James Abbott McNeill Whistler (continued 2)

"Short, scratchy lines."—St. James's Gazette.

"The architectural ornaments and the interlacing bars of the gratings are suggested rather than drawn."

St. James's Gazette.

"Amateur prodige."—Saturday Review.

14.—LONG LAGOON.

"We think that London fogs and the muddy old Thames supply Mr. Whistler's needle with subjects more congenial than do the Venetian palaces and lagoons."—Daily News.

15.—TEMPLE.

"The work does not feel much."—Times.

16.—LITTLE SALUTE.—(Dry-point.)

"As for the lucubrations of Mr. Whistler, they come like shadows and will so depart, and it is unnecessary to disquiet one's self about them."

17.—THE BRIDGE.

"These works have been done with a swiftness and dash that precludes anything like care and finish."

"These Etchings of Mr. Whistler's are nothing like so satisfactory as his earlier Chelsea ones; they neither convey the idea of space nor have they the delicacy of handling and treatment which we see in those."

"He looked at Venice never in detail."

F. Wedmore.

18.—WOOL CARDERS.

[24]Mr. Wedmore is the lucky discoverer of the following:— "Vigour and exquisiteness are denied—are they not?—even to a Velasquez"!

"They have a merit of their own, and I do not wish to understand it."[24]—F. Wedmore.

19.—UPRIGHT VENICE.

"Little to recommend them save the eccentricity of their titles."

20.—LITTLE VENICE.

"The Little Venice is one of the slightest of the series."—St. James's Gazette.

"In the Little Venice and the Little Lagoon Mr. Whistler has attempted to convey impressions by lines far too few for his purposes."—Daily News.

"Our river is naturally full of effects in black and white and bistre. Venetian skies and marbles have colour you cannot suggest with a point and some printer's ink."—Daily News.

"It is not the Venice of a maiden's fancies."—'Arry.

21.—LITTLE COURT.

"Merely technical triumphs."—Standard.

22.—REGENT'S QUADRANT.

"There may be a few who find genius in insanity."

23.—LOBSTER POTS.

[25]The same Critic holds: "The Thames is beautiful from Maidenhead to Kew, but not from Battersea to Sheerness."

"So little in them."[25]—P. G. Hamerton.

24.—RIVA No. 2.

"In all his former Etchings he was careful to give a strong foundation of firm drawing. In these plates, however, he has cast aside this painstaking method."

St. James's Gazette.

25.—ISLANDS.

[26]Elsewhere Mr. Wedmore is inspired to say— "The true collector must gradually and painfully acquire the eye to judge of the impression."

REFLECTION: This is possibly the process through which the preacher is passing.

"An artist who has never mastered the subtleties of accurate form."[26]—F. Wedmore.

26.—THE LITTLE LAGOON.

"Well, little new came of it, in etching; nothing new that was beautiful."—F. Wedmore.

27.—NOCTURNE SHIPPING.

"Amazing!"

"This Archimago of the iconographic aoraton, or graphiology of the Hidden."—Daily Telegraph.

"Popularity is the only insult that has not yet been offered to Mr. Whistler."—Oscar Wilde.

28.—TWO DOORWAYS.

"It is trying to any sketch without tone to be hung upon a wall as these have been."—P. G. Hamerton.

29.—OLD WOMEN.

"He is never literary."—P. G. Hamerton.

30.—RIVA.

REFLECTION: Like Eno's Fruit Salt or the "Anti-mal-de-Mer."

"He took from London to Venice his happy fashion of suggesting lapping water."—F. Wedmore.

"Even such a well-worn subject as the Riva degli Schiavoni is made original (?) by being taken from a high point of view, and looked at lengthwise, instead of from the canal."

31.—DRURY LANE.

"In Mr. Whistler's productions one might safely say that there is no culture."—Athenæum.

32.—THE BALCONY.

"His colour is subversive."—Russian Press.

33.—ALDERNEY STREET.

"The best art may be produced with trouble."

[27]"I am not a Mede nor a Persian."—F. Wedmore.

F. Wedmore.[27]

34.—THE SMITHY.

"They produce a disappointing impression."

[28]Mr. Hamerton does also say: "Indifference to beauty is however compatible with splendid success in etching, as the career of Rembrandt proved."—Etching and Etchers.

"His Etchings seem weak when framed."[28]

P. G. Hamerton.

35.—STABLES.

"An unpleasing thing, and framed in Mr. Whistler's odd fashion."—City Press.

36.—THE MAST.

REFLECTION: At the service of critics of unequal sizes.

"The Mast and the Little Mast are dependent for much of their interest, on the drawing of festoons of cord hanging from unequal heights."

P. G. Hamerton.

37.—TRAGHETTO.

"The artist's present principles seem to deny him any effective chiaroscuro."—P. G. Hamerton.

REFLECTION: "Sometimes generally always."

"Mr. Whistler's figure drawings, generally defective and always incomplete."

38.—FISHING BOAT.

"Subjects unimportant in themselves."

P. G. Hamerton.

39.—PONTE PIOVAN.

"Want of variety in the handling."

St. James's Gazette.

40.—GARDEN.

"An art which is happier in the gloom of a doorway than in the glow of the sunshine, and turns with a pleasant blindness from whatsoever in Nature or Man is of perfect beauty or noble thought."—'Arry.

41.—THE RIALTO.

"Mr. Whistler has etched too much for his reputation."—F. Wedmore.

REFLECTION: This critic, true, is a Slade Professor.

"Scampering caprice."—S. Colvin.

"Mr. Whistler's drawing, which is sometimes that of a very slovenly master."

42.—LONG VENICE.

"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."—'Arry.

43.—NOCTURNE SALUTE.

[29]?

"The utter absence, as far as my eye[29] may be trusted, of gradation."—F. Wedmore.

"There are many things in a painter's art which even a photographer cannot understand."

Laudatory notice in Provincial Press.

44.—FURNACE NOCTURNE.

"There is no moral element in his chiaroscuro."

Richmond Eagle.

45.—PIAZETTA.

"Whistler does not take much pains with his work."

New York Paper.

"A sort of transatlantic impudence in his cleverness."

"His pictures do not claim to be accurate."

46.—THE LITTLE MAST.

"Form and line are of little account to him."

47.—QUIET CANAL.

"Herr Whistler stellt ganz wunderbare Productionen aus, die auf Gesetze der Form und der Farbe gegründet scheinen, die dem Uneingeweihten unverständlich sind."—Wiener Presse.

"This new manner of Mr. Whistler's is no improvement upon that which helped him to win his fame in this field of art."

48.—PALACES.

"The absence, seemingly, of any power of drawing the forms of water."[30]—F. Wedmore.

[30]See No. 30, The Riva.

"He has never, so far as we know, attempted to transfer to copper any of the more ambitious works of the architect."—Pall Mall Gazette.

"He has been content to show us what his eyes can see, and not what his hand can do."

St. James's Gazette.

49.—SALUTE DAWN.

"Too sensational."—Athenæum.

"Pushing a single artistic principle to the verge of affectation."—Sidney Colvin.

50.—BEGGARS.

"In the character of humanity he has not time to be interested."—Standard.

"General absence of tone."—P. G. Hamerton.

51.—LAGOON: NOON.

"Years ago James Whistler was a person of high promise."—F. Wedmore.

[31]REFLECTION: The quid of sweet and bitter fancy.

"What the art of Mr. Whistler yields is a tertium quid."[31]—Sidney Colvin.

"All of which gems, I am sincerely thankful to say, I cannot appreciate."

[32]REFLECTION: The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the City. "As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?"

'Arry[32] in the "Times."

"Disastrous failures."—F. Wedmore.

"Failures that are complete and failures that are partial."—F. Wedmore.

"A publicity rarely bestowed upon failures at all."

F. Wedmore, Nineteenth Century.

"Voilà ce que l'on dit de moi Dans la Gazette de Hollande."

"Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us. We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness."

"We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night."

"We roar all like bears."

Taking the Bait

By the simple process of applying snippets of published sentences to works of art to which the original comments The Academy, Feb. 24, 1883. were never meant to have reference, and sometimes, too, by lively misquotation—as when a writer who "did not wish to understate" Mr. Whistler's merit is made to say he "did not wish to understand" it, Mr. Whistler has counted on good-humouredly confounding criticism. He has entertained but not persuaded; and if his literary efforts with the scissors and the paste-pot might be taken with any seriousness we should have to rebuke him for his feat. But we are far from doing so. He desired, it seems, to say that he and Velasquez were both above criticism. An artist in literature would have said it in fewer words; but indulgence may fairly be granted to the less assured methods of an amateur in authorship.

F. WEDMORE.

An Apology

Atlas—There are those, they tell me, who have the approval of the people—and live! For them the succès d'estime; for me, O Atlas, the succès d'exécration—the only tribute possible from the Mob to the Master! The World, Feb. 28, 1883. This I have now nobly achieved. Glissons! In the hour of my triumph let me not neglect my ambulance.

Mr. Frederick Wedmore—a critic—one of the wounded—complains that by dexterously substituting "understand" for "understate," I have dealt unfairly by him, and wrongly rendered his writing. Let me hasten to acknowledge the error, and apologise. My carelessness is culpable, and the misprint without excuse; for naturally I have all along known, and the typographer should have been duly warned, that with Mr. Wedmore, as with his brethren, it is always a matter of understating, and not at all one of understanding.

Quant aux autres—well, with the exception of "'Arry," who really is dead, they will recover. Scalped and disfigured, they are not mortally hurt; and—would you believe it?—possessed with an infinite capacity for continuing, they have already returned, nothing doubting, to their limited literature, of which I have exhausted the stock.—Yours, en passant,

Chelsea.

