James Abbott McNeill Whistler (continued 3)

Mr. Bayliss tells us that: "The sales of the Society during the year 1881 were under," whatever that may mean, "£5000; 1882, under £6000; 1883, under £7000; 1884, under £8000; in 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."

But also Mr. Bayliss takes this rare occasion of attention, to assert his various qualifications for his post as head of painters in the street of Suffolk, and so we learn that he is:—

"Chairman of the Board-school in his own district," "Champion chess-player of Surrey," "A member of the Diocesan Council of Rochester," "Fellow of the Society of Cyclists," and "Public Orator of Noviomagus."

As chess-player he may have intuitively bethought himself of a move—possibly the happy one,—who knows?—which in the provinces obtained him a cup; as Diocesan Councilman he may have supposed Rochester indifferent to the means used for an end; but as Public Cyclist of the Royal Society of Noviomagus his experience must be opposed to any such bluff as going his entire pile on a left bower only!

When I recovered my courage—what did I find?—first my unimpaired intelligence, and then my memory.

Now, to my intelligence, it becomes patent that the chairman of a Clapham School-board, proposes by his figures to prove, that the income of the sacrificed Society had of late years steadily increased:—"In 1881, under £5000; 1882, under £6000; 1883, under £7000; 1884, under £8000," until, under the baneful reign of terror and Whistler in 1885—"the first year" of the sacrilegious era—the receipts fell to £4000—and have continued to decrease until, in this present year, they fall to the miserable sum of under a thousand pounds—a revelation! discreet, statesmanlike, and worthy the orator at his best!

Unfortunately for the triumph of such audacious demonstration, my revived memory points out that Mr. Whistler was only elected President in June 1886, and, in conformity with the ancient rules and amusing customs of the venerable body, only came into office six months afterwards—that is, practically, in January 1887. Again, with this last exhibition, he, as everybody knows, had nothing whatever to do.

Immediately, therefore, the conclusion is "quite other" than that put forth by the Cyclist of his suburb, and we arrive at the, for once, not unamusing "fact" that the disastrous and simple Painter Whistler only took in hand the reins of government at least a year after the former driver had been pitched from his box, and half the money-bags had been already lost!—from £8000 to £4000 at one fatal swoop! and the beginning of the end had set in! Indeed, this may have been one of the strong reasons for his own election by an overwhelming minority of hysterical and panic-stricken passengers.

Now, though he did his best, and cried aloud that the coach was safe, and called it Royal, and proposed to carry the mail, confidence, difficult to restore, waited for proof, and although fresh paint was spread upon the panels, and the President coachman wore his hat with knowing air, on one side and handled the ribbons lightly, and dandled the drag, inviting jauntily the passer-by, the public recognized the ramshackle old "conveyance," and scoffingly refused to trust themselves in the hearse.

"Four thousand pounds!" down it went—£3000—£2000—the figures are Wyke's—and this season, the ignominious "£1000 or under," is none of my booking! and when last I saw the mad machine it was still cycling down the hill.

The New Dynasty

Sir—Pray accept my compliments, and be good enough to inform me at once by whose authority, and upon what pretence, the painting, designed and executed by myself, upon the panel at the entrance of the The Morning Post. galleries of Suffolk Street, has been defaced. Tampering with the work of an artist, however obscure, is held to be, in what might be called the international laws of the whole Art world, so villainous an offence, that I must at present decline to entertain the responsibility of the very distinguished and Royal Society of British Artists, for what must be due to the rash, and ill-considered, zeal of some enthusiastic and untutored underling.

Awaiting your reply, I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient, humble servant,

Telegram to Council of Royal Society of British Artists: "Congratulations upon dignity maintained as Artists left in charge of a brother Artist's work, and upon graceful bearing as officers toward their late President."—Whistler. To the Hon. Secretary of the Royal Society of British Artists. March 30, 1889.

An Embroidered Interview

Pall Mall Gazette, April 3, 1889.

"Well, Mr. Whistler, they say they only painted out your butterfly from the signboard, and changed the date. What do you say?"

"What do I say? That they have been guilty of an act of villainous Vandalism."

"Will you tell me the history of the Board?"

"When I was elected to the presidency of the Society I offered to paint a signboard which should proclaim to the passer-by the name and nature of the Society. My offer was accepted, and the Board was sent down to my studio, where I treated it as I should a most distinguished sitter—as a picture or an etching—throwing my artistic soul into the Board, which gradually became a Board no longer, as it grew into a picture. You say they say it was only a butterfly. Mendacity could go no further. I painted a lion and a butterfly. The lion lay with the butterfly—a harmony in gold and red, with which I had taken as much trouble as I did with the best picture I ever painted. And now they have clothed my golden lion clumsily, awkwardly, and timorously with a dirty coat of black. My butterfly has gone, the checks and lines, which I had treated decoratively, have disappeared. Am I not justified in calling it a piece of gross Vandalism?"

"What course would you have recommended? You had gone; the Board remained: perhaps it was weather-beaten—what could they do?"

"They should have taken the Board down, sir, taken the Board down, not dared to destroy my work—taken the Board down, returned it to me, and got another Board of their own to practise on. Good heavens! You say to my face it was only a Board. You say they only painted out my butterfly. It is as if you were condoling with a man who had been robbed and stripped, and said to him, 'Never mind. It is well it is no worse. You have escaped easily. Why, you might have had your throat cut.'"

And Mr. Whistler's Mephistophelian form disappeared into the black of the night.

The "Pall Mall" Puzzled

Pall Mall Gazette, April 4, 1889.

Mr. Whistler begs me to insert the following note exactly as it stands. I haven't the slightest idea what it means, but here it is with "mes compliments":—

"To the Interviewer of the Pall Mall Gazette:

"Good! very good! Prettily put, as becomes the Pall Mall, and yet you cannot be reproached with being 'too fine for your audience!'

"I wish I could say these things as you do for me, even at the risk of, at last, being understood. Mes Compliments!"

Official Bumbledom

Sir—As you have considered Mr. Whistler's letter worthy of publication, I ask you to complete the publication by inserting this simple statement of the facts as they occurred. The notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists bears on a red ground, in letters To the Editor of The Morning Post of gold, the title of the Society. To this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency, added with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a butterfly. On the eve of our private view it was found that, while the title of the Society, being in pure gold, remained untarnished, Mr. Whistler's designs, being executed in spurious metals, had nearly disappeared, and what little remained of them was of a dirty brown. The board could not be put up in that state. The lion, however, was not so badly drawn as to make it necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent colour, and that has accordingly been done. But as the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr. Whistler, it would manifestly have been improper to have left the butterfly (his well-known signature) attached to it, even if it had not appeared in so crushed a state. The soiled butterfly was therefore effaced.

Yours, &c., WYKE BAYLISS, Clapham. April 1, 1889.

"Aussi que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?"

Sir—I have read Mr. Bayliss's letter, and am disarmed. I feel the folly of kicking against the parish pricks. These things are right in The Morning Post. Clapham, by the common.

"V'là ce que c'est, c'est bien fait— Fallait pas qu'il y aille! fallait pas qu'il y aille!"

And when, one of these days, all traces of history shall, by dint of much turpentine, and more Bayliss, have been effaced from the board that "belongs to us," I shall be justified, and it will be boldly denied by some dainty student that the delicate butterfly was ever "soiled" in Suffolk Street.

