of a language in place of its literature.

"Mr. Whistler has assumed that it is only the painter who is occupied with art.... Unless he is a very exceptional man.... If he is not of the school of Fulham, he is of the school of Holland Park, or of the Grove End Road.

"Has he, like Mr. Ruskin, devoted thirty years of a poet's life to the Galleries of Europe?

"Has he, like Diderot, inquired curiously into the meaning and message of this thing and that? And _appreciating Greuze_, been able to _appreciate Chardin_?(!!)"

_Mr. Wedmore, "Nineteenth Century."_

"Mr. Ruskin's whole body of doctrine, from the very young days, in which he took the duty of teacher, on to his old age, was contradicted by Mr. Whistler's pictures."--_Merrie England._

"In painting, his success is infrequent, and it is limited.

"In painting, Mr. Whistler is an impressionist. His best painting betrays something of that almost modern sensitiveness to pleasurable juxtapositions of delicate colour which we admire in Orchardson, in Linton (_sic!_), and in Albert Moore; it betrays, sometimes, as in a portrait of Miss Alexander, a deftness of brushwork in the wave of a feather, in the curve of a hat ... and of high art qualities it betrays not much besides.

"It is true that the originality of his painted work is somewhat apt to be dependent on the innocent error that confuses the beginning with the end, accepts the intention for the execution, and exalts an adroit sketch into the rank of a permanent picture."

_F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."_

"I think Mr. Whistler had great powers at first, which he has not since justified."

_Mr. Jones, R.A. Evidence in Court, Nov. 16, 1878._

"The right time and the right place for the conspicuousness of an Impressionist were undoubtedly England, and the moment when Mr. Whistler rose up and astonished her.

"In Paris he was one of many, though he would be at peace in France, that peace would not be unattended with a certain comparative obscurity.

"Inconspicuous solitude would not have had the same charms for him."--_Merrie England._

"Au musée du Luxembourg, vient d'être placé, de M. WHISTLER, le splendide _Portrait de Mme Whistler mère_, une oeuvre destinée à l'éternité des admirations, une oeuvre sur laquelle la consécration des siècles semble avoir mis la patine d'un Rembrandt, d'un Titien ou d'un Velasquez."--_Chronique des Beaux-Arts._

MORAL.

"Modern _British_ (!) art will now be represented in the National Gallery of the Luxembourg by one of the finest paintings due to the brush of an _English_ (!) artist, namely, Mr. Whistler's portrait of his mother."--_Illustrated London News._

_A Zealous Inquirer_

"A brown-paper covered catalogue ... compiled by Mr. Whistler....

[Sidenote: _The World_, Mar. 23, 1892.]

"Several opinions (and his 'evidence at Westminster') are quoted of 'Mr Jones, R.A.,' in the year 1878. Who is Mr. Jones, R.A.? Mr. Jones, R.A. (of whom the Duke of Wellington--but no matter...), died in 1869. Mr Burne-Jones was not elected an A.R.A. until 1885. I am afraid I expose myself, but I still venture to ask, who is 'Mr Jones, R.A.'?"

_Final Acknowledgments_

[Sidenote: _The World_, Mar. 30, 1892.]

Atlas,--Your correspondent proposes that "Mr. Jones, R.A." is not R.A.--but _A._R.A.

_You_ know these things, Atlas--perhaps he is right, and curiously microscopic--for surely here we have "a difference without a distinction!"

However, R.A. or A.R.A., and, in my opinion he deserves to be both, I personally owe Mr. Jones a friendly gratitude which I am pleased to acknowledge; for rare indeed is the courage with which, on the first public occasion, he sacrificed himself, in the face of all-astounded etiquette, and future possible ridicule, in order to help write the history of another.

These things we like to remember, Atlas, you and I--the bright things, the droll things, the charming things of this pleasant life--and here, too, in this lovely land they are understood--and keenly appreciated.

As to those others--alas! I am afraid we have done with them. It was our amusement to convict--they thought we cared to convince!

_Allons!_ They have served our wicked purpose--Atlas, we "collect" no more.

"_Autres gens, autres moeurs._"

PARIS, _March 26, 1892_.

_FINIS_

_INDEX_

_Action, The_, 2.

_Admission, An_, 71.

_Advanced Critic, An_, 244.

_Advantage of Explanation, The_, 245.

_Another Poacher in the Chelsea Preserves_, 233.

_Apology, An_, 107.

_Apostasy, An_, 250.