"Jeux Innocents" in Tite Street

Mr. Whistler's final breakfast of the year was given on Sunday last. The hospitable master has fresh wonders The World, Dec. 26, 1883. in store for his friends in the new year; for, not content with treating his next-door critic after the manner that Portuguese sailors treat the Apostle Judas at Easter-tide, he is said to have perfected a new instrument of torture. This invention is of the nature of a camera obscura, whereby, by a crafty "arrangement" of reflectors, he promises to display in his own studio, to his friends, "'Arry at the White House," under all the appropriate circumstances that might be expected of a "Celebrity at Home."

ATLAS.

A Line from the Lands End

Delightful! Atlas—I have read here, to the idle miners—culture in their manners curiously, at this season, blended with intoxication—your brilliant and graphic description of 'Arry The World, Jan. 2, 1884. at the other end of my arrangement in telescopic lenses.

The sensitive sons of the Cornish caves, by instinct refined, revel in the writhing of the resurrected 'Arry.

Our natures are evidently of the same dainty brutality. Cruelty to the critic after demise, is a revelation, and the story of 'Arry pursued with post-mortem, and, for Sunday demonstration, kept by galvanism from his grave, is to them most fascinating.

I have, my sympathetic Atlas, the success that might have been Edgar Poe's, could he have read to such an audience the horrible "Case of Mr. Waldemar."

My invention and machinery, by the way, these warm-hearted people believe to be something after the fashion of their own sluice-boxes—and I dare not undeceive them.

Atlas, je te la souhaite bonne et heureuse!

St. Ives, Cornwall, Dec. 27.

The Easy Expert

Atlas—They have sent me the Spectator—a paper upon which our late 'Arry lingered to the last as art critic. In its columns I find a correspondent calling aloud for our kind intervention. Present me, brave Atlas, to the editor, that I may say to him:

The World, Jan. 30, 1884.

"Good sir,—'Your Reviewer' is doubtless my unburied 'Arry. Why, then, should 'his mistaking a photogravure reproduction of a pen-and-ink drawing by Samuel Palmer for a finished etching by the same hand' seem, 'to say the least of it, astounding'?

"Not at all! By this sort of thing was he known among us, poor chap—and so was he our fresh gladness and continued surprise."

"Did I not make historical his enchanting encounter with Mr. Herkomer's water-colour drawing of Mr. Ruskin at the Grosvenor, which he described as the 'first oil portrait we have of the great master'? Amazing that, if you like!

"Do not all remember how we leaped for joy at the reading of it?"

"Even Atlas himself laughed aloud, and, handicapped as he is with the World, and weighted with wisdom, danced upon his plinth, a slow measure of reckless acquiescence, as I set down in the chronicles of all time that 'Arry, 'unable, by mere sense of smell, to distinguish between oil and water-colour, might at least have inquired; and that either the fireman or the guardian in the Gallery could have told him not to blunder in the Times.'"

"But no, he never would ask—he liked his potshots at things; it used to give a sort of sporting interest to his speculations upon pictures. And so he was ever obstinate—or any one at the Fine Art Society would have told him the difference between an etching and a photograph.—I am, good sir, yours, etc."

Atlas, à bientôt.

St. Ives, Cornwall, Jan. 25, 1834.

Propositions—No. 2

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit for view.

Industry in Art is a necessity—not a virtue—and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will efface the footsteps of work.

The work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow—suggests no effort—and is finished from its beginning.

The completed task of perseverance only, has never been begun, and will remain unfinished to eternity—a monument of goodwill and foolishness.

"There is one that laboureth, and taketh pains, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind."

The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter—perfect in its bud as in its bloom—with no reason to explain its presence—no mission to fulfil—a joy to the artist—a delusion to the philanthropist—a puzzle to the botanist—an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man.

A Hint

Please to take note, my dear Mr. James McN. W., that your "dearest foe," The World, Feb. 17, 1886. 'Arry, is a candidate for the Slade Chair of Art in the University of Cambridge! This is said to be the age of testimonials. A few words from you, my dear James, addressed to the distinguished trustees, could not fail to give 'Arry a lift.

ATLAS.

A Distinction

Atlas, you provoke me! The wisdom of ages means but little—I have said it. Faut être "dans le mouvement," you dear old thing, or you are absolutely out of it!

The World, Feb. 24, 1886.

You are misled, and mistake mere fact for the fiction of history, which is truth—and instructs—and is beautiful.

Now, in truth, 'Arry is dead—very dead.

Did I not, from between your shoulders, sally forth and slay him?—thereby instructing—and making history—and avenging the beautiful.

If within the distant Aïden, you can't descry, "with sorrow laden," the tiny soul of 'Arry, it is because you no longer read your own small print, my Atlas! and the microbes of Eternity escape you.

Moreover, are not these things written in the chronicles of Chelsea, adown whose Embankment I still, Achilles-like, do drag the body of an afternoon?

This practice has doubtless completed the confusion of the wearied ones of Slade—and they of the Schools, accustomed to the culture of Colvin, whose polished scalp I with difficulty collected, ceasing to distinguish between the quick and the dead, will probably prop up our late 'Arry as professor, long to remain undetected in the Chair!

Atlas, tais-toi!—Let us not interfere!

A Document

Atlas—I have come upon the posthumous paper of 'Arry—his certificate of character, and printed pretension to the Professorship of Slade—and O! the shame of it—and the indiscretion of it!

Read, Atlas, and seek in your past for a parallel:

The World, March 24, 1886.

"To the Electors of the Slade Professor of Fine Art for the University of Cambridge.—My Lord and Gentlemen,—I beg to submit my name as a candidate for the Slade Professorship, and enclose herewith a few testimonials ... I have also received favourable letters from the following gentlemen ... Alma-Tadema, R.A., Marcus Stone, R.A., Briton Rivière, R.A., John Brett, A.R.A., ... and others."

What! is the Immaculate impure?—and shall the Academy have coquetted with the unclean?

Had Alma the classic aught in common with this 'Arry of commerce?

Believe him not, Atlas!

O Alma! O Ichabod! forgive us the thought of it!

Surely also the pots of "the Forty" do boil before the Lord, and the flames of the chosen were unfanned by the feather of 'Arry's goose-quill.

Again:

"My experience in art matters has been briefly as follows:

"I have worked at the subject continually in Italy, having for that purpose travelled and stayed in that country—at least a dozen times. I have also painted in France, Germany, and Belgium, in which last-mentioned country I was in a portrait painter's studio."—(A portrait by 'Arry!)

"There are several pictures of mine being exhibited in London at the present time." (!!!)

"I have also executed a good deal of distemper....

"I have also travelled for a year in the East." ('Arry in the East!!)

"I have had, as a lecturer upon Art, considerable experience—at working men's clubs— ... and at the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke's College for men, women, and children.

"For the last ten years I have written every article upon art which has appeared in the Spectator newspaper"—a confession, Atlas, clearly a confession!

"In 1880, I wrote a critical life of Giotto"—he did indeed, Atlas!—I saw it—a book in blue—his own, and Reckitt's—all bold with brazen letters:

"GIOTTO BY 'ARRY"

—"of which two editions were published"—bless him—and then I killed him!

and, "I am, Gentlemen, "Your most obedient servant, "'ARRY, M.A. "Trin. Coll. Camb., Esquire."

The pride of it!

Sacrilege

O Atlas! What of the "Society for the Preservation of Beautiful Buildings"?

Upon the Alterations of the "White House."

Where is Ruskin? and what do Morris and Sir William Drake?

For, behold! beside the Thames, the work of desecration continues, The World, Oct. 17, 1883. and the "White House" swarms with the mason of contract.

The architectural galbe that was the joy of the few, and the bedazement of "the Board," crumbles beneath the pick, as did the north side of St. Mark's, and history is wiped from the face of Chelsea.

Shall no one interfere? Shall the interloper, even after his death, prevail?

Shall 'Arry, whom I have hewn down, still live among us by outrage of this kind, and impose his memory upon our pavement by the public perpetration of his posthumous philistinism?

Shall the birthplace of art become the tomb of its parasite in Tite Street?

See to it, Atlas! lest, when Time, the healer of all the wounds I have inflicted, shall for me have exacted those honours the prophet may not expect while alive, and the inevitable blue disc, imbedded in the walls, shall proclaim that "Here once dwelt" the gentle Master of all that is flippant and fine in Art, some anxious student, reading, fall out with Providence in his vain effort to reconcile such joyous reputation with the dank and hopeless appearance of this "model lodging," bequeathed to the people by the arrogance of 'Arry.

The Red Rag

"Mr. Whistler, Cheyne Walk."

The World, May 22, 1878.

Why should not I call my works "symphonies," "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric." Yes, "eccentric" is the adjective they find for me.

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

My picture of a "Harmony in Grey and Gold" is an illustration of my meaning—a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture. Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.

They say, "Why not call it 'Trotty Veck,' and sell it for a round harmony of golden guineas?"—naïvely acknowledging that, without baptism, there is no ... market!

But even commercially this stocking of your shop with the goods of another would be indecent—custom alone has made it dignified. Not even the popularity of Dickens should be invoked to lend an adventitious aid to art of another kind from his. I should hold it a vulgar and meretricious trick to excite people about Trotty Veck when, if they really could care for pictorial art at all, they would know that the picture should have its own merit, and not depend upon dramatic, or legendary, or local interest.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour.

The great musicians knew this. Beethoven and the rest wrote music—simply music; symphony in this key, concerto or sonata in that.

On F or G they constructed celestial harmonies—as harmonies—as combinations, evolved from the chords of F or G and their minor correlatives.