Yours, &c.,

The Royal Society of British Artists and their Signboard

Sir—The moment has now arrived when, it seems to me proper that, in your journal, one of the recognized Art organs of the country, should The Athenæum, April 27, 1889. be recorded the details of an incident in which the element of grave offence is, not unnaturally, quite missed by the people in their indignation at the insignificance of the object to which public attention has so unwarrantably been drawn—a "notice board"!—the common sign of commerce!

Now, however slight might be the value of the work in question destroyed, it is surely of startling interest to know that work may be destroyed, or worse still, defaced and tampered with, at the present moment in full London, with the joyous approval of the major part of the popular press.

I leave to your comment the fact that in this instance the act is committed with the tacit consent of a body of gentlemen officially styled "artists," at the instigation of their president, as he unblushingly acknowledges, and will here distinctly state that the "notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists" did not "bear on a red ground, in letters of gold, the title of the Society," and that "to this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency," did not "add with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a butterfly." This damning evidence, though in principle irrelevant—for what becomes of the soul of a "Diocesan member of the Council of Clapham" is, artistically, a matter of small moment—I nevertheless bring forward as the only one that will at present be at all considered or even understood.

The "notice board" was of the familiar blue enamel, well known in metropolitan use, with white lettering, announcing that the exhibition of the Incorporated Society of British Artists was held above, and that for the sum of one shilling the public might enter.

I myself mixed the "red ground," and myself placed, "in letters of gold, the" new "title" upon it—in proper relation to the decorative scheme of the whole design, of which it formed naturally an all-important feature. The date was that of the Society's Royal grant, and in commemoration of its new birth. With the offending Butterfly, it has now been effaced in one clean sweep of independence, while the lion, "not so badly drawn," was differently dealt with—it was found not "necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent colour, and that," with a bottle of Brunswick black, "has accordingly been done;" and, as Mr. Bayliss adds, with unpremeditated truth, in the thoughtless pride of achievement, "the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr. Whistler!"

This exposure of Mr. Bayliss's direct method I have wickedly withheld, in order that the Philistine impulse of the country should declare itself in all its freshness of execration before it could be checked by awkward discovery of mere mendacity, and a timid sense of danger, called justice.

Everything has taken place as I pleasantly foresaw, and there is by this time, with the silent exception of one or two cautious dailies, scarcely a lay paper in the land that has been able to refrain from joining in the hearty yell of delight at the rare chance of coarsely, publicly, and safely insulting an artist! In this eagerness to affront the man they have irretrievably and ridiculously committed themselves to open sympathy with the destruction of his work.

I wish coldly to chronicle this fact in the archives of the Athenæum for the future consideration of the cultured New Zealander.

An Official Letter

Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, officially informing me that the Committee award me a second-class gold medal.

Pray convey my sentiments of tempered and respectable joy to the gentlemen of the Committee, and my complete appreciation of the second-hand compliment paid me.

And I have, Sir, The honour to be Your most humble, obedient servant,

J. McNEILL WHISTLER.

To the 1st Secretary, Central Committee, International Art Exhibition, Munich.

The Home of Taste

The Ideas of Mr. Blankety Blank on House Decoration

The other day I happened to call on Mr. Blank,—Japanese Blank, you know, whose house is in far Fulham. The garden door flew open at my summons, and my eye was at once confronted with a house, the hue of Pall Mall Gazette, Dec. 1, 1888. whose face reminded me of a Venetian palazzo, for it was of a subdued pink.... If the exterior was Venetian, however, the interior was a compound of Blank and Japan. Attracted by the curiously pretty hall, I begged the artist to explain this—the newest style of house decoration.

I need not say that Blank, being a man of an original turn of mind, with the decorative bump strongly developed, holds what are at present peculiar views upon wall papers, room tones, and so on. The day is dark and gloomy, yet once within the halls of Blank there is sweetness and light.

You must look through the open door into a luminous little chamber covered with a soft wash of lemon yellow.

From the antechamber we passed through the open door into a large drawing-room, of the same soft lemon-yellow hue. The blinds were down, the fog reigned without, and yet you would have thought that the sun was in the room.

Here let me pause in my description, and put on record the gist of our conversation concerning the Home of Taste.

"Now, Mr. Blank, would you tell me how you came to prefer tones to papers?"

"Here the walls used to be covered with a paper of a sombre green, which oppressed me and made me sad," said Blank. 'Why cannot I bring the sun into the house,' I said to myself, 'even in this land of fog and clouds?' Then I thought of my experiment and invoked the aid of the British house-painter. He brought his colours and his buckets, and I stood over him as he mixed his washes.

"One night, when the work was nearing completion, one of them caught sight of himself in the mirror, and remarked with astonishment upon the loveliness of his own features. It was the lemon-yellow beautifying the British workman's flesh tones.

"I assure you the effect of a room full of people in evening dress seen against the yellow ground is extraordinary, and," added Blank, "perhaps flattering."

"Then do I understand that you would remove all wall papers?"

"A good ground for distemper," chuckled Mr. Blank.

"But you propose to inaugurate a revolution."

"I don't go so far as that, but I am glad to be able to introduce my ideas of house furnishing and house decoration to the public," said Blank, "and I may tell you that when I go to America with my Paris pictures, I shall try and decorate a house according to my own ideas, and ask the Americans to think about the matter."

Another Poacher in the Chelsea Preserves

Atlas—Nothing matters but the unimportant; so, at the risk of advertising an Australian immigrant of Fulham—who, like the Kangaroo The World, Dec. 26, 1888. of his country, is born with a pocket and puts everything into it—and, in spite of much wise advice, we ought not to resist the joy of noticing how readily a hurried contemporary has fallen a prey to its superficial knowledge of its various departments, and, culminating in a "Special Edition" last week to embody a lengthy interview headed "The Home of Taste," has discovered again the nest of the mare that was foaled years ago!

How, by the way, so smart a paper should have printed its naïf emotions of ecstasy before the false colours which the "Kangaroo" has hoisted over his bush, defies all usual explanation, but clearly the jaunty reporter whose impudent familiarity, on a former memorable occasion, achieved my wondering admiration, must have been, in stress of business, replaced by a novice who had never breakfasted with you and me, Atlas, and the rest of the world, in the "lemon-yellow," of whose beautiful tone he now, for the first time, is so completely convinced.

The "hue" on the "face" of the Fulham "Palazzo" he moreover calls "Venetian," and is pleased with it—and so was I, Atlas—for I mixed it myself!

And yet, O Atlas, they say that I cannot keep a friend—my dear, I cannot afford it—and you only keep for me their scalps!

"Many, when a thing was lent them, reckoned it to be found, and put them to trouble that helped them."

A Suggestion

A certain painter has given himself away to an American journalist, unless that gentleman has romanced, in the Philadelphia Daily News. Truth, March 28, 1889. According to him this person explained how he managed the press, and how he claimed to be the inventor of the system associated with the name of Mr. Whistler. The Art clubs and the studios have been flooded with the Philadelphia Daily News. Mr. Whistler sent on his own copy to the pretender, with the following note:—

"You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you what to do under the circumstances, and you know your way to Spain. Good-bye!"

The Habit of Second Natures

Most Valiant Truth—Among your ruthless exposures of the shams of to-day, nothing, I confess, have I enjoyed with keener relish than your late tilt at that arch-impostor and pest of the period—the Truth, Jan. 2, 1890. all-pervading plagiarist!

