Part 13

Later, too, visitors to the winter exhibitions of oil pictures at the Dudley Gallery were surprised by certain "Nocturnes," visions of the Thames in misty twilight with shadowy bridges and ghostly figures and gliding barges, illuminated by twinkling golden lights; these were set in moulded frames of unusual refinement, in green and other tones of gold to suit the key of colour in the picture, and painted on the flat with decorative patterns of a Japanese character in dull blue, including a mysterious unit of pattern or mark, afterwards known as "The Butterfly," and used as a signature upon all Whistler's works.

Then there was a "one man show" in a gallery in Pall Mall (No. 48), opposite Marlborough House, in which "Old Battersea Bridge, Nocturne in blue and gold" loomed large, I remember, and the town was surprised by something fresh in the decorative arrangement of the exhibition, yellow and gray predominating, if I remember rightly, relieved with blue pots and palms. This is mentioned in the Life at p. 179. Then came the famous "Peacock Room" in Prince's Gate, which chiefly sustains Whistler's repute as what one may call a practical decorator. It is to be deplored that the room itself was not more beautiful in structure and arrangement, cut up as it was with fidgetty details, with pendants from the ceiling and shelves for china. Still, of course, the business of a decorator is to adapt his scheme to the place decorated, and certainly this was done quite thoroughly by Whistler, and the blue and gold scheme was worked out very consistently and ingeniously upon the theme of the peacock.

It seems rather pitiful to read of the miserable squabbles over the money, and the personalities and petty spite, however seasoned with the wit of the artist, which seemed to raise a cloud of dust around every transaction in which Whistler was concerned.

A little later, at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, he is in the limelight again, and this time is fallen foul of by John Ruskin.

Much as one may owe to that great writer, and while, however biassed or occasionally mistaken, the wholesome and ennobling influence of his work on the whole must be acknowledged, there could be no justification for his very injudicious and uncritical pronouncement upon that nocturne of Whistler's, but it only meant that Ruskin, as might be supposed, was utterly out of sympathy with that form of art, and did not understand it.

Yet great as was the provocation, it would surely have been more dignified for the artist attacked to have let the words recoil upon the writer, and to have confidently awaited the verdict of time, rather than to have dragged the matter into a law-court to be made game of by counsel, judge, and jury, an utterly incompetent tribunal to form any serious opinion upon a question of art.

One feels, however, to a nature like Whistler's, the sort of notoriety which such situations give to the principals had a distinct attraction, added to the fighting instinct which possessed him.

From this time onward this attraction seems to have grown more and more powerful and to have influenced the life and work of the artist in anything but a fortunate way, and it becomes fatiguing to follow the course of the continual brawls in which he was involved.

He was a conspicuous figure at the Grosvenor Gallery private views in the early days, with his white lock and his long wand, but I never got further than a slight acquaintance with him, personally, which may have been as much my fault (or misfortune) as his.

When we come to his "Ten o'clock," in which Whistler gives us his philosophy of art, we find his views, characteristically, intensely individualistic. Period, traditions, gradual evolution in art and artists, are nothing to him. It is always the "one man show," a purely personal view of art, from the first etcher on a cave-bone to Rembrandt. The artist is always an accident. His predecessors or his contemporaries are nothing. Heredity and environment, economic and social conditions, are of no account. Race or country don't matter. The inspiration of symbol and story is ignored or despised as "literary." The unifying and ennobling influence of architecture, the co-operation of the crafts, the associated chain of human endeavour and experiment in the arts, which link the ages together, and find their highest expression in great public monuments, do not interest him apparently. "Art happened." This is as much as to say one is only concerned with the flower, and the roots, the soil from which it springs or the evolution of the plant itself are matters of no account! Thus the individualistic artist kicks away the ladder by which he arrived and expects the stage to be cleared for him. Ah, well, "Ten o'clock" suited the hour, the audience, and the man. It would be too much to expect brilliant artists and witty inventors of _bons mots_, or butterflies to be profound philosophers as well.

In many ways Whistler, though distinctly a decorative artist, was the complete antithesis of William Morris. Mr. Pennell makes a true remark in his book in speaking of Whistler's ideas in decoration when he says (p. 221, vol. i): "Colour for him (Whistler), was as much decoration as pattern was for William Morris." One would be inclined however to qualify this by saying that Whistler's main principle in decoration, in which he showed a fine taste, was by _tones_ of colour; especially was he successful in the choice of pale delicate tones. Whistler appeals to one as a great craftsman in _tone_, rather than as a colourist.