This is pure music as distinguished from airs—commonplace and vulgar in themselves, but interesting from their associations, as, for instance, "Yankee Doodle," or "Partant pour la Syrie."

Art should be independent of all clap-trap—should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works "arrangements" and "harmonies."

Take the picture of my mother, exhibited at the Royal Academy as an "Arrangement in Grey and Black." Now that is what it is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the portrait?

The imitator is a poor kind of creature. If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; in arrangement of colours to treat a flower as his key, not as his model.

This is now understood indifferently well—at least by dressmakers. In every costume you see attention is paid to the key-note of colour which runs through the composition, as the chant of the Anabaptists through the Prophète, or the Huguenots' hymn in the opera of that name.

A Rebuke

No Birmingham election, no Chamberlain speech, no Reynolds or Dispatch article, The World, Dec. 9, 1885. could bring the aristocracy more strongly into ridicule and contempt than does the coarsely coloured cartoon of "Newmarket" accompanying the winter number of Vanity Fair. From it one learns that the Dukes, Duchesses, and turf persons generally, frequenting the Heath, are a set of blob-headed stumpy dwarfs....

ATLAS.

"Les points sur les i"

I agree with you, O Atlas of ages, that completeness is a reason for ceasing to exist; The World, Dec. 16, 1885. but even indignation might be less vague than is your righteous anger at Vanity's Christmas cartoon. Surely you might have helped the people, who scarcely distinguish between the original and impudent imitation, to know that this faded leaf is not from the book of Carlo Pellegrini, the master who has taught them all—that they can never learn?

MR. WHISTLER'S TEN O'CLOCK"

London, 1888

Delivered in London Feb. 20, 1885

At Cambridge March 24

At Oxford April 30

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is with great hesitation and much misgiving that I appear before you, in the character of The Preacher.

If timidity be at all allied to the virtue modesty, and can find favour in your eyes, I pray you, for the sake of that virtue, accord me your utmost indulgence.

I would plead for my want of habit, did it not seem preposterous, judging from precedent, that aught save the most efficient effrontery could be ever expected in connection with my subject—for I will not conceal from you that I mean to talk about Art. Yes, Art—that has of late become, as far as much discussion and writing can make it, a sort of common topic for the tea-table.

Art is upon the Town!—to be chucked under the chin by the passing gallant—to be enticed within the gates of the householder—to be coaxed into company, as a proof of culture and refinement.

If familiarity can breed contempt, certainly Art—or what is currently taken for it—has been brought to its lowest stage of intimacy.

The people have been harassed with Art in every guise, and vexed with many methods as to its endurance. They have been told how they shall love Art, and live with it. Their homes have been invaded, their walls covered with paper, their very dress taken to task—until, roused at last, bewildered and filled with the doubts and discomforts of senseless suggestion, they resent such intrusion, and cast forth the false prophets, who have brought the very name of the beautiful into disrepute, and derision upon themselves.

Alas! ladies and gentlemen, Art has been maligned. She has naught in common with such practices. She is a goddess of dainty thought—reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others.

She is, withal, selfishly occupied with her own perfection only—having no desire to teach—seeking and finding the beautiful in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not Greeks.

As did Tintoret and Paul Veronese, among the Venetians, while not halting to change the brocaded silks for the classic draperies of Athens.

As did, at the Court of Philip, Velasquez, whose Infantas, clad in inæsthetic hoops, are, as works of Art, of the same quality as the Elgin marbles.

No reformers were these great men—no improvers of the way of others! Their productions alone were their occupation, and, filled with the poetry of their science, they required not to alter their surroundings—for, as the laws of their Art were revealed to them they saw, in the development of their work, that real beauty which, to them, was as much a matter of certainty and triumph as is to the astronomer the verification of the result, foreseen with the light given to him alone. In all this, their world was completely severed from that of their fellow-creatures with whom sentiment is mistaken for poetry; and for whom there is no perfect work that shall not be explained by the benefit conferred upon themselves.

Humanity takes the place of Art, and God's creations are excused by their usefulness. Beauty is confounded with virtue, and, before a work of Art, it is asked: "What good shall it do?"

Hence it is that nobility of action, in this life, is hopelessly linked with the merit of the work that portrays it; and thus the people have acquired the habit of looking, as who should say, not at a picture, but through it, at some human fact, that shall, or shall not, from a social point of view, better their mental or moral state. So we have come to hear of the painting that elevates, and of the duty of the painter—of the picture that is full of thought, and of the panel that merely decorates.

A favourite faith, dear to those who teach, is that certain periods were especially artistic, and that nations, readily named, were notably lovers of Art.

So we are told that the Greeks were, as a people, worshippers of the beautiful, and that in the fifteenth century Art was engrained in the multitude.

That the great masters lived in common understanding with their patrons—that the early Italians were artists—all—and that the demand for the lovely thing produced it.

That we, of to-day, in gross contrast to this Arcadian purity, call for the ungainly, and obtain the ugly.

That, could we but change our habits and climate—were we willing to wander in groves—could we be roasted out of broadcloth—were we to do without haste, and journey without speed, we should again require the spoon of Queen Anne, and pick at our peas with the fork of two prongs. And so, for the flock, little hamlets grow near Hammersmith, and the steam horse is scorned.

Useless! quite hopeless and false is the effort!—built upon fable, and all because "a wise man has uttered a vain thing and filled his belly with the East wind."

Listen! There never was an artistic period.

There never was an Art-loving nation.

In the beginning, man went forth each day—some to do battle, some to the chase; others, again, to dig and to delve in the field—all that they might gain and live, or lose and die. Until there was found among them one, differing from the rest, whose pursuits attracted him not, and so he stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd.

This man, who took no joy in the ways of his brethren—who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field—this designer of quaint patterns—this deviser of the beautiful—who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire—this dreamer apart, was the first artist.

And when, from the field and from afar, there came back the people, they took the gourd—and drank from out of it.

And presently there came to this man another—and, in time, others—of like nature, chosen by the Gods—and so they worked together; and soon they fashioned, from the moistened earth, forms resembling the gourd. And with the power of creation, the heirloom of the artist, presently they went beyond the slovenly suggestion of Nature, and the first vase was born, in beautiful proportion.

And the toilers tilled, and were athirst; and the heroes returned from fresh victories, to rejoice and to feast; and all drank alike from the artists' goblets, fashioned cunningly, taking no note the while of the craftsman's pride, and understanding not his glory in his work; drinking at the cup, not from choice, not from a consciousness that it was beautiful, but because, forsooth, there was none other!

And time, with more state, brought more capacity for luxury, and it became well that men should dwell in large houses, and rest upon couches, and eat at tables; whereupon the artist, with his artificers, built palaces, and filled them with furniture, beautiful in proportion and lovely to look upon.

And the people lived in marvels of art—and ate and drank out of masterpieces—for there was nothing else to eat and to drink out of, and no bad building to live in; no article of daily life, of luxury, or of necessity, that had not been handed down from the design of the master, and made by his workmen.

And the people questioned not, and had nothing to say in the matter.

So Greece was in its splendour, and Art reigned supreme—by force of fact, not by election—and there was no meddling from the outsider. The mighty warrior would no more have ventured to offer a design for the temple of Pallas Athene than would the sacred poet have proffered a plan for constructing the catapult.

And the Amateur was unknown—and the Dilettante undreamed of!

And history wrote on, and conquest accompanied civilisation, and Art spread, or rather its products were carried by the victors among the vanquished from one country to another. And the customs of cultivation covered the face of the earth, so that all peoples continued to use what the artist alone produced.

And centuries passed in this using, and the world was flooded with all that was beautiful, until there arose a new class, who discovered the cheap, and foresaw fortune in the facture of the sham.

Then sprang into existence the tawdry, the common, the gewgaw.

The taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist, and what was born of the million went back to them, and charmed them, for it was after their own heart; and the great and the small, the statesman and the slave, took to themselves the abomination that was tendered, and preferred it—and have lived with it ever since!

And the artist's occupation was gone, and the manufacturer and the huckster took his place.

And now the heroes filled from the jugs and drank from the bowls—with understanding—noting the glare of their new bravery, and taking pride in its worth.

And the people—this time—had much to say in the matter—and all were satisfied. And Birmingham and Manchester arose in their might—and Art was relegated to the curiosity shop.

Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music.

But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony.

To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano.

That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.

This would seem, to even the most intelligent, a doctrine almost blasphemous. So incorporated with our education has the supposed aphorism become, that its belief is held to be part of our moral being, and the words themselves have, in our ear, the ring of religion. Still, seldom does Nature succeed in producing a picture.

The sun blares, the wind blows from the east, the sky is bereft of cloud, and without, all is of iron. The windows of the Crystal Palace are seen from all points of London. The holiday-maker rejoices in the glorious day, and the painter turns aside to shut his eyes.

How little this is understood, and how dutifully the casual in Nature is accepted as sublime, may be gathered from the unlimited admiration daily produced by a very foolish sunset.

The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognise the traveller on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of seeing, is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified, hence the delight in detail.

And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairyland is before us—then the wayfarer hastens home; the working man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see, and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master—her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her.

To him her secrets are unfolded, to him her lessons have become gradually clear. He looks at her flower, not with the enlarging lens, that he may gather facts for the botanist, but with the light of the one who sees in her choice selection of brilliant tones and delicate tints, suggestions of future harmonies.

He does not confine himself to purposeless copying, without thought, each blade of grass, as commended by the inconsequent, but, in the long curve of the narrow leaf, corrected by the straight tall stem, he learns how grace is wedded to dignity, how strength enhances sweetness, that elegance shall be the result.