_'Arry in the Grosvenor_, 72.

_Art Critic of the "Times," The_, 35.

_Art Critic's Friend, The_, 277.

"_Aussi que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?_", 225.

_Auto-biographical_, 288.

"_Autre Temps autre Moeurs_", 189.

_"Balaam's Ass"_, 41.

_Committee of the "National Art Exhibition," To the_, 164.

_Complacent One, The_, 196.

_"Confidences" with an Editor_, 47.

_Conviction_, 88.

_Correction, A_, 66.

_Critic "Catching on," The_, 194.

_Critic's Analysis_, 44.

_Critic's "Copy"_, 50.

_Critic's Mind Considered, The_, 45.

_Critic-flâneur, The_, 197.

_Distinction, A_, 119.

_Document, A_, 121.

_Eager Authority, An_, 70.

_Early Laurels_, 176.

_Easy Expert, The_, 113.

_Editor's Anxiety, An_, 264.

_Embroidered Interview, An_, 219.

_Encouragement_, 74.

_End of the Piece, The_, 282.

_Etchings and Dry-points_, 93.

"_Et tu, Brute!_", 259.

_Exit the Prompter_, 283.

_Exploded Plot, The_, vii.

_Extraordinary Piratical Plot, An_, v.

_Fate of an Anecdote, The_, 81.

_Final_, 39.

_Final Acknowledgments_, 333.

_Freeing a Last Friend_, 262.

_Full Absolution_, 46.

_Further Proposition, A_, 177.

_Great Literary Curiosity, A_, ix.

_Habit of Second Natures, The_, 236.

_Hint, A_, 118.

_Home of Taste, The_, 230.

_Imputation, An_, 188.

_Inconsequences_, 79.

_Inevitable, The_, 173.

_In Excelsis_, 86.

_Ingratitude_, 195.

_Insinuation, An_, 187.

_Interview with an Ex-President, An_, 205.

_"Jeux Innocents" in Tite Street_, 110.

_Just Indignation_, 243.

_Last Effort, A_, x.

_La Suite_, 61.

_Later_, 54.

_L'Envoi_, 285.

"_Les points sur les i_", 130.

_Line from the Land's End, A_, 111.

_Market Place, In the_, 239.

_Mr. Whistler and his Critics_, 91.

_Mr. Whistler "had on his own Toast"_, 289.

_Mr. Whistler's Paper Hunt_, viii.

_Mr. Whistler's "Ten o'Clock"_, 131.

_Naïf Enfant_, 68.

_New Dynasty, The_, 218.

_"Noblesse oblige"_, 174.

_Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet Pieces_, 293.

_Nostalgia_, 184.

"_Nous avons changé tout cela!_", 169.

_Official Bumbledom_, 223.

_Official Letter, An_, 229.

_Opportunity, An_, 181.

_Opportunity Neglected, The_, 183.

_Painter-Etcher Papers, The_, 52.

_"Pall Mall" Puzzled, The_, 221.

_Panic_, 241.

_Philanthropy and Art_, 166.

_Played-out Policy, A_, 199.

_Point Acknowledged, The_, 43.

_Position, The_, 37.

_Professor Ruskin's Group_, 20.

_Prologue_, 1.

_Proposal, A_, 51.

_Propositions_, 76.

_Propositions--No. 2_, 115.

_Publisher's Note_, iii.

_Quand même!_, 165.

_Question, A_, 279.

_Rassurez vous!_, 265.

_Rebuke, A_, 129.

_Red Rag, The_, 126.

_Remonstrance, A_, 75.

"_Rengaines!_", 161.

_Retrospect, A_, 213.

_Royal Society of British Artists and their Signboard_, 226.

_Sacrilege_, 124.

_Seizure of Mr. Whistler's Pirated Writings_, vi.

_Serious Sarcasm_, 38.

_Statistics_, 211.

_Straight Tip, A_, 69.

_Suggestion, A_, 235.

_Suspicion, A_, 87.

_Taking the Bait_, 106.

_Talent in a Napkin_, 193.

_Tenderness in Tite Street_, 162.

_Testimony_, 247.

_Troubled One, A_, 46.

_Unanswered Letter, An_, 78.

_Uncovered Opinions_, 80.

_Warning, A_, 67.

_"Whacking Whistler"_, 269.

_What "Mr. Whistler had on his own Toast"_, 291.

_Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics_, 21.

_Whistler's Grievance_, 266, 273.

_Zealous Inquirer, A_, 332.