I learn, by the way, that in America he may, under the "Law of '84," as it is called, be criminally prosecuted, incarcerated, and made to pick oakum, as he has hitherto picked brains—and pockets!

How was it that, in your list of culprits, you omitted that fattest of offenders—our own Oscar?

His methods are brought again freshly to my mind, by the indefatigable and tardy Romeike, who sends me newspaper cuttings of "Mr. Herbert Vivian's Reminiscences," in which, among other entertaining anecdotes, is told at length, the story of Oscar simulating the becoming pride of author, upon a certain evening, in the club of the Academy students, and arrogating to himself the responsibility of the lecture, with which, at his earnest prayer, I had, in good fellowship, crammed him, that he might not add deplorable failure to foolish appearance, in his anomalous position, as art expounder, before his clear-headed audience.

He went forth, on that occasion, as my St. John—but, forgetting that humility should be his chief characteristic, and unable to withstand the unaccustomed respect with which his utterances were received, he not only trifled with my shoe, but bolted with the latchet!

Mr. Vivian, in his book, tells us, further on, that lately, in an article in the Nineteenth Century on the "Decay of Lying," Mr. Wilde has deliberately and incautiously incorporated, "without a word of comment," a portion of the well-remembered letter in which, after admitting his rare appreciation and amazing memory, I acknowledge that "Oscar has the courage of the opinions ... of others!"

My recognition of this, his latest proof of open admiration, I send him in the following little note, which I fancy you may think à propos to publish, as an example to your readers, in similar circumstances, of noble generosity in sweet reproof, tempered, as it should be, to the lamb in his condition:—

"Oscar, you have been down the area again, I see!

"I had forgotten you, and so allowed your hair to grow over the sore place. And now, while I looked the other way, you have stolen your own scalp! and potted it in more of your pudding.

"Labby has pointed out that, for the detected plagiarist, there is still one way to self-respect (besides hanging himself, of course), and that is for him boldly to declare, 'Je prends mon bien là où je le trouve.'

"You, Oscar, can go further, and with fresh effrontery, that will bring you the envy of all criminal confrères, unblushingly boast, 'Moi, je prends son bien là où je le trouve!'"

Chelsea.

In the Market Place

Sir—I can hardly imagine that the public are in the very smallest degree interested in the shrill shrieks of "Plagiarism" that proceed Truth, Jan. 9, 1890. from time to time out of the lips of silly vanity or incompetent mediocrity.

However, as Mr. James Whistler has had the impertinence to attack me with both venom and vulgarity in your columns, I hope you will allow me to state that the assertions contained in his letters are as deliberately untrue as they are deliberately offensive.

The definition of a disciple as one who has the courage of the opinions of his master is really too old even for Mr. Whistler to be allowed to claim it, and as for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have ever heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself.

It is a trouble for any gentleman to have to notice the lucubrations of so ill-bred and ignorant a person as Mr. Whistler, but your publication of his insolent letter left me no option in the matter.—I remain, Sir, faithfully yours,

OSCAR WILDE.

Panic

O truth!—Cowed and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for Truth, Jan. 16, 1890. once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true colours—as his own "gentleman."

How shall I stand against his just anger, and his damning allegations! for it must be clear to your readers, that, beside his clean polish, as prettily set forth in his epistle, I, alas! am but the "ill-bred and ignorant person," whose "lucubrations" "it is a trouble" for him "to notice."

Still will I, desperate as is my condition, point out that though "impertinent," "venomous," and "vulgar," he claims me as his "master"—and, in the dock, bases his innocence upon such relation between us.

In all humility, therefore, I admit that the outcome of my "silly vanity and incompetent mediocrity," must be the incarnation: "Oscar Wilde." Mea culpa! the Gods may perhaps forgive and forget.

To you, Truth—champion of the truth—I leave the brave task of proclaiming again that the story of the lecture to the students of the Royal Academy was, as I told it to you, no fiction.

In the presence of Mr. Waldo Story did Oscar make his prayer for preparation; and at his table was he entrusted with the materials for his crime.

You also shall again unearth, in the Nineteenth Century Review of Jan. 1889, page 37, the other appropriated property, slily stowed away, in an article on "The Decay of Lying"—though why Decay!

To shirk this matter thus is craven, doubtless; but I am awe-stricken and tremble, for truly, "the rage of the sheep is terrible!"

Just Indignation

Oscar—How dare you! What means this disguise?

Upon perceiving the Poet, in Polish cap and green overcoat, befrogged, and wonderfully befurred.

Restore those things to Nathan's, and never again let me find you masquerading the streets of my Chelsea in the combined costumes of Kossuth and Mr. Mantalini!

An Advanced Critic

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—I find myself obliged to notice the critical review of the "Ten o'Clock," that appeared in your paper (March 6).

Pall Mall Gazette, March 28, 1888.

In the interest of my publishers, I beg to state formally that the work has not as yet been issued at all—and I would point out that what is still in the hands of the printer, cannot possibly have fallen into the fingers of your incautious contributor!

The early telegram is doubtless the ambition of this smart, though premature and restless one—but he is wanting in habit, and unhappy in his haste!—What will you? The Pall Mall and the people have been imposed upon.

Be good enough, Sir, to insert this note, lest the public suppose, upon your authority, that the "Ten o'Clock," as yet unseen in the window of Piccadilly, has, in consequence of this sudden summing up, been hurriedly withdrawn from circulation.—I am, Sir,

The Advantage of Explanation

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—Just three weeks after publication Mr. Whistler "finds himself obliged to notice the critical review of the 'Ten o'Clock' that appeared in your paper." He points out that "what is still in the Pall Mall Gazette, March 31, 1888. hands of the printer cannot possibly have fallen into the fingers of your incautious contributor." I do not pretend to be acquainted with the multitudinous matters that may be in the hands of his publishers' printers. But I can declare—and you, Sir, will corroborate me—that a printed copy of Mr. Whistler's smart but misleading lecture was placed in my hands for review, and, moreover, that the notice did not appear until the pamphlet was duly advertised by Messrs. Chatto and Windus as ready. It is, of course, a matter of regret to me if, as Mr. Whistler suggests, his publishers' interests are likely to suffer from the review; but if an author's work, in the reviewer's opinion, be full of rash statement and mischievous doctrine, the publishers must submit to the risk of frank criticism. But it will be observed that Mr. Whistler is merely seeking to create an impression that your Reviewer never saw the work he criticized, which is surely not a creditable position to take up, even by a sensitive man writhing under adverse criticism.—I am, Sir, most obediently,

YOUR REVIEWER.

Testimony

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—My apologies, I pray you, to the much disturbed gentleman, "Your Reviewer," who complains that I have allowed "just three weeks" to go Pall Mall Gazette, April 7, 1888. by without noticing his writing.

Let me hasten, lest he be further offended, to acknowledge his answer, in Saturday's paper.

After much matter, he comes unexpectedly upon a clear understanding of my letter—"It will be observed," he says naïvely, "that Mr. Whistler is merely seeking to create an impression that your Reviewer never saw the work he criticized,"—herein he is completely right, this is absolutely the impression I did seek to create—"which," he continues, "is surely not a creditable position to take up"—again I agree with him, and admit the sad spectacle a "Reviewer" presents in such position.