In the citron wing of the pale butterfly, with its dainty spots of orange, he sees before him the stately halls of fair gold, with their slender saffron pillars, and is taught how the delicate drawing high upon the walls shall be traced in tender tones of orpiment, and repeated by the base in notes of graver hue.

In all that is dainty and lovable he finds hints for his own combinations, and thus is Nature ever his resource and always at his service, and to him is naught refused.

Through his brain, as through the last alembic, is distilled the refined essence of that thought which began with the Gods, and which they left him to carry out.

Set apart by them to complete their works, he produces that wondrous thing called the masterpiece, which surpasses in perfection all that they have contrived in what is called Nature; and the Gods stand by and marvel, and perceive how far away more beautiful is the Venus of Melos than was their own Eve.

For some time past, the unattached writer has become the middleman in this matter of Art, and his influence, while it has widened the gulf between the people and the painter, has brought about the most complete misunderstanding as to the aim of the picture.

For him a picture is more or less a hieroglyph or symbol of story. Apart from a few technical terms, for the display of which he finds an occasion, the work is considered absolutely from a literary point of view; indeed, from what other can he consider it? And in his essays he deals with it as with a novel—a history—or an anecdote. He fails entirely and most naturally to see its excellences, or demerits—artistic—and so degrades Art, by supposing it a method of bringing about a literary climax.

It thus, in his hands, becomes merely a means of perpetrating something further, and its mission is made a secondary one, even as a means is second to an end.

The thoughts emphasised, noble or other, are inevitably attached to the incident, and become more or less noble, according to the eloquence or mental quality of the writer, who looks the while, with disdain, upon what he holds as "mere execution"—a matter belonging, he believes, to the training of the schools, and the reward of assiduity. So that, as he goes on with his translation from canvas to paper, the work becomes his own. He finds poetry where he would feel it were he himself transcribing the event, invention in the intricacy of the mise en scène, and noble philosophy in some detail of philanthropy, courage, modesty, or virtue, suggested to him by the occurrence.

All this might be brought before him, and his imagination be appealed to, by a very poor picture—indeed, I might safely say that it generally is.

Meanwhile, the painter's poetry is quite lost to him—the amazing invention that shall have put form and colour into such perfect harmony, that exquisiteness is the result, he is without understanding—the nobility of thought, that shall have given the artist's dignity to the whole, says to him absolutely nothing.

So that his praises are published, for virtues we would blush to possess—while the great qualities, that distinguish the one work from the thousand, that make of the masterpiece the thing of beauty that it is—have never been seen at all.

That this is so, we can make sure of, by looking back at old reviews upon past exhibitions, and reading the flatteries lavished upon men who have since been forgotten altogether—but, upon whose works, the language has been exhausted, in rhapsodies—that left nothing for the National Gallery.

A curious matter, in its effect upon the judgment of these gentlemen, is the accepted vocabulary of poetic symbolism, that helps them, by habit, in dealing with Nature: a mountain, to them, is synonymous with height—a lake, with depth—the ocean, with vastness—the sun, with glory.

So that a picture with a mountain, a lake, and an ocean—however poor in paint—is inevitably "lofty," "vast," "infinite," and "glorious"—on paper.

There are those also, sombre of mien, and wise with the wisdom of books, who frequent museums and burrow in crypts; collecting—comparing—compiling—classifying—contradicting.

Experts these—for whom a date is an accomplishment—a hall mark, success!

Careful in scrutiny are they, and conscientious of judgment—establishing, with due weight, unimportant reputations—discovering the picture, by the stain on the back—testing the torso, by the leg that is missing—filling folios with doubts on the way of that limb—disputatious and dictatorial, concerning the birthplace of inferior persons—speculating, in much writing, upon the great worth of bad work.

True clerks of the collection, they mix memoranda with ambition, and, reducing Art to statistics, they "file" the fifteenth century, and "pigeon-hole" the antique!

Then the Preacher "appointed"!

He stands in high places—harangues and holds forth.

Sage of the Universities—learned in many matters, and of much experience in all, save his subject.

Exhorting—denouncing—directing.

Filled with wrath and earnestness.

Bringing powers of persuasion, and polish of language, to prove—nothing.

Torn with much teaching—having naught to impart.

Impressive—important—shallow.

Defiant—distressed—desperate.

Crying out, and cutting himself—while the gods hear not.

Gentle priest of the Philistine withal, again he ambles pleasantly from all point, and through many volumes, escaping scientific assertion—"babbles of green fields."

So Art has become foolishly confounded with education—that all should be equally qualified.

Whereas, while polish, refinement, culture, and breeding, are in no way arguments for artistic result, it is also no reproach to the most finished scholar or greatest gentleman in the land that he be absolutely without eye for painting or ear for music—that in his heart he prefer the popular print to the scratch of Rembrandt's needle, or the songs of the hall to Beethoven's "C minor Symphony."

Let him have but the wit to say so, and not feel the admission a proof of inferiority.

Art happens—no hovel is safe from it, no Prince may depend upon it, the vastest intelligence cannot bring it about, and puny efforts to make it universal end in quaint comedy, and coarse farce.

This is as it should be—and all attempts to make it otherwise are due to the eloquence of the ignorant, the zeal of the conceited.

The boundary line is clear. Far from me to propose to bridge it over—that the pestered people be pushed across. No! I would save them from further fatigue. I would come to their relief, and would lift from their shoulders this incubus of Art.

Why, after centuries of freedom from it, and indifference to it, should it now be thrust upon them by the blind—until wearied and puzzled, they know no longer how they shall eat or drink—how they shall sit or stand—or wherewithal they shall clothe themselves—without afflicting Art.

But, lo! there is much talk without!

Triumphantly they cry, "Beware! This matter does indeed concern us. We also have our part in all true Art!—for, remember the 'one touch of Nature' that 'makes the whole world kin.'"

True, indeed. But let not the unwary jauntily suppose that Shakespeare herewith hands him his passport to Paradise, and thus permits him speech among the chosen. Rather, learn that, in this very sentence, he is condemned to remain without—to continue with the common.

This one chord that vibrates with all—this "one touch of Nature" that calls aloud to the response of each—that explains the popularity of the "Bull" of Paul Potter—that excuses the price of Murillo's "Conception"—this one unspoken sympathy that pervades humanity, is—Vulgarity!

Vulgarity—under whose fascinating influence "the many" have elbowed "the few," and the gentle circle of Art swarms with the intoxicated mob of mediocrity, whose leaders prate and counsel, and call aloud, where the Gods once spoke in whisper!

And now from their midst the Dilettante stalks abroad. The amateur is loosed. The voice of the æsthete is heard in the land, and catastrophe is upon us.

The meddler beckons the vengeance of the Gods, and ridicule threatens the fair daughters of the land.

And there are curious converts to a weird culte, in which all instinct for attractiveness—all freshness and sparkle—all woman's winsomeness—is to give way to a strange vocation for the unlovely—and this desecration in the name of the Graces!

Shall this gaunt, ill-at-ease, distressed, abashed mixture of mauvaise honte and desperate assertion call itself artistic, and claim cousinship with the artist—who delights in the dainty, the sharp, bright gaiety of beauty?

No!—a thousand times no! Here are no connections of ours.

We will have nothing to do with them.

Forced to seriousness, that emptiness may be hidden, they dare not smile—

While the artist, in fulness of heart and head, is glad, and laughs aloud, and is happy in his strength, and is merry at the pompous pretension—the solemn silliness that surrounds him.

For Art and Joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand—fearing naught, and dreading no exposure.

Know, then, all beautiful women, that we are with you. Pay no heed, we pray you, to this outcry of the unbecoming—this last plea for the plain.

It concerns you not.

Your own instinct is near the truth—your own wit far surer guide than the untaught ventures of thick heeled Apollos.

What! will you up and follow the first piper that leads you down Petticoat Lane, there, on a Sabbath, to gather, for the week, from the dull rags of ages wherewith to bedeck yourselves? that, beneath your travestied awkwardness, we have trouble to find your own dainty selves? Oh, fie! Is the world, then, exhausted? and must we go back because the thumb of the mountebank jerks the other way?

Costume is not dress.

And the wearers of wardrobes may not be doctors of taste!

For by what authority shall these be pretty masters? Look well, and nothing have they invented—nothing put together for comeliness' sake.

Haphazard from their shoulders hang the garments of the hawker—combining in their person the motley of many manners with the medley of the mummers' closet.

Set up as a warning, and a finger-post of danger, they point to the disastrous effect of Art upon the middle classes.

Why this lifting of the brow in deprecation of the present—this pathos in reference to the past?

If Art be rare to-day, it was seldom heretofore.

It is false, this teaching of decay.

The master stands in no relation to the moment at which he occurs—a monument of isolation—hinting at sadness—having no part in the progress of his fellow men.

He is also no more the product of civilisation than is the scientific truth asserted dependent upon the wisdom of a period. The assertion itself requires the man to make it. The truth was from the beginning.

So Art is limited to the infinite, and beginning there cannot progress.

A silent indication of its wayward independence from all extraneous advance, is in the absolutely unchanged condition and form of implement since the beginning of things.

The painter has but the same pencil—the sculptor the chisel of centuries.

Colours are not more since the heavy hangings of night were first drawn aside, and the loveliness of light revealed.

Neither chemist nor engineer can offer new elements of the masterpiece.

False again, the fabled link between the grandeur of Art and the glories and virtues of the State, for Art feeds not upon nations, and peoples may be wiped from the face of the earth, but Art is.

It is indeed high time that we cast aside the weary weight of responsibility and co-partnership, and know that, in no way, do our virtues minister to its worth, in no way do our vices impede its triumph!

How irksome! how hopeless! how superhuman the self-imposed task of the nation! How sublimely vain the belief that it shall live nobly or art perish.