As a painter his most distinctive and original works will always be his "nocturnes," and, of his portraits (which, however, he often treated as landscapes) his fame seems likely chiefly to rest upon those of his Mother and Carlyle.

The picture of Whistler himself, of his character as a man, which this book reveals--in spite of some relieving touches--is not an attractive one.

One can only feel sorry that so genuine an artist was so consumed by his own opinion of himself, and wasted so much time and energy in litigation, and that he could stoop to be professor of "the gentle art of making enemies" or glory in the distinction of being a past-master in the craft of losing friends. Still, he fought the Philistines.

Mr. and Mrs. Pennell's book is admirably done and well illustrated, and it appears moreover in a form--clad in an arrangement of brown, yellow, and gold--such as might have been approved by its fastidious subject.

The book is peppered with Whistler's smart repartees and sayings; of the latter the following dictum strikes me as remarkably true and sound:

"Poverty may induce industry, but it does not produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty, it's money. Give a painter money and see what he will do: if he does not paint his work is well lost to the world."

[Footnote 11: "The Life of J. McNeill Whistler," by E. R. and J. Pennell, in two volumes, illustrated. London: William Heinemann, 1908.]

INDEX

(Note: The Page number is the link to the reference. 123^x indicates that the reference is only in the Footnote; 123,^x indicates that the reference is also in the Footnote).

Ancient Buildings, Society for the Protection of, 42, 43, 217.

Animals, treatment of, in art, 185-204.

Architecture, modern domestic, 48; arts allied to, 125-146; of the nineteenth century, 225-227.

Art education, 56, 57, 107-110, 114, 115, 242-245, 250.

Art, study and practice of, 105-122; of the nineteenth century, 223-237.

"Art Nouveau, L'," 232.

Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the, 28, 67, 68, 70, 71, 95, 96, 230, 248, 249.

Art Workers' Guild, the, 59, 60, 70, 93.

Assyrian art, animals in, 187, 188, 190.

Athens, architecture of, 126.

Ball, John, 41.

Bates, Harry, 61, 228.

Bell, R. Anning, 134.

Bellamy, Edward, his "Looking Backward," 10, 11, 214.

Benson, Frank, 236.

Binyon, Laurence, 65.

Birmingham, St. Philip's, 29.

Blake, William, 228.

Bokhara, embroidery from, 154, 155.

Brangwyn, Frank, 92.

Brown, Ford Madox, 17, 28, 92, 230, 253.

Brown, Prof. Frederick, 92.

Bullen, Wentworth, 25.

Burges, William, 50, 51, 227.

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 15, 25, 26, 28, 36, 37, 61, 230.

Burne-Jones, Lady, 29.

Butterfield, William, 227.

Cambridge, Jesus College, 28.

Canova, Antonio, 227.

Carlisle, Earl of, 15.

Carlyle, Thomas, 21, 40, 213.

Cennini, Cennino, his "Trattato," 164-176.

Century Guild, the, 67.

Chinese art, 63, 65, 231.

City and Guilds of London Institute, the, 67.

Clausen, George, 69, 92.

Clay, modelling in, 145.

Cleveland, Ohio, mosaic floor for bank at, 132.

Cobden-Sanderson, T. J., 28^2, 34.

Coire, gesso work at, 164.

Courbet, Gustave, 264, 265.

Cowper, F. Cadogan, 78^4.

Crane, Walter, his designs for "The Glittering Plain," 36; associated with the proposal for a National Exhibition of the Arts, 69; President of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, 95; design in mosaic for a bank at Cleveland, 132.

Cretan embroideries, 152, 153.

Darius, frieze from palace of, 139.

Day, Lewis F., 59.

Dearle, H., 25.

Drawing, study of, 242-245.

Dress, modern, 212-214.

Dressler, Conrad, 139.

"Earthly Paradise, The," 7, 8, 16; projected illustrated edition, 37.

Eastlake, C. L., his "Hints on Household Taste," 53.

Edinburgh, Art Congress at (1889), 29, 74.

Egyptian art, animals in, 185-188, 190; mummies, use of gesso on, 182.

Embroidery, colour and its treatment, 149-159.

Eve, G. W., 192.

Flaxman, John, 227.

Florence, Riccardi Chapel, 141.

Forbes, Stanhope, 92.

Ford, Onslow, 227.

Furse, Charles, 92.

Gainsborough, Thomas, 228.

Gallia Placida, Mausoleum of, 133.

Gesso work, early Italian, 136, 137, 141, 163-182.