He further "declares," and calls upon you, Sir, to "corroborate" him, "that a printed copy of Mr. Whistler's misleading lecture was placed in my hands for review"—and moreover, that "the notice did not appear until the pamphlet was duly advertised by Messrs. Chatto and Windus as ready."

Pausing to note that if the lecture had not seemed misleading to him, it would surely not have been worth uttering at all, I come to the copy in question—this could only have been a printed proof, quaintly acquired—as will be seen by the following letter from Messrs. Chatto and Windus, which I must beg you Sir, to publish, with this note—as it deals also with the remaining point, the advertisement of the pamphlet,

And, I am, Sir,

The following is the letter from Mr. Whistler's publishers:—

Dear Sir—In reply to your question we have to say that we certainly have not sent out any copy of the "Ten o'Clock" to the press, or to anybody else excepting yourself. The work is still in the printers' hands, and we have for a long time past been advertising it only as "shortly" to be published; indeed, only a few proofs have so far been taken from the type.

Yours faithfully,

CHATTO And WINDUS.

An Apostasy

To speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth may Mr. Whistler's Lecture on Art, by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Fortnightly Review, June 1888. justly be required of the average witness; it cannot be expected, it should not be exacted, of any critical writer or lecturer on any form of art....

... And it appears to one at least of those unfortunate "outsiders" for whose judgment or whose "meddling" Mr. Whistler has so imperial and Olympian a contempt....

Let us begin at the end, as all reasonable people always do: we shall find that Mr. Whistler concedes to Greek art a place beside Japanese. Now this, on his own showing, will never do; it crosses, it contravenes, it nullifies, it pulverizes his theory or his principle REFLECTION: "If" indeed! of artistic limitation. If Japanese art is right in confining itself to what can be "broidered upon the fan"—and the gist of the whole argument is in favour of this assumption—then the sculpture which appeals, indeed, first of all to our perception of beauty, to the delight of the eye, to the wonder and the worship of the instinct or the sense, but which in every possible instance appeals also to far other intuitions and far other sympathies than these, is as absolutely wrong, as demonstrably inferior, as any picture or as any carving which may be so degenerate and so debased as to concern itself with a story or a subject. Assuredly Phidias thought of other things than "arrangements"[34] [34]REFLECTION: Because the Bard is blind, shall the Painter cease to see? in marble—as certainly as Æschylus thought of other things than "arrangements" in metre. Nor, I am sorely afraid, can the adored Velasquez be promoted to a seat "at the foot of Fusi-yama." Japanese art is not merely the incomparable achievement of certain harmonies in colour; it is the negation, the immolation, the annihilation of everything else. By the code which accepts as the highest of models and of masterpieces the cups and fans and screens with which "the poor world" REFLECTION: "Cups and fans and screens," and Hamilton vases, and figurines of Tanagra, and other "waterflies." has been as grievously "pestered" of late years as ever it was in Shakespeare's time "with such waterflies"—"diminutives of nature"—as excited the scorn of his moralizing cynic, Velasquez is as unquestionably condemned as is Raphael or Titian. It is true that this miraculous power of hand (?)[35] [35]REFLECTION: Quite hopeless! makes beautiful for us the deformity of dwarfs, and dignifies the degradation of princes; but that is not the question. It is true, again, that Mr. Whistler's own merest "arrangements" in colour are lovely and effective;[36] [36]REFLECTION: Whereby it would seem that, for the Bard, the lovely is not necessarily "effective." but his portraits, to speak of these alone, are liable to the damning and intolerable imputation of possessing not merely other qualities than these, but qualities which actually appeal—I blush to remember and I shudder to record it—which actually appeal to the intelligence[37] [37]REFLECTION: The "lovely," therefore, confessedly does not appeal to the intelligence, emotions, mind, and heart of the Bard even when aided by the "effective." and the emotions, to the mind and heart of the spectator. It would be quite useless for Mr. Whistler to protest—if haply he should be so disposed—that he never meant to put study of character and revelation of intellect into his portrait of Mr. Carlyle, or intense pathos of significance and tender depth of expression into the portrait of his own venerable mother. The scandalous fact remains, that he has done so; and in so doing has explicitly violated and implicitly abjured the creed and the canons, the counsels and the catechism of Japan....

And when Mr. Whistler informs us that "there never was an artistic period," we must reply that the statement, so far as it is true, is the flattest of all possible truisms; for no mortal ever maintained that there ever was a period in which all men were either good artists or good judges of art. But when we pass from the positive to the comparative degree of historic or retrospective criticism, we must ask whether the lecturer means to say that there have not been times when the general standard of taste and judgment, REFLECTION: Of course I do mean this thing—though most imprudent was the saying of it!—for this Art truth the Poet resents with the people.—June 1888. reason and perception, was so much higher than at other times and such periods may justly and accurately be defined as artistic. If he does mean to say this, he is beyond answer and beneath confutation; in other words, he is where an artist of Mr. Whistler's genius and a writer of Mr. Whistler's talents can by no possibility find himself. If he does not mean to say this, what he means to say is exactly as well worth saying, as valuable and as important a piece of information, as the news that Queen Anne is no more, or that two and two are not generally supposed to make five.

But if the light and glittering bark of this brilliant amateur in the art of letters is not invariably steered with equal dexterity of hand between the Scylla and Charybdis of paradox and platitude, it is impossible that in its course it should not once and again touch upon some point worth notice, if not exploration. Even that miserable animal the "unattached writer" may gratefully and respectfully recognize his accurate apprehension and his felicitous application of well-nigh the most hackneyed verse in all the range of Shakespeare's—which yet is almost invariably misconstrued and misapplied—"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;" and this, as the poet goes on to explain, is that all, with one consent, prefer worthless but showy novelties to precious but familiar possessions. "This one chord that vibrates with all," says Mr. Whistler, who proceeds to cite artistic examples of the lamentable fact, "this one unspoken sympathy that pervades humanity, is—Vulgarity." But the consequence which he proceeds to indicate and to deplore is calculated to strike his readers with a sense of mild if hilarious astonishment. It is that men of sound judgment and pure taste, quick feelings and clear perceptions, most unfortunately and most inexplicably begin to make their voices "heard in the land." Porson, as all the world knows, observed of the Germans of his day that "in Greek" they were "sadly to seek." It is no discredit to Mr. Whistler if this is his case also; but then he would do well to eschew the use of a Greek term lying so far out of the common way as the word "æsthete." REFLECTION: Je reviens donc de Pontoise! Not merely the only accurate meaning, but the only possible meaning, of that word is nothing more, but nothing less, than this—an intelligent, appreciative, quick-witted person; in a word, as the lexicon has it, "one who perceives." The man who is no æsthete stands confessed, by the logic of language and the necessity of the case, as a thick-witted, tasteless, senseless, and impenetrable blockhead. I do not wish to insult Mr. Whistler, but I feel bound to avow my impression that there is no man now living who less deserves the honour of enrolment in such ranks as these—of a seat in the synagogue of the anæsthetic....