Let us reassure ourselves, at our own option is our virtue. Art we in no way affect.

A whimsical goddess, and a capricious, her strong sense of joy tolerates no dulness, and, live we never so spotlessly, still may she turn her back upon us.

As, from time immemorial, she has done upon the Swiss in their mountains.

What more worthy people! Whose every Alpine gap yawns with tradition, and is stocked with noble story; yet, the perverse and scornful one will none of it, and the sons of patriots are left with the clock that turns the mill, and the sudden cuckoo, with difficulty restrained in its box!

For this was Tell a hero! For this did Gessler die!

Art, the cruel jade, cares not, and hardens her heart, and hies her off to the East, to find, among the opium-eaters of Nankin, a favourite with whom she lingers fondly—caressing his blue porcelain, and painting his coy maidens, and marking his plates with her six marks of choice—indifferent in her companionship with him, to all save the virtue of his refinement!

He it is who calls her—he who holds her!

And again to the West, that her next lover may bring together the Gallery at Madrid, and show to the world how the Master towers above all; and in their intimacy they revel, he and she, in this knowledge; and he knows the happiness untasted by other mortal.

She is proud of her comrade, and promises that in after-years, others shall pass that way, and understand.

So in all time does this superb one cast about for the man worthy her love—and Art seeks the Artist alone.

Where he is, there she appears, and remains with him—loving and fruitful—turning never aside in moments of hope deferred—of insult—and of ribald misunderstanding; and when he dies she sadly takes her flight, though loitering yet in the land, from fond association, but refusing to be consoled.[33]

[33]And so have we the ephemeral influence of the Master's memory—the afterglow, in which are warmed, for a while, the worker and disciple.

With the man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few—scant, indeed, the list of those who have helped to write her story of love and beauty.

From the sunny morning, when, with her glorious Greek relenting, she yielded up the secret of repeated line, as, with his hand in hers, together they marked in marble, the measured rhyme of lovely limb and draperies flowing in unison, to the day when she dipped the Spaniard's brush in light and air, and made his people live within their frames, and stand upon their legs, that all nobility and sweetness, and tenderness, and magnificence should be theirs by right, ages had gone by, and few had been her choice.

Countless, indeed, the horde of pretenders! But she knew them not.

A teeming, seething, busy mass, whose virtue was industry, and whose industry was vice!

Their names go to fill the catalogue of the collection at home, of the gallery abroad, for the delectation of the bagman and the critic.

Therefore have we cause to be merry!—and to cast away all care—resolved that all is well—as it ever was—and that it is not meet that we should be cried at, and urged to take measures!

Enough have we endured of dulness! Surely are we weary of weeping, and our tears have been cozened from us falsely, for they have called out woe! when there was no grief—and, alas! where all is fair!

We have then but to wait—until, with the mark of the Gods upon him—there come among us again the chosen—who shall continue what has gone before. Satisfied that, even were he never to appear, the story of the beautiful is already complete—hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon—and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai—at the foot of Fusi-yama.

"Rengaines!"

Last night, at Prince's Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on Art.... There were some arrows ... shot off ... Pall Mall Gazette, Feb. 21, 1885. and (O, mea culpa!) at dress reformers most of all.... That an artist will find beauty in ugliness, le beau dans l'horrible, is now a commonplace of the schools.... I differ entirely from Mr. Whistler. An Artist is not an isolated fact; he is the resultant of a certain milieu and a certain entourage, and can no more be born of a nation that is devoid of any sense of beauty than a fig can grow from a thorn or a rose blossom from a thistle.... REFLECTION: It is not enough that our simple Sunflower thrive on his "thistle"—he has now grafted Edgar Poe on the "rose" tree of the early American Market in "a certain milieu" of dry goods and sympathy; and "a certain entourage" of worship and wooden nutmegs. Born of a Nation, not absolutely "devoid of any sense of beauty"—Their idol—cherished—listened to—and understood! Foolish Baudelaire!—Mistaken Mallarmé! The poet is the supreme Artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts; and so to the poet beyond all others are these mysteries known; to Edgar Allan Poe and Baudelaire, not to Benjamin West and Paul Delaroche....

OSCAR WILDE.

Tenderness in Tite Street

TO THE POET:

Oscar—I have read your exquisite article in the Pall Mall. Nothing is more delicate, in the flattery of "the Poet" to "the Painter," than the naïveté of "the Poet," in the choice of his Painters—Benjamin West and Paul Delaroche!

The World.

You have pointed out that "the Painter's" mission is to find "le beau dans l'horrible," and have left to "the Poet" the discovery of "l'horrible" dans "le beau"!

Chelsea.

TO THE PAINTER:

Dear Butterfly—By the aid of a biographical dictionary, I made the discovery that there were once two painters, called Benjamin West and

The World.

Paul Delaroche, who rashly lectured upon Art. As of their works nothing at all remains, I conclude that they explained themselves away.

REFLECTION: I do know a bird, who, like Oscar, with his head in the sand, still believes in the undiscovered! If to be misunderstood is to be great, it was rash in Oscar to reveal the source of his inspirations: the "Biographical Dictionary!"

Be warned in time, James; and remain, as I do, incomprehensible. To be great is to be misunderstood.—Tout à vous,

OSCAR WILDE.

To the Committee of the "National Art Exhibition"

Letter read at a meeting of this Society, associated for purposes of Art reform.

Gentlemen—I am naturally interested in any effort made among Painters to prove that they are alive—but The World, Nov. 17, 1888. when I find, thrust in the van of your leaders, the body of my dead 'Arry, I know that putrefaction alone can result. When, following 'Arry, there comes on Oscar, you finish in farce, and bring upon yourselves the scorn and ridicule of your confrères in Europe.

What has Oscar in common with Art? except that he dines at our tables and picks from our platters the plums for the pudding he peddles in the provinces. Oscar—the amiable, irresponsible, esurient Oscar—with no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a coat, has the courage of the opinions ... of others!

Enclosed to the Poet, with a line: "Oscar, you must really keep outside 'the radius'!"

With 'Arry and Oscar you have avenged the Academy.

I am, Gentlemen, yours obediently,

Quand même!

The World, Nov. 24, 1886.

Atlas, this is very sad! With our James vulgarity begins at home, and should be allowed to stay there.—À vous,

OSCAR WILDE

TO WHOM:

"A poor thing," Oscar!—"but," for once, I suppose "your own."

Philanthropy and Art

The Saturday Review has not thought it disgraceful to once more justify its title to be called the "Saturday Reviler." This time it is not to break upon the wheel some poor butterfly of a lady traveller or novelist, but to scoff at an aged painter of the highest repute—Mr. Herbert—upon his retirement to the rank of "Honorary Academician," after a career such as few, if any, painters living can boast. This it pleases the "Reviler" to congratulate artists upon as "good news," without a word or a thought of what the retiring Academician has done in art, except to utter the contemptible untruth that "his resignation means that he has found out that he is beaten," not by the natural failing of old age, but because he failed to impress such a writer as this with the special exhibition of the works of his long life, that was made some few years back to mark the completion of his last great picture for the House of Lords, "The Judgment of Daniel." That exhibition, which most people, who know anything about painting in its highest style of religious and monumental art, thought a most interesting display of a painter's career, is described by this most genial of critics as "acres of pallid purple canvases, with wizened saints and virgins in attitudinizing groups."

Whether that collection of Mr. Herbert's works had merit or not is matter of opinion which I am not concerned to dispute; but, as a matter of fact, there were only three small pictures in which the virgin or any saints appeared; the other pictures, besides the two large works of "The Delivery of the Law" and "The Judgment of Daniel," painted for the nation, being historical subjects, such as the "Lear Disinheriting Cordelia," a fresco of which is in the House of Lords; "The Acquittal of the Seven Bishops," which the Corporation of Salford purchased for their gallery of art; and several fine works of his youth, such as the "Brides of Venice," a "Procession in Venice, 1528," and others, which won for him his election to the Academy forty-five years ago, when he had to compete with such men as are, unfortunately, not to be found now among the candidates—Etty—Maclise—Dyce—Egg—and Elmore.

But the "Saturday's" art critic, if he ever saw this exhibition at all, didn't go to see these pictures. As Goethe says, "the eye sees what it came to see," and he went to see the "acres of purple canvases, with their wizened saints," which were not there. No matter—it suits his purpose to declare that they were, just as it does to cram into a paragraph more ignorance, insolence, and false assertions combined than is often to be met with even in this locality of literature, where the editor seems to be surrounded with all the prigs, and the pumps, and the snobs of the literary profession.

Truth, Aug. 19, 1886.

"Nous avons changé tout cela!"

Hoity-toity! my dear Henry!—What is all this? How can you startle the "Constant Reader," Truth, Sept. 2, 1886. of this cold world, by these sudden dashes into the unexpected?

Perceive also what happens.

Sweet in the security of my own sense of things, and looking upon you surely as the typical "Sapem" of modern progress and civilization, here do I, in full Paris, à l'heure de l'absinthe, upon mischievous discussion intent, call aloud for "Truth."

"Vous allez voir," I say to the brilliant brethren gathered about my table, "you shall hear the latest beautiful thing and bold, said by our great Henry—'capable de tout,' beside whom 'ce coquin d'Habacuc' was mild indeed and usual!" And straightway to my stultification, I find myself translating paragraphs of pathos and indignation, in which a colourless old gentleman of the Academy is sympathized with, and made a doddering hero of, for no better reason than that he is old—and those who would point out the wisdom and comfort of his withdrawal into the wigwam of private life, sternly reproved and anathematized and threatened with shame—until they might well expect to find themselves come upon by the bears of the aged and irascible, though bald-headed, Prophet, whom the children had thoughtfully urged to "go up."