Gibson, John, 227.

Gilbert, Alfred, 61.

Giotto, 140.

Glasgow School, the, 232.

Glass, stained, 28, 29, 144.

"Glittering Plain, The," 36.

Gozzoli, Benozzo, 141.

Greek art, animals in, 190-192.

Grosvenor Gallery, the, 65, 71, 268, 270.

Gwalior, stone carvings of animals at, 198, 200-203.

Hammersmith Socialist Society, 27, 28,^2.

"Hobby Horse, The," 67.

Hogarth, William, 228.

Hokusai, 63.

Holiday, Mr. and Mrs. Henry, 134.

Home Arts and Industries Association, the, 67.

Hooper, W. H., 36.

Horne, Herbert P., 67.

Horniman Museum, mosaic design on the, 134.

Houses of Parliament, frescoes in the, 78^4.

Hughes, Arthur, 17.

Hunt, Holman, 49, 69, 230.

Indian art, animals in, 189, 190, 198, 200-203.

Israels, Joseph, 91.

Jackson, John, 108^5.

Japanese art, influence of, 63-65, 231; treatment of animals in, 198, 199.

Kelmscott House, 27, 28,^2.

Kelmscott Press, the, 5, 29, 34-36.

Landseer, Sir Edwin, 203.

Lascelles, Frank, 236.

La Thangue, H. H., 92.

Leighton, Lord, 61.

Leverett, Arthur, 36.

Liebermann, Max, 91.

Lindsay, Sir Coutts, 65.

Liverpool, Art Congress at (1888), 73, 74.

London, aspect of, 207-214; architecture of, 226.

London County Council, its technical schools, 68, 69.

Magnus, Sir Philip, 67.

Magnússon, Professor, 16.

Manchester, frescoes in the Town Hall, 253.

Marlborough College Chapel, decoration of, 168.

Merton Abbey, 25, 27, 28,^2.

Meunier, Constantin, 91, 228.

Michael Angelo, 141.

Micklethwaite, J. T., 132.

Millais, Sir J. E., 230.

Millar, W., his "Plastering," 164.

Millet, François, 91.

Moody, T. W., 63, 138.

Moore, Albert, 61, 264.

More, Sir Thomas, 41.

Morgan, William de, 55, 139.

Morland, George, 228.

Morris, Miss May, 36.

Morris, William, 3-43, 51, 230, 271; his Socialism, 5, 7-14, 36-41; visit to Iceland, 16; and the artistic revival, 16-20, 54, 93-95, 232, 248; his birth and education, 21, 22; experiments in dyeing, 24; weaving, 24-26; painted glass, 28, 29; his MS. of Omar Khayyám, 29-33; the Kelmscott Press, 5, 29, 34-36; illustrations for "Cupid and Psyche," 37; founds the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, 42; his appreciation of humour, 44,^3.

Morris and Co., 15, 17, 27, 28, 54.

Mosaic, marble, 129-132; glass, 132-134; pebble, 134, 135.

Murray, Fairfax, 29, 36.

Mycenae, Cyclopean gate of, 126, 190.

National Association for the Advancement of Art, the, 29, 73, 74.

National Exhibition of the Arts, proposed, 69.

New English Art Club, the, 69.

"News from Nowhere," 5, 10, 11.

New York, improvement of, 211, 212.

Nineveh, wall sculptures of, 126, 188.

Northern Art Workers' Guild, the, 60.

"Omar Khayyám," illuminated by Morris, 29-33.

Oxford, Exeter College, 26; Christ Church, 28.

Pageants, 236.

Parthenon, the, 126.

Peacock Room, the, 266.

Pennell, Mr. and Mrs., their "Life of Whistler," 259-272,^11.

Petrie, W. M. Flinders, 182.

Philadelphia, art-teaching in, 107; mosaic altar-piece in, 134.

Photography, influence of, 252.

Pinturrichio, 141, 166.

Pisa, Campo Santo, 141.

Pistoia, 140.

Plaster work, decorated, 135, 136.

Poster, the modern, 111, 252, 253.

Post-impressionists, the, 233.

Pracatic (Bohemia), sgraffito designs at, 137, 138.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the, 48, 230.

Pugin, Augustus W. N., 50.

Raphael, 136.

Ravenna, mosaics at, 133.

Repoussé work, 127-130.

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228.

Ricardo, Halsey, 89, 139.

Richardson, H. H., 29.

Richmond, Sir W. B., 134.

Robbia ware, 140.

Rodin, Auguste, 228.