... Such abuse of language is possible only to the drivelling desperation of venomous or fangless duncery: it is in higher and graver matters, of wider bearing and of deeper import, that we find it necessary to dispute the apparently serious propositions or assertions of Mr. Whistler. How far the witty tongue may be thrust into the smiling cheek when the lecturer pauses to take breath between these remarkably brief paragraphs it would be certainly indecorous and possibly superfluous to inquire. But his theorem is unquestionably calculated to provoke the loudest and the heartiest mirth that ever acclaimed the advent of Momus or Erycina. For it is this—that [38]"Art [38]REFLECTION: Is not, then, the funeral hymn a gladness to the singer, if the verse be beautiful? Certainly the funeral monument, to be worthy the Nation's sorrow buried beneath it, must first be a joy to the sculptor who designed it. The Bard's reasoning is of the People. His Tragedy is theirs. As one of them, the man may weep—yet will the artist rejoice—for to him is not "A thing of beauty a joy for ever"? and Joy go together," and that[39] tragic art is not art at all.... [39]At what point of my "O'clock" does Mr. Swinburne find this last—his own inconsequence? ... The laughing Muse of the lecturer, "quam Jocus circumvolat," must have glanced round in expectation of the general appeal, "After that let us take breath." And having done so, they must have remembered that they were not in a serious world; that they were in the fairyland of fans, REFLECTION: Before the marvels of centuries, silence, the only tribute of the outsider, is by him refused—and the dignity of ignorance lost in speech. in the paradise of pipkins, in the limbo of blue china, screens, pots, plates, jars, joss-houses, REFLECTION: If an æsthete, the Bard is no collector! and all the fortuitous frippery of Fusi-yama.

It is a cruel but an inevitable Nemesis which reduces even a man of real genius, keen-witted and sharp-sighted, to the level of the critic Jobson, to the level of the dotard and the dunce, when paradox is discoloured by personality and merriment is distorted by malevolence.(!) No man who really knows the qualities of Mr. Whistler's best work will imagine that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer, of Japanese womanhood as represented in its professional types of beauty; but to all appearance he would fain persuade us that he does.

In the latter of the two portraits to which I have already referred there is an expression of living character.... This, however, is an exception to the general rule of Mr. Whistler's way of work: an exception, it may be alleged, which proves the rule. A single infraction of the moral code, a single breach of artistic law, suffices to vitiate the position of the preacher. And this is no slight escapade, or casual aberration; it is a full and frank defiance, a deliberate and elaborate denial, hurled right in the face of Japanese jocosity, flung straight in the teeth of the theory which condemns high art, under penalty of being considered intelligent, to remain eternally on the grin.

If it be objected that to treat this theorem gravely is "to consider too curiously" the tropes and the phrases of a jester of genius, I have only to answer that it very probably may be so, but that the excuse for such error must be sought in the existence of the genius. A man of genius is scarcely at liberty to choose whether he shall or shall not be considered as a serious figure—one to be acknowledged and respected as an equal or a superior, not applauded and dismissed as a tumbler or a clown. And if the better part of Mr. Whistler's work as an artist is to be accepted as the work of a serious and intelligent creature, it would seem incongruous and preposterous to dismiss the more characteristic points of his theory as a lecturer with the chuckle or the shrug of mere amusement or amazement. Moreover, if considered as a joke, a mere joke, and nothing but a joke, this gospel of the grin has hardly matter or meaning enough in it to support so elaborate a structure of paradoxical rhetoric. It must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a certain phrase of Molière's which at once passed into a proverb—"Vous êtes orfèvre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered, was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated to restore a drooping young lady to mental and physical health as the present of a handsome set of jewels. REFLECTION: A keen commercial summing up—excused by the "Great Emperor!" Mr. Whistler's opinion that there is nothing like leather—of a jovial and Japanese design—savours somewhat of the Oriental cordwainer.

"Et tu, Brute!"

Why, O brother! did you not consult with me before printing, in the face of a ribald world, that you also misunderstand, and are capable of saying so, with vehemence and repetition.

Have I then left no man on his legs?—and have I shot down the singer in the far off, when I thought him safe at my side?

Cannot the man who wrote Atalanta—and the Ballads beautiful,—can he not be content to spend his life with his work, which should be his love,—and has for him no misleading doubt and darkness—that he should so stray about blindly in his brother's flowerbeds and bruise himself!

Is life then so long with him, and his art so short, that he shall dawdle by the way and wander from his path, reducing his giant intellect—garrulous upon matters to him unknown, that the scoffer may rejoice and the Philistine be appeased while he takes up the parable of the mob and proclaims himself their spokesman and fellow-sufferer? O Brother! where is thy sting! O Poet! where is thy victory!

How have I offended! and how shall you in the midst of your poisoned page hurl with impunity the boomerang rebuke? "Paradox is discoloured by personality, and merriment is distorted by malevolence."

Who are you, deserting your Muse, that you should insult my Goddess with familiarity, and the manners of approach common to the reasoners in the marketplace. "Hearken to me," you cry, "and I will point out how this man, who has passed his life in her worship, is a tumbler and a clown of the booths—how he who has produced that which I fain must acknowledge—is a jester in the ring!"

Do we not speak the same language? Are we strangers, then, or, in our Father's house are there so many mansions that you lose your way, my brother, and cannot recognize your kin?

Shall I be brought to the bar by my own blood, and be borne false witness against before the plebeian people? Shall I be made to stultify myself by what I never said—and shall the strength of your testimony turn upon me? "If"—"If Japanese Art is right in confining itself to what can be broidered upon the fan" ... and again ... "that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer" ... and further ... "the theory which condemns high art, under the penalty of being considered intelligent, to remain eternally on the grin" ... and much more!

"Amateur writer!" Well should I deserve the reproach, had I ventured ever beyond the precincts of my own science—and fatal would have been the exposure, as you, with heedless boldness, have unwittingly proven.

Art tainted with philanthropy—that better Art result!—Poet and Peabody!

You have been misled—you have mistaken the pale demeanour and joined hands for an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual earnestness. For you, these are the serious ones, and, for them, you others are the serious matter. Their joke is their work. For me—why should I refuse myself the grim joy of this grotesque tragedy—and, with them now, you all are my joke!

Freeing a Last Friend

Bravo! Bard! and exquisitely written, I suppose, as becomes your state.

The World, June 3, 1888. Letter to Mr. Swinburne.

The scientific irrelevancies and solemn popularities, less elaborately embodied, I seem to have met with before—in papers signed by more than one serious and unqualified sage, whose mind also was not narrowed by knowledge.

I have been "personal," you say; and, faith! you prove it!

Thank you, my dear! I have lost a confrère; but, then, I have gained an acquaintance—one Algernon Swinburne—"outsider"—Putney.

An Editor's Anxiety

Pall Mall Gazette, April 26, 1889.

It is reported that Mr. Whistler, having received word that a drawing of his had been rejected by the Committee of the Universal Exhibition, arrived yesterday in Paris and withdrew all his remaining works, including an oil painting and six drawings. The French consider that he has been guilty of a breach of good manners. The Paris, for instance, points out that, after sending his works to the jury, he should have accepted their judgment, and appealed to the public by other methods.

Rassurez vous!

TO THE EDITOR:

Pall Mall Gazette, April 27, 1889.

Sir—You are badly informed—a risk you constantly run in your haste for pleasing news.

I have not "withdrawn" my works "from the forthcoming Paris Exhibition."

I transported my pictures from the American department to the British section of the "Exposition Internationale," where I prefer to be represented.

"The French" have nothing, so far, to do with English or American exhibits.

A little paragraph is a dangerous thing.

And I am, Sir, Chelsea.

Whistler's Grievance

AN ENTRAPPED INTERVIEW.