Fancy the Frenchmen's astonishment as I read, and their placid amusement as I attempted to point out that it was "meant drolly—that enfin you were a mystificateur!"

Henry, why should I thus be mortified? Also, why this new pose, this cheap championship of senility?

How, in the name of all that is incompetent, do you find much virtue in work spreading over more time! What means this affectation of naïveté?

We all know that work excuses itself only by reason of its quality.

If the work be foolish, it surely is not less foolish because an honest and misspent lifetime has been passed in producing it.

What matters it that the offending worker has grown old among us, and has endeared himself to many by his caprices as ratepayer and neighbour?

Personally, he may have claims upon his surroundings; but, as the painter of poor pictures, he is damned for ever.

You see, my Henry, that it is not sufficient to be, as you are in wit and wisdom, among us, amazing and astute; a very Daniel in your judgment of many vexed questions; of a frankness and loyalty withal in your crusade against abuses, that makes of the keen litigator a most dangerous Quixote.

This peculiar temperament gives you that superb sense of right, outside the realms of art, that amounts to genius, and carries with it continued success and triumph in the warfare you wage.

But here it helps you not. And so you find yourself, for instance, pleasantly prattling in print of "English Art."

Learn, then, O! Henry, that there is no such thing as English Art. You might as well talk of English Mathematics. Art is Art, and Mathematics is Mathematics.

What you call English Art, is not Art at all, but produce, of which there is, and always has been, and always will be, a plenty, whether the men producing it are dead and called ——, or (I refer you to your own selection, far be it from me to choose)—or alive and called ——, whosoever you like as you turn over the Academy catalogue.

The great truth, you have to understand, is that it matters not at all whom you prefer in this long list. They all belong to the excellent army of mediocrity; the differences between them being infinitely small—merely microscopic—as compared to the vast distance between any one of them and the Great.

They are the commercial travellers of Art, whose works are their wares, and whose exchange is the Academy.

They pass and are forgotten, or remain for a while in the memory of the worthies who knew them, and who cling to their faith in them, as it flatters their own place in history—famous themselves—the friends of the famous!

Speak of them, if it please you, with uncovered head—even as in France you would remove your hat as there passes by the hearse—but remember it is from the conventional habit of awe alone, this show of respect, and called forth generally by the casual corpse of the commonest kind.

Paris, Aug. 21, 1886.

The Inevitable

Truth, Sept. 9, 1886.

When I suggested you as the "Sapeur of modern progress," my dear Henry, I thought to convey delicately my appreciation, wrapped in graceful compliment.

When I am made to say that you are the "Sapem" of civilisation—whatever that may mean—I would seem to insinuate an impertinence clothed in classic error.

I trust that, if you forgive me, you will never pardon the printer.—Always,

"Noblesse oblige"

Atlas, look at this! It has been culled from the Plumber and Decorator, of all insidious prints, and forwarded to me by the The World, Dec. 31, 1884. untiring people who daily supply me with the thinkings of my critics.

Read, Atlas, and let me execute myself:

"The 'Peacock' drawing-room of a well-to-do shipowner, of Liverpool, at Queen's Gate, London, is hand-painted, representing the noble bird with wings expanded, painted by an Associate of the Royal Academy, at a cost of £7000, and fortunate in claiming his daughter as his bride, and is one of the finest specimens of high art in decoration in the kingdom. The mansion is of modern construction."

He is not guilty, this honest Associate! It was I, Atlas, who did this thing—"alone I did it"—I "hand-painted" this room in the "mansion of modern construction."

Woe is me! I secreted, in the provincial shipowner's home, the "noble bird with wings expanded"—I perpetrated, in harmless obscurity, "the finest specimen of high-art decoration"—and the Academy is without stain in the art of its member. Also the immaculate character of that Royal body has been falsely impugned by this wicked "Plumber"!

Mark these things, Atlas, that justice may be done, the innocent spared, and history cleanly written.

Bon soir!

Chelsea.

Early Laurels

TO THE EDITOR:

The Observer, April 11, 1886.

Sir—In your report of the Graham sale of pictures at Messrs. Christie and Manson's rooms, I read the following:

"The next work, put upon the easel, was a 'Nocturne in blue and silver,' by J. M. Whistler. It was received with hisses."

May I beg, through your widely spread paper, to acknowledge the distinguished, though I fear unconscious, compliment so publicly paid.

It is rare that recognition, so complete, is made during the lifetime of the painter, and I would wish to have recorded my full sense of this flattering exception in my favour.

Chelsea.

A Further Proposition

The notion that I paint flesh lower in tone than it is in nature, is entirely based upon the popular superstition as to what flesh really is—when Art Journal, 1887. seen on canvas; for the people never look at nature with any sense of its pictorial appearance—for which reason, by the way, they also never look at a picture with any sense of nature, but, unconsciously from habit, with reference to what they have seen in other pictures.

Now, in the usual "pictures of the year" there is but one flesh, that shall do service under all circumstances, whether the person painted be in the soft light of the room or out in the glare of the open. The one aim of the unsuspecting painter is to make his man "stand out" from the frame—never doubting that, on the contrary, he should really, and in truth absolutely does, stand within the frame—and at a depth behind it equal to the distance at which the painter sees his model. The frame is, indeed, the window through which the painter looks at his model, and nothing could be more offensively inartistic than this brutal attempt to thrust the model on the hither-side of this window!

Yet this is the false condition of things to which all have become accustomed, and in the stupendous effort to bring it about, exaggeration has been exhausted—and the traditional means of the incompetent can no further go.

Lights have been heightened until the white of the tube alone remains—shadows have been deepened until black alone is left. Scarcely a feature stays in its place, so fierce is its intention of "firmly" coming forth; and in the midst of this unseemly struggle for prominence, the gentle truth has but a sorry chance, falling flat and flavourless, and without force.

The Master from Madrid, himself, beside this monster success of mediocrity, would be looked upon as mild: beau bien sure, mais pas "dans le mouvement"!

Whereas, could the people be induced to turn their eyes but for a moment, with the fresh power of comparison, upon their fellow-creatures as they pass in the gallery, they might be made dimly to perceive (though I doubt it, so blind is their belief in the bad), how little they resemble the impudent images on the walls! how "quiet" in colour they are! how "grey!" how "low in tone." And then it might be explained to their riveted intelligence how they had mistaken meretriciousness for mastery, and by what mean methods the imposture had been practised upon them.

An Opportunity

Cher Monsieur—M. —— m'a remis votre petite planche—port d'Amsterdam avec une épreuve. Elle est charmante et je serais fort heureux de la faire paraître dans l'article consacré à vos eaux fortes. Seulement, je crois que vous avez mal interprété ma demande et que par le fait nous ne nous entendons pas bien. Vous me demandez 63 guinées pour cette planche, soit plus de 2000 francs, outre que le prix dépasse celui de la planche la plus chère parue dans la Gazette depuis sa fondation, y compris les chefs-d'œuvre de Jacquemart et de Gaillard, il n'est pas dans les habitudes de la maison, de payer les planches d'artistes qui accompagnent un compte-rendu de leur œuvre. C'est ainsi que nous avons agi avec Méryon, Seymour Haden, Edwards, Evershed, Legros, &c.

Du reste, la planche pourrait rester votre propriété. Nous vous la remettrions après avoir fait notre tirage. Il est entendu qu'elle serait acierée.

Si ces conditions vous agréent, cher monsieur, je me ferai un vrai plaisir de faire dans la Gazette un article sur votre beau talent d'aquafortiste. Dans le cas contraire, je me verrais avec mille regrets, dans la necessité de vous renvoyer la planche que je me fusse fait cependant un véritable honneur de publier.

Veuillez agréer, cher monsieur, l'expression de mes meilleurs sentiments.

LE DIRECTEUR de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts.

Paris, le 12 Juin 1878.

The Opportunity Neglected

Cher Monsieur—Je regrette infiniment que mes moyens ne me permettent pas de naître dans votre Journal.

L'article que vous me proposez, comme berceau, me coûterait trop cher.

Il me faudrait donc reprendre ma planche et rester inconnu jusqu'à la fin des choses, puisque je n'aurais pas été inventé par la Gazette des Beaux Arts.—Recevez, Monsieur,

Nostalgia

... "Quite true—now that it is established as an improbability, it becomes true!

Extract from a letter à propos of Mr. Whistler's contemplated visit to his native land.

They tell me that December has been fixed upon, by the Fates, for my arrival in New York—and, if I escape the Atlantic, I am to be wrecked by the reporter on the pier.

The World, Oct. 13, 1886.

I shall be in his hands, even as is the sheep in the hands of his shearer—for I have learned nothing from those who have gone before—and been lost too!

What will you! I know Matthew Arnold, and am told that he whispered Truth exquisite, unheeded in the haste of America.

And these others who have crossed the seas, that they might fasten upon the hurried ones at home and gird at them with wisdom, hysterically acquired, and administered, unblushingly, with a suddenness of purpose that prevented their ever being listened to here,—must I follow in their wake, to be met with suspicion by my compatriots, and resented as the invading instructor?

Heavens!—who knows!—also in the papers, where naturally I read only of myself, I gather a general impression of offensive aggressiveness, that, coupled with Chase's monstrous lampoon, has prepared me for the tomahawk on landing.

How dared he, Chase, to do this wicked thing?—and I who was charming, and made him beautiful on canvas—the Masher of the Avenues.

However, I may not put off until the age of the amateur has gone by, but am to take with me some of those works which have won for me the execration of Europe, that they may be shown to a country in which I cannot be a prophet, and where I, who have no intention of being other than joyous—improving no one—not even myself—will say again my "Ten o'Clock," which I refused to repeat in London—J'ai dit!