Rome, baths of Caracalla, 129-131; New American Church, 134; tombs in the Via Latina, 136, 163; Appartimenti Borgia, 141; Sistine Chapel, 141, 166, 168.

Rossetti, D. G., 16, 28, 49, 230.

Royal Academy, the, 60-62, 69, 70, 95, 249.

Royal School of Art Needlework, the, 67.

Ruskin, John, 5, 21, 50, 93, 268.

St. Paul's, decoration of, 134.

Sandys, Frederick, 230.

Sarnath, sculptured lions found at, 189, 190.

School of Art Woodcarving, the, 67.

Sedding, J. D., 227.

Sgraffito, 137, 138.

Shaw, Henry, 50; his "Glazier's Book," 144,^8.

Shaw, Norman, 51, 227.

Sicilian silks, 194-197.

Siena, frescoes in the town hall, 141.

"Sigurd the Volsung," 7, 16.

Smith, Catteson, 36.

Socialism, Morris and, 5, 7-14, 37-42; its inspiration in art, 83-101.

Society of Arts, the, 73, 74.

Solomon's temple, 127.

Stanhope, Spencer, 168.

Stevens, Alfred, 63, 203, 204, 227, 248.

Stokes, Mr. Adrian, 170.

Street, George Edmund, 21.

Sumner, Heywood, 138.

Sykes, Godfrey, 63.

Tadd, Liberty, 107,^5-109.

Technical Schools, 68, 69, 114, 115.

Thorvaldsen, Bertel, 227.

Tiles, use of, as decoration, 138, 139.

Town-planning Exhibition, the, 61.

Tuke, H. S., 92.

Turner, J. M. W., 229.

Van der Meer, Jan, 139.

Walker, Emery, 34.

Watts, G. F., 61, 78^4.

Webb, Philip, 15, 16, 17, 51, 227.

Whistler, J. M., 64, 231; his "Life," 259,^11-272.

Wolfe, Miss Catherine, 29.

Wrought Iron Work, 144, 145.

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Transcriber's Note:

_ _ indicates italic text.

= = indicates bold text.

^ indicates a superscript.

Missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired.

Both hyphenated and un-hyphenated variants of some words appear in this book. All have been retained. The author has used UK-English variants of some words (e.g. 'colour', etc., not 'color', etc.), and some older spellings.

Illustrations that interrupt a paragraph have been moved to a more convenient position nearby, between paragraphs, and closer to their descriptive text.

The text in the Omar Khayyám illustrations appears to be missing some end-punctuation, or it is partially hidden by the design. It seems to have been a hand-written copy, by the author (William Morris), of the Fitzgerald translation of Omar Khayyám. As it is hand-written, it has not been amended to the Fitzgerald translation.

Page 25 and Index: 'Wentworth Buller' is mentioned on Page 25; 'Bullen, Wentworth, 25.' is the entry in the Index. The transcriber cannot find which spelling is correct, so both have been retained.

Page 54: 'Hebblewhite' corrected to 'Hepplewhite'.

"... and Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite...."

Pages 59-60: 'In fact, since artists more or less concerned with decoration had increased, owing to the revived activity and demand arising for design of all kinds.' This sentence does not make sense. 'since' may be extraneous.

Page 72: 'For in spite the immense activity and industry, the independent artists in design and handicraft were but few,...'

should probably read either:

'For despite the immense activity and industry,...'

or

'For in spite of the immense activity and industry,...'

OED gives: spite, n. & v.t. 1. ... (in) ~ of, notwithstanding.

So 'in' may be optional, but 'of' seems to be needed. The transcriber has chosen to correct 'in spite' to 'in spite of'.

In other places, the author has used brief notes rather than grammatically correct prose. These appear to have been hasty jottings, and have been retained.

Page 75: 'fatigueing' corrected to 'fatiguing'.

"We have no word-symbols for defining those delicate shades of difference so important to the artist, and to be perpetually qualifying is fatiguing."

Page 78, Footnote 4: 'Cooper' corrected to 'Cowper'. (Reference: Wikipedia)

"... by some of our ablest men of the younger school, such as Mr. Payne and Mr. Cadogan Cowper,...". The Index entry is correct.

Page 174: 'droping' corrected to 'dropping'.

"by the use of the brush in floating or dropping on the forms of the ornament."

Page 241: 'intance' corrected to 'instance'.

"... different points of view--for instance, (1) as an accessory...."

End of Project Gutenberg's William Morris to Whistler, by Walter Crane