The Herald correspondent saw Mr. Whistler at the Hôtel Suisse, and asked the artist about his affairs with the American Art Jury of the Exhibition.

New York Herald, Paris Edition, Oct. 3, 1889.

"I believe the Herald made the statement," said Mr. Whistler, "that I had withdrawn all my etchings and a full-length portrait from the American section. It all came about in this way: In the first place, before the pictures were sent in, I received a note from the American Art Department asking me to contribute some of my work. It was at that time difficult for me to collect many of my works; but I borrowed what I could from different people, and sent in twenty-seven etchings and the portrait."

"You can imagine that a few etchings do not have any effect at all; so I sent what I could get together. Shortly afterwards I received a note saying: 'Sir—Ten of your exhibits have not received the approval of the jury. Will you kindly remove them?'"

"At the bottom of this note was the name 'Hawkins'—General Hawkins, I believe—a cavalry officer, who had charge of the American Art Department of the Exhibition.

"Well! the next day I went to Paris and called at the American headquarters of the Exhibition. I was ushered into the presence of this gentleman, Hawkins, to whom I said:—'I am Mr. Whistler, and I believe this note is from you. I have come to remove my etchings'; but I did not mention that my work was to be transferred to the English Art Section."

"'Ah!' said the gentleman—the officer—'we were very sorry not to have had space enough for all your etchings, but we are glad to have seventeen and the portrait."

"'You are too kind' I said, 'but really I will not trouble you.'"

"Mr. Hawkins was quite embarrassed, and urged me to reconsider my determination, but I withdrew every one of the etchings, and they are now well hung in the English Department."

"I did not mind the fact that my works were criticized, but it was the discourteous manner in which it was done. If the request to me had been made in proper language, and they had simply said:—'Mr. Whistler, we have not space enough for twenty-seven etchings. Will you kindly select those which you prefer, and we shall be glad to have them,' I would have given them the privilege of placing them in the American Section."...

"Whacking Whistler"

In an interview in yesterday's Herald the eccentric artist, Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, "jumped" in a most emphatic manner upon General New York Herald, Paris Edition, Oct. 4. 1889. Hawkins, Commissioner of the American Art Department at the Exhibition. He objects to the General for being a cavalry officer; refers to him sarcastically as "Hawkins," and declares him ignorant of the most elementary principles alike of art and politeness—all this because he, Whistler, was requested by the Commissioner to remove from the Exhibition premises some ten of his rejected etchings.

In a spirit of fair play a correspondent called upon General Hawkins, giving him an opportunity, if he felt so disposed, of "jumping," in his turn, on his excitable opponent. The General did feel "so disposed," and proceeded, in popular parlance, to "see" Mr. J. McNeill Whistler and "go him one better." In this species of linguistic gymnastics, by the way, the military Commissioner asks no odds of any one. He began by gently remarking that Mr. Whistler, in his published remarks, had soared far out of the domain of strict veracity. This was not bad for a "starter," and was ably supported by the following detailed statement:—

"Mr. Whistler says he received a note from me. That is a mistake. I have never in my life written a line to Mr. Whistler.[40] [40]The official memory: "Dear Sir—I wish by return mail you would send description for oils; and if you desire to have titles to etchings printed, you will have to furnish the necessary material for copy.—Yours faithfully, Rush C. Hawkins, Commissariat General, Paris, March 29, 1889. (Autograph.) To Mr. Whistler." What he did receive was a circular with my name printed at the bottom. These circulars were sent to all the artists who had pictures refused by the jury, and contained a simple request that such pictures be removed.

"Our way of doing business was not, it seems, up to Mr. Whistler's standard of politeness, so he got angry and took away, not only the ten rejected etchings, but seventeen others which had been accepted. It is a little singular that among about one hundred and fifty artists who received this circular, Mr. Whistler should have been the only one to discover its latent discourtesy. How great must be Mr. Whistler's capacity for detecting a snub where none exists!"

"In any case, there is not the slightest reason for Mr. Whistler's venting his ire upon me. I had no more to do with either accepting or rejecting his pictures than I had with painting them. What he sent us was judged on its merits by a competent and impartial jury of his peers. If there were ten etchings rejected it only shows that there were ten etchings not worthy of acceptance. A few days after the affair a trio of journalists—not all men either—came to me, demanding that I reverse this 'iniquitous decision,' as they styled it. I told these three prying scribblers in a polite way that if they would kindly attend to their own affairs I would try to attend to mine. In this connection, I may remark that there are in Paris a number of correspondents who ought not to be allowed within gun-shot of a newspaper office."

"The next mis-statement in Mr. Whistler's interview is in regard to the ultimate disposal of his important etchings. His words are:—'Mr. Hawkins was quite embarrassed, and urged me to reconsider my determination, but I withdrew every one of the etchings, and they are now well hung in the English department.'"

"Now, I leave it to any fair-minded person if the plain inference from this statement is not that the whole twenty-seven etchings were accepted by the English department. If not, what in heaven's name is he crowing about? But the truth is that while we rejected only ten of his etchings, the English department rejected eighteen of them, and of the nine accepted only hung two on the line. Had Mr. Whistler been the possessor of a more even temper and a little more common sense, he would have had five or six of his works on the line in the American department, and nearly twice as many on exhibition than is actually the case. Really, I fail to see what he gained by the exchange, unless it was a valuable experience. He says I was embarrassed when I saw him; I fancy he will be embarrassed when he sees these facts in 'cold type.'"

"Whistler's Grievance"

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—I beg that you will kindly print immediately these, my regrets, that General Rush Hawkins should have been spurred into unwonted and unbecoming expression by what I myself read with considerable New York Herald. bewilderment in the New York Herald, October 3, under the head of "Whistler's Grievance."

I can assure the gallant soldier that I have no grievance.

Had I known that, when—over what takes the place of wine and walnuts in Holland—I remembered lightly the military methods of the jury, I was being "interviewed," I should have adopted as serious a tone as the original farce would admit of; or I might have even refused to be a party at all to the infliction upon your readers of so old and threadbare a story as that of the raid upon the works of art in the American section of the Universal Exhibition.

Your correspondent, I fancy, felt much more warmly, than did I, wrongs that—who knows?—are doubtless rights in the army; and my sympathies, I confess, are completely with the General, who did only, as he complains, his duty in that state of life in which it had pleased God, and the War Department, to call him, when, according to order, he signed that naïvely authoritative note, circular, warrant, or what not—for he did irretrievably fasten his name to it, whether with pen or print, thereby hopelessly making the letter his own. Thus have we responsibility, like greatness, sometimes thrust upon us.

On receipt of the document I came—I saw the commanding officer, who, until now, I fondly trusted, would ever remember me as pleasantly as I do himself—and, knowing despatch in all military matters to be of great importance, I then and there relieved him of the troublesome etchings, and carried off the painting.

It is a sad shock to me to find that the good General speaks of me without affection, and that he evinces even joy when he says with a view to my entire discomfiture:—"While we rejected only ten of his etchings, the English department rejected eighteen of them, and of the nine accepted, only hung two on the line."

Now, he is wrong!—the General is wrong.

The etchings now hanging in the English section—and perfect is their hanging, notwithstanding General Hawkins's flattering anxiety—are the only ones I sent there.

In the haste and enthusiasm of your interviewer, I have, on this point, been misunderstood.