This is no time for hesitation—one cannot continually disappoint a Continent!

An Insinuation

TO THE EDITOR:

My attention has been directed to a paragraph that has gone the round of the papers, to the effect that Mr. John Burr and Mr. Reid have The Daily News, Nov. 22, 1886. "withdrawn from the Society of British Artists." This tardy statement acquires undue significance at this moment, with a tendency to mislead, implying, as it might, that these resignations were in consequence of, and intended as a marked disapproval of, the determined stand made by the Society in excluding from their coming exhibition the masses of commonplace work hitherto offered to the public in their galleries. No such importance attaches, however, to their resignations, as these two gentlemen left Suffolk Street six months ago.

An Imputation

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—Mr. Whistler denies that the recent policy of the Society of British Artists was the cause of the secession of Messrs. Burr and The Daily News, Nov. 24, 1886. Reid from the ranks of that Society, and mentions in proof of his correction that their resignation took place six months ago. He might have gone further, and added that their secession corresponded in time with his own election as president. It is well known to artists that one, if not both, of these gentlemen left the Society knowing that changes of policy, of which they could not approve, were inevitable under the presidency of Mr. Whistler. It will be for the patrons of the Suffolk Street Gallery to decide whether the more than half-uncovered walls which will be offered to their view next week are more interesting than the work of many artists of more than average merit which will be conspicuous by its absence, owing to the selfish policy inaugurated.

A BRITISH ARTIST.

"Autre Temps autre Mœurs"

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—The anonymous "British Artist" says that "Mr. Whistler denies that the recent policy of the Society of British Artists was the cause The Daily News, Nov. 26, 1886. of the secession of Messrs. Reid and Burr from the ranks of that Society."

Far from me to propose to penetrate the motives of such withdrawal, but what I did deny was that it could possibly be caused—as its strangely late announcement seemed sweetly to insinuate—by the strong determination to tolerate no longer the mediocre work that had hitherto habitually swarmed the walls of Suffolk Street.

This is a plain question of date, and I pointed out that these two gentlemen left the Society six months ago—long before the supervising committee were called upon to act at all, or make any demonstration whatever. Your correspondent regrets that I do not "go further," and straightway goes further himself, and scarcely fares better, when, with a quaintness of naïveté rare at this moment, he proposes that "it will be for the patrons of the gallery to decide whether the more than half-uncovered walls are more interesting than the works of many artists of more than the average merit."

Now it will be for the patrons to decide absolutely nothing. It is, and will always be, for the gentlemen of the hanging committee alone, duly chosen, to decide whether empty space be preferable to poor pictures—whether, in short, it be their duty to cover walls, merely that walls may be covered—no matter with what quality of work.

Indeed, the period of the patron has utterly passed away, and the painter takes his place—to point out what he knows to be consistent with the demands of his art—without deference to patrons or prejudice to party. Beyond this, whether the "policy of Mr. Whistler and his following" be "selfish or no," matters but little; but if the policy of your correspondent's "following" find itself among the ruthlessly rejected, his letter is more readily explained.

Talent in a Napkin

If those who talk and write so glibly as to the desirability of artists devoting themselves Lecture before the Church Congress, Oct. 7, 1885. to the representation of the naked human form, only knew a tithe of the degradation enacted before the model is sufficiently hardened to her shameful calling, they would for ever hold their tongues and pens in supporting the practice. Is not clothedness a distinct type and feature of our Christian faith? All art representations of nakedness are out of harmony with it.

J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.

The Critic "Catching on"

Mr. Whistler is again, in a sense, the mainstay of the Society Pall Mall Gaz. Dec. 8, 1885. (British Artists), partly through his own individuality and partly through the innovations he has introduced.... He has several oil and pastel pictures, very slight in themselves, of the female nude, dignified and graceful in line and charmingly chaste, entitled "Harmony," "Caprice," and "Note." Beneath the latter Mr. Whistler has written, "Horsley soit qui mal y pense."

"This is not," said the artist, "what people are sure to call it, REFLECTION: Meant "friendly." 'Whistler's little joke.' On the contrary, it is an indignant protest against the idea that there is any immorality in the nude."

Ingratitude

No, kind sir—trop de zèle on the part of your representative—for I Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 10, 1885. surely never explain, and Art certainly requires no "indignant protest" against the unseemliness of senility. "Horsley soit qui mal y pense" is meanwhile a sweet sentiment—why more—and why "morality"?

The Complacent One

Mr. Whistler has issued a brown-paper portfolio of half a dozen Magazine of Art, Dec. 1887. "Notes," reproduced in marvellous facsimile. These "Notes" are delightful sketches in Indian ink and crayon, masterly so far as they go—but, then, they go such a little way ... the "Notes" can only be regarded as painter's raw material, interesting as correct sketches, but unworthy the glories of facsimile reproduction, and imposing margin.... The chief honours of the portfolio belong to the publishers....

The Critic-flâneur

Sir,—You, who are, I perceive, in your present brilliant incarnation, an undaunted and undulled pursuer of pleasing truths, listen, I pray you, while again I indicate, with sweet argument, Sunday Times, Jan. 15, 1888. the alternative of the bewildered one.

Notably, it is not necessary that the "Art Critic" should distinguish between the real and the "reproduction," or otherwise understand anything of the matter of which he writes—for much shall be forgiven him—yet surely, as I have before now pointed out, he might inquire.

Had the expounder of exhibitions, travelling for the Magazine of Art, asked the Secretary in the galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists, he would have been told that the "Notes" on the staircase, and in the vestibule, are not "delightful sketches in Indian ink and crayon ... reproduced in marvellous facsimile by Boussod, Valadon & Co.... unworthy the glories of facsimile reproduction, and imposing margin" ... while "the chief honours of the portfolio, however, belong to the publishers"—but are, disconcerting as I acknowledge it to be, themselves the lithographs from nature, drawn on the stone upon the spot.

Thus easily provided with paragraph, he would also have been spared the mortification of rebuke from his well-meaning and embarrassed employers.

Let the gentleman be warned—let him learn that the foolish critic only,—looks—and brings disaster, upon his paper—the safe and well-conducted one "informs himself."

Yours, Sir, gently,

A Played-out Policy

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE":

Sir—In your courageous crusade against the Demon Dulness and his preposterous surroundings, I think it well that there should be delivered into your hands certain documents for immediate publication, Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 9, 1886. that your readers may be roused quickly, and hear again how well fenced in are the foolish in strong places—and how greatly to be desired is their exposure, discomfiture, and death—that Truth may prevail.

It happened in this way. The criticism in the Times called for instant expostulation, and my answer was consequently sent in to the Editor, who forthwith returned it, regretting "that its tone prevented its appearance in the paper." ... I thereupon withdrew to write the following note to the Editor in person:—

"Dear Sir—Permit me to call your courteous attention to the fact that the enclosed letter to the Editor of the Times is in reply to an article that appeared in your paper—and that, as I sign my name in full, I alone am responsible for its tone or form; indeed, that such is its tone and form, is because it is my letter.

"In common fairness the answer to, or comment upon, any statements made in your paper should be published in your paper, as proper etiquette prevents its insertion in any other journal.

"Also, you surely would not propose to dictate certain forms or styles in which alone the columns of the Times are to be approached—as who should say all other savour of sacrilege!—or acquiescence alone would do, and you would have to write all your letters yourselves.

"My letter concerns the effect produced by criticism of a commonplace and inferior kind, wholly unworthy the first paper in England—and I am startled to learn, and still unwilling to believe, that the Times would shun all ventilation and refuse to publish any letter as its sole means of screening its staff or protecting its writers.

"I submit that the tone of my letter sins against no laws that are accepted in antagonism—that it offends in no way the etiquette of attack known to gentlemen.

"I beg, therefore, again, that if there be still time for its insertion, you will have it printed in your issue of to-morrow, or will say that it shall appear in the Times of Thursday morning.

"I am, dear Sir,

"Very faithfully,

"J. McNeill Whistler."

I was now told, "with the Editor's compliments," "that my letter should be considered." Taking this in complete good faith, I left the office, to discover the next day in print a remnant of the letter in question; that, by itself, entirely did away with sufficient reason for its being there at all. The two ensuing notes explain themselves:

To J. McN. Whistler, Esq.:

"The Editor of the Times has inserted in to-day's paper the only portion of Mr. Whistler's letter of November 30 which appears to have any claim to publication.

"Printing House Square, Dec. 1, 1886."

"To the Editor of the Times:

"Dear Sir—I beg to acknowledge the consummate sense of opportunity displayed by the Editor of the Times, in his cunning production of a part of my letter.

"Amazing! Mes compliments!"

Without further comment I hand you a copy of the rejected letter.

"To the Editor of the Times.—Sir—In his article upon the Society of British Artists, your Art gentleman ventures the opinion of the 'plain man.'

"That such opinion is out of place and stultifying in a question of Art never occurs to him, and it is therefore frankly cited as, in a way, conclusive.

"The naïf train of thought that justified the importance attached to this poor 'plain' opinion at all would seem to be the same that pervades the writing throughout; until it becomes difficult to discover where the easy effrontery and self-sufficiency of the 'plain one,' nothing doubting, cease, and the wit and wisdom of the experienced expert begin—so that one unconsciously confounds the incautious critic with the plausible plain person, who finally becomes the same authority.

"Blind plainness certainly is the characteristic of the solemn censure upon the fine work of Mr. Stott, of Oldham—plain blindness the omission of all mention of Mr. Ludovici's dainty dancing-girl.