There was moreover here no question of submitting them to a "competent and impartial jury of his peers"—one of whom, by the way, I am informed upon undoubted authority, had never before come upon an "etching" in his hitherto happy and unchequered Western career.

We all knew that the space allotted to the English department was exceedingly limited, and each one refrained from abusing it. Here I would point out again, hoping this time to be clearly understood, that, had the methods employed in the American camp been more civil, if less military, all further difficulties might have been avoided. Had I been properly advised that the room was less than the demand for place, I would, of course, have instantly begged the gentlemen of the jury to choose, from among the number, what etchings they pleased. So the matter would have ended, and you, Sir, would have been without this charming communication!

The pretty embarrassment of General Hawkins on the occasion of my visit, I myself liked, thinking it seemly, and part of the good form of a West Point man, who is taught that a drum-head court martial—and what else in the experience of this finished officer should so fit him for sitting in judgment upon pictures?—should be presided at with grave and softened demeanour.

If I mistook the General's manner, it is another illusion the less.

And I have, Sir, the honour to be, Your obedient servant,

Amsterdam, Oct. 6.

The Art-Critic's Friend

Mr. Whistler has many things to answer for, and not the least of them is the education of the British Art-Critic. That, at any rate, is the impression left by a little book made up—apparently against the writer's will—of certain of the master's letters and mots.... It is The Scots Observer, April 5, 1890. useful and pleasant reading; for not only does it prove the painter to have a certain literary talent—of aptness, unexpectedness, above all impertinence—but also it proves him never to have feared the face of art-critical man.... To him the art-critic is nothing if not a person to be educated, with or against the grain; and when he encounters him in the ways of error, he leaps upon him joyously, scalps him in print before the eyes of men, kicks him gaily back into the paths of truth and soberness, and resumes his avocation with that peculiar zest an act of virtue does undoubtedly impart. Indeed, Mr. Whistler, so far from being the critic's enemy, is on the contrary the best friend that tradesman has ever had. For his function is to make him ridiculous....

... Yes, Mr. Whistler is often "rowdy" and unpleasant; in his last combat with Mr. Oscar Wilde—("Oscar, you have been down the area again")—he comes off a palpable second; his treatment of 'Arry dead and "neglected by the parish" goes far to prove that his sense of smell is not so delicate nor so perfectly trained as his sense of sight....

A Question

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir—It is, I suppose, to your pleasant satisfaction in "The Critic's Friend" that I owe the early copy of the Scots Observer, pointed The Scots Observer, April 19, 1890. with proud mark, in the blue pencil of office, whereby the impatient author hastened to indicate the pithy personal paragraphs, that no time should be wasted upon other matter with which the periodical is ballasted.

Exhilarated by the belief that I had been remembered—for vanity's sake let me fancy that you have bestowed upon me your own thought and hand—I plunged forthwith into the underlined article, and read with much amusement your excellent appreciation.

Having forgotten none of your professional manner as art arbiter, may I say that I can picture to myself easily the sad earnestness with which you now point the thick thumb of your editorial refinement in deprecation of my choicer "rowdyism"? And knowing your analytical conscientiousness, I can even understand the humble comfort you take in Oscar's meek superiority; but, for the life of me, I cannot follow your literary intention when you say that my care of "''Arry,' dead and neglected by the parish," goes far to prove that my "sense of smell is not so delicate nor so perfectly trained as" my "sense of sight."

Do you mean that my discovery of the body is the result of a cold in the head? and that, with a finer scent, I should have missed it altogether? or were you only unconsciously remembering and dreamily dipping your pen into the ink of my former description of "'Arry's" chronic catarrh? In any case, I am charmed with what I have just read, and only regret that the ridiculous "Romeike" has not hitherto sent me your agreeable literature.—Also I am, dear Sir, your obedient servant,

The End of the Piece

Sir—I beg to draw your attention to the contents of your letter to the Scots Observer, dated April 12th, in which you state that you "regret the ridiculous Romeike has not hitherto sent me your agreeable literature."

This statement, had it been true, was spiteful and injurious, but being untrue (entirely) it becomes malicious, and I must ask you at once to apologise.

And at the same time to draw your attention to the fact that we have supplied you with 807 cuttings.

We have written to the Scots Observer for an ample apology, or the matter will be placed in our solicitor's hands, and we demand the same of you.

Yours obediently,

ROMEIKE & CURTICE.

J. McN. Whistler, Esq. April 25, 1890.

Exit the Prompter

Sir—If it be not actionable, permit me to say that you really are delightful!!

Naïveté, like yours, I have never met—even in my long experience with all those, some of whose "agreeable literature" may be, I suppose, in the 807 cuttings you charge me for.

Who, in Heaven's name, ever dreamed of you as an actual person?—or one whom one would mean to insult?

My good Sir, no such intention—believe me—did I, in my wildest of moments, ever entertain.

Your scalp—if you have such a thing—is safe enough!—and I even think—however great my willingness to assist you—could not possibly appear in the forthcoming Edition.

To Mr. Romeike, April 25.

L'Envoi

When the Chairman, in a singularly brilliant and felicitous speech led up to the toast of the evening, Mr. Whistler rose to his feet.

Report of a reply to the toast of the evening at the complimentary dinner given to Mr. Whistler, London, May 1, 1889.

"You must feel that, for me," said Mr. Whistler, "it is no easy task to reply under conditions of which I have so little habit. We are all even too conscious that mine has hitherto, I fear, been the gentle answer that sometimes turneth not away wrath."

Sunday Times, May 5, 1889.

"Gentlemen," said he, "this is an age of rapid results, when remedies insist upon their diseases, that science shall triumph and no time be lost; and so have we also rewards that bring with them their own virtue. It would ill become me to question my fitness for the position it has pleased this distinguished company to thrust upon me."

"It has before now been borne in upon me, that in surroundings of antagonism, I may have wrapped myself, for protection, in a species of misunderstanding—as that other traveller drew closer about him the folds of his cloak the more bitterly the winds and the storm assailed him on his way. But, as with him, when the sun shone upon him in his path, his cloak fell from his shoulders, so I, in the warm glow of your friendship, throw from me all former disguise, and, making no further attempt to hide my true feeling, disclose to you my deep emotion at such unwonted testimony of affection and faith."

Auto-Biographical

TO THE EDITOR:

Pall Mall Gazette, July 28, 1891.

Sir,—May I request that you allow me to make known, through your influential paper, the fact that the canvas, now shown as a completed work of mine, at Messrs. Dowdeswell's, representing three draped figures in a conservatory, is a painting long ago barely begun, and thrown aside for destruction?

Also I am in no way responsible for the taste of the frame with its astonishments of plush! and varied gildings.

I think it not only just to myself to make this statement, but right that the public should be warned against the possible purchase of a picture in no way representative, and, in its actual condition, absolutely worthless.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Chelsea, July 27, 1891.