"Bewilderment among paintings is naturally the fate of the 'plain man,' but, when put forth in the Times, his utterances, however empty, acquire a semblance of sense; so that while he gravely descants with bald assurance upon the engineering of the light in the galleries, and the decoration of the walls, the reader stands a chance of being misled, and may not discover at once that the 'plain' writer is qualified by ignorance alone to continue.

"Permit me, therefore, to rectify inconsequent impressions, and tell your readers that there is nothing 'tentative' in the 'arrangement' of colour, walls, or drapery—that the battens should not 'be removed'—that they are meant to remain, not only for their use, but as bringing parallel lines into play that subdivide charmingly the lower portion of the walls and add to their light appearance—that the whole 'combination' is complete—and that the 'plain man' is, as usual, 'out of it.'—I am, Sir, etc.,

"J. McNeill Whistler."

The question of fair dealing and good manners in this matter I could not leave in better hands than your own, and I will only add that hitherto I have always met with the utmost readiness on the part of the press to receive into their columns any reply, however opposed to assertions of their own.

Surely it is but poor policy this peremptory attempt to maintain in authority the weak and blundering one, that he may destroy himself and bring sorrow upon his people.

Rather let him be thrust from his post, that he may be "brayed in a mortar among wheat with a pestle"—that the Just be assuaged and foolishness depart from among us.

An Interview with an ex-President

The adverse vote by which the Royal Society of British Artists transferred its oath of allegiance from Mr. Whistler is for the time Pall Mall Gazette, June 11, 1888. the chief topic of conversation in artistic circles.... We instructed our representative to visit Mr. Whistler to obtain his explanation of the affair.

"The state of affairs?" said Mr. Whistler, in his light and airy way, raising his eyebrows and twinkling his eyes, as if it were all the best possible fun in the world; "why, my dear sir, there's positively no state of affairs at all. Contrary to public declaration, there's actually nothing chaotic in the whole business; on the contrary, everything is in order, and just as it should be. The survival of the fittest as regards the presidency, don't you see, and, well—Suffolk Street is itself again! A new government has come in, and, as I told the members the other night, I congratulate the Society on the result of their vote, for no longer can it be said that the right man is in the wrong place. No doubt their pristine sense of undisturbed somnolence will again settle upon them after the exasperated mental condition arising from the unnatural strain recently put upon the old ship. Eh? what? Ha! ha!"

"You do not then consider the Society as out of date? You do not think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor took away the raison d'être and original intention of the Society—that of being a foil to the Royal Academy?"

"I can hardly say what was originally intended, but I do know that it was originally full of hope, and even determination; shown in a manner by their getting a Royal Charter—the only art society in London, I believe, that has one.

"But by degrees it lapsed into a condition of incapacity—a sort of secondary state,—do you see, till it acknowledged itself a species of crêche for the Royal Academy. Certain it is that when I came into it the prevalent feeling among all the men was that their best work should go to 'another place.'

"I felt that this sense of inferiority was fatal to the well-being of the place.

"For that reason I attempted to bring about a sense of esprit de corps and ambition, which culminated in what might be called 'my first offence'—by my proposition that members belonging to other societies should hold no official position in ours. I wanted to make it an art centre," continued Mr. Whistler, with a sudden vigour and an earnestness for which the public would hardly give credit to this Master of Badinage and Apostle of Persiflage; "they wanted it to remain a shop, although I said to them, 'Gentlemen, don't you perceive that as shopmen you have already failed, don't you see, eh?' But they were under the impression that the sales decreased under my methods and my régime, and ignored the fact that sales had declined all over the country from all sorts of causes, commercial, and so on.

Their only chance lay in the art tone of the place, for the old-fashioned pictures had ceased to become saleable wares—buyers simply wouldn't buy them. But members' work I couldn't, by the rules, eliminate—only the bad outsiders were choked off."

"Then how do you explain the bitterness of all the opposition?"

"A question of 'pull devil, pull baker,' and the devil has gone and the bakers remain in Suffolk Street! Ha! ha! Here is a list of the fiendish party who protested against the thrusting forth of their president in such an unceremonious way:—

"Alfred Stevens, Theodore Roussel, Nelson Maclean, Macnab, Waldo Story, A. Ludovici, jun., Sidney Starr, Francis James, W. A. Rixon, Aubrey Hunt, Moffatt P. Lindner, E. G. Girardot, Ludby, Arthur Hill, Llewellyn, W. Christian Symons, C. Wyllie, A. F. Grace, J. E. Grace, J. D. Watson, Jacomb Hood, Thornley, J. J. Shannon, and Charles Keen. Why, the very flower of the Society! and whom have they left—bon Dieu! whom have they left?"

"It was a hard fight then?"

"My dear sir, they brought up the maimed, the halt, the lame, and the blind—literally—like in Hogarth's 'Election;' they brought up everything but corpses, don't you know!—very well!"

"But all this hardly explains the bitterness of the feud and personal enmity to you."

"What? Don't you see? My presidential career had in a manner been a busy one. When I took charge of the ship I found her more or less water-logged. Well, I put the men to the pumps, and thoroughly shook up the old vessel; had her re-rigged re-cleaned, and painted—and finally I was graciously permitted to run up the Royal Standard to the masthead, and brought her fully to the fore, ready for action—as became a Royal flagship! And as a natural result mutiny at once set in!

"Don't you see," he continued, with one of his strident laughs, "what might be considered, by the thoughtless, as benefits, were resented, by the older and wiser of the crew, as innovations and intrusions of an impertinent and offensive nature. But the immediate result was that interest in the Society was undeniably developed, not only at home, but certainly abroad. Notably in Paris all the art circle was keenly alive to what was taking place in Suffolk Street; and, although their interest in other institutions in this country had previously flagged, there was the strong willingness to take part in its exhibitions.

For example, there was Alfred Stevens, who showed his own sympathy with the progressive efforts by becoming a member. And look at the throngs of people that crowded our private views—eh? ha! ha! what! But what will you!—the question is, after all, purely a parochial one—and here I would stop to wonder, if I do not seem pathetic and out of character, why the Artist is naturally an object of vituperation to the Vestryman?—Why am I—who, of course, as you know, am charming—why am I the pariah of my parish?

"Why should these people do other than delight in me?—Why should they perish rather than forgive the one who had thrust upon them honour and success?"

"And the moral of it all?"

Mr. Whistler became impressive—almost imposing—as he stroked his moustache, and tried to hide a smile behind his hand.

"The organisation of this 'Royal Society of British Artists' as shown by its very name, tended perforce to this final convulsion, resulting in the separation of the elements of which it was composed. They could not remain together, and so you see the 'Artists' have come out, and the 'British' remain—and peace and sweet obscurity are restored to Suffolk Street!—Eh? What? Ha! ha!"

Statistics

Since our interview with Mr. Whistler curious statements have been set afloat concerning the question of finance ... giving circumstantial Pall Mall Gazette, July 6, 1888. evidence of the disaster brought upon the Society by the enforcement of the Whistlerian policy:—

This evidence, which is very interesting, is as follows:—The sales of the Society during the year 1881 were under £5000; 1882, under £6000; 1883, under £7000; 1884, under £8000; 1885 (the first year of Mr. Whistler's rule), they fell to under £4000; 1886, under £3000; 1887, under £2000; and the present year, under £1000.

On the other hand, the fact of the Society having made itself responsible to Mr. Whistler for a loan raised by him to meet a sudden expenditure for repairs, is also true; but the unwisdom of the president and members of any society having money transactions between them need hardly be commented upon here....

Mr. Wyke Bayliss, the new president, strikes one as being "a strong man"—shrewd, logical, and self-restrained. The author of several books and pamphlets on the more imaginative realm of art, he is, one would say, as much permeated by religion as he is by art; to both of these qualities, curiously enough, his canvases, which usually deal with cathedral interiors of cheery hue, bear witness.

The hero of three Bond Street "one-man exhibitions," a Board-school chairman, a lecturer, champion chess-player of Surrey, a member of the Rochester Diocesan Council, a Shaksperian student, a Fellow of the Society of Cyclists, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, and public orator of Noviomagus ... he is surely one of the most versatile men who ever occupied a presidential chair....

A Retrospect

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE:"

Sir,—The Royal Society of British Artists is, perhaps, by this time again unknown to your agitated readers—but I would recall a brilliant number of the Pall Mall Gazette (July 1888), in which mischievous amusement was sought, with statistics from a newly elected President—Mr. Bayliss (Wyke).

Believing it to be, in an official and dull way, more becoming that the appointed Council of this same Society should deal with the resulting chaos, I have, until now, waited for a slight washing of hands, as who should say, on their part as representing the gentle deprecation of, I assure you, the respectable body in Suffolk Street.

Well, no!—It was doubtless adjudged wiser, or milder, to "live it down," and now it, I really believe, behoves me, in a weary way, to remind you of the document in question, and, for the sake of commonplace, uninteresting, and foolish fact, to lift up my parable and declare fallacious that which was supposed to be true, and generally to bore myself, and perhaps even you, the all-patient one, with what, I fear, we others care but little for—parish matters.

In the article, then, entitled "The Royal Society of British Artists and its Future—An Interview with the New President"—a most appalling volley of figures was fired off at brûle-pour-point distance. Under this deafening detonation I, having no habit, sat for days incapable—dreaming vaguely that when a President should see fit to wash his people's linen in the open, there must be indeed crime at least on the part of the offender at whose instigation such official sacrifice of dignity could come about. I was the offender, and for a while I sincerely believed that disaster had been brought upon this Royal Society by my own casual self. But behold, upon closer inspection, these threatening figures are meretricious and misleading, as was the building account of the early Philanthropist who, in the days of St. Paul, meant well, and was abruptly discouraged by that clear-headed apostle.