Mr. Whistler "had on his own Toast"

TO THE EDITOR:

Sir,—I have read with interest Mr. Whistler's letter in your issue of July 28. I happened to be at Messrs. Dowdeswell's galleries the other Pall Mall Gazette, Aug. 1, 1891. day and saw the picture he refers to. It was not on public exhibition, but was in one of their private rooms, and was brought out for my inspection à propos of a conversation we were having. Now, so far from Messrs. Dowdeswell showing it as a "completed work," they distinctly spoke of it as unfinished; nor can I imagine any one acquainted with Mr. Whistler's works speaking of any of them as "completed!" In "L'Envoi" of the catalogue of his exhibition held at Messrs. Dowdeswell's a short time ago I find the following paragraph from his pen:—"The work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow—suggests no effort—and is finished from its beginning." The only inference possible is either that Mr. Whistler is not a master, or that the work is finished! He has, however, spent what time he could spare from his literary labours in endeavouring to induce the world to believe that the slightest scratch from his pen is worthy to rank with "Las Lanzas," and I am therefore surprised to learn that he has altered his opinion. Still, I quite agree with him when he tells us that some of his work is "absolutely worthless!"—I am, sir, more in sorrow than in anger, your obedient servant,

W. C.

July 31, 1891.

What "Mr. Whistler had on his own Toast"

TO THE EDITOR:

Pall Mall Gazette, Aug. 4, 1891.

Sir,—My letter should have met with no reply at all. It was a statement—authoritative and unanswerable, if there ever were one.

Because of the attention drawn to it, in the press, I felt called upon to advise the Public that one of my own works is condemned by myself. Final this, one would fancy!

That the accidental owners of the Gallery should introduce themselves to the situation, is of a most marked irrelevancy. They come in comme un cheveu sur la soupe, to be removed at once.

The dealer's business is to buy and sell. In the course of such traffic, these same busy picture bodies, without consulting me, put upon the market a painting that I, the author, intended to efface—and, thanks to your courtesy, I have been enabled to say so effectually in your journal.

All along have I carefully destroyed plates, torn up proofs, and burned canvases, that the truth of the quoted word shall prevail, and that the future collector shall be spared the mortification of cataloguing his pet mistakes.

To destroy, is to remain.

What is commercial irritation beside a clean canvas?

What is a gentlemanly firm in Bond Street beside Eternity?—I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Chelsea, August 1, 1891.

NOCTURNES, MARINES,

AND

CHEVALET PIECES

A CATALOGUE

SMALL COLLECTION

KINDLY LENT

THEIR OWNERS

"THE VOICE OF A PEOPLE"

"I do not know when so much amusement has been afforded to the British public as by Mr. Whistler's pictures."

Speech of the Attorney-General of England. Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

1.—NOCTURNE.

Grey and Silver—Chelsea Embankment—Winter.

Lent by F. G. Orchar, Esq.

"With the exception, perhaps, of one of Mr. Whistler's meaningless canvases, there is nothing that is actually provocative of undue mirth or ridicule."

City Press.

"In some of the Nocturnes the absence, not only of definition, but of gradation, would point to the conclusion that they are but engaging sketches. In them we look in vain for all the delicate differences of light and hue which the scenes depicted present."

F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."

2.—SYMPHONY IN WHITE, No. III.

Lent by Louis Huth, Esq.

"It is not precisely a symphony in white—one lady has a yellowish dress and brown hair and a bit of blue ribbon, the other has a red fan, and there are flowers and green leaves. There is a girl in white on a white sofa, but even this girl has reddish hair; and of course there is the flesh colour of the complexions."

P. G. Hamerton, "Saturday Review."

"Mr. Whistler appears as eccentrically as ever.... Art is not served by freaks of resentment.... We hold him deeply to blame that these figures are badly drawn.

"... 'Taste,' which is mind working in Art, would, even if it could at all conceive them, utterly reject the vulgarities of Mr. Whistler with regard to form, and never be content with what suffices him in composition."—Athenæum.

"Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing."

John Ruskin, Esq., Art Professor, "Modern Painters."

3.—CHELSEA IN ICE.

Lent by Madame Venturi.

"We are not sure but that it would be something like insult to our readers to say more about these 'things.' They must surely be meant in jest; but whether the public have chiefly to thank Mr. Whistler or the Managers of the Grosvenor Gallery for playing off on them this sorry joke we do not know, nor greatly care. Meliora canamus!"—Knowledge.

4.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Gold—Old Battersea Bridge.

Lent by Robert H. C. Harrison, Esq.

"His Nocturne in Blue and Gold, No. 3, might have been called, with a similar confusion of terms: A Farce in Moonshine, with half-a-dozen dots."—Life.

"The picture representing a night scene on Battersea Bridge has no composition and detail. A day, or a day and a half, seems a reasonable time within which to paint it. It shows no finish—it is simply a sketch."

Mr. Jones, R.A.—Evidence in Court, Nov. 16, 1878.

5.—THE LANGE LEIZEN—OF THE SIX MARKS.

Purple and Rose.

Lent by J. Leathart.

"Mr. Whistler paints subjects sadly below the merit of his pencil."—London Review.

"A worse specimen of humanity than could be found on the oldest piece of china in existence."

Reader.

"The hideous forms we find in his Chinese vase painteress ... an ostentatious slovenliness of execution ... objects as much out of perspective as the great blue vase in the foreground, &c. ... &c....

"It is Mr. Whistler's way to choose people and things for painting which other painters would turn from, and to combine these oddly chosen materials as no other painter would choose to combine them. He should learn that eccentricity is not originality, but the caricature of it."—Times.

6.—NOCTURNE.

Trafalgar Square—Snow.

Lent by Albert Moore, Esq.

"The word 'impressionist' has come to have a bad meaning in art. Visions of Whistler come before you when you hear it. Such visions are not of the best possible augury, for who loves a nightmare?"

Oracle.

"Like the landscape art of Japan, they are harmonious decorations, and a dozen or so of such engaging sketches placed in the upper panels of a lofty apartment would afford a justifiable and welcome alternative even to noble tapestries or Morris wallpapers."—F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."

7.—NOCTURNE—BLACK AND GOLD.

The Fire Wheel.

"Mr. Whistler has 'a sweet little isle of his own' in the shape of an ample allowance of wall space all to himself for the display of his six most noticeable works: 'Nocturnes' in black and gold, in blue and silver, 'Arrangements' in black and brown, and 'Harmonies' in amber and black.

"These weird productions—enigmas sometimes so occult that Œdipus might be puzzled to solve them—need much subtle explanation."—Daily Telegraph.

8.—ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN.

The Fur Jacket.

"Mr. Whistler has whole-length portraits, or rather the shadows of people, shapes suggestive of good examples of portraiture when completed. They are exhibited to illustrate a theory peculiar to the artist. One is entitled An Arrangement in 'Black and Brown.'"—Daily Telegraph.

"Mr. Whistler is anything but a robust and balanced genius."—Times.

"Whistler, with three portraits which he is pleased to call 'Arrangements,' and which look like ghosts."

Truth.

"Some figure pieces, which this artist exhibits as 'harmonies' in this, that, or the other, being, as they are, mere rubs-in of colour, have no claim to be regarded as pictures."—Scotsman.

"We are threatened with a Whistler exhibition. The periodical inflictions with which this gentleman tries the patience of a long-suffering public generally take some fantastic form to attract attention. It is an evidence of the painter's worldly acuteness that this should be so, for public attention may be drawn by such outbursts of eccentricity to such work as would never impress sensible people on its bare merit."—Oracle.

9.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Silver.

Lent by Mrs. Leyland.

"It seems to us a pity that an artist of Mr. Whistler's known ability should exhibit such an extraordinary collection of pictile nightmares."—Society.

"Mr. Bowen: 'Do you consider detail and composition essential to a work of art?'

"Mr. Jones: 'Most certainly I do.'

"Mr. Bowen: 'Then what detail and composition do you find in this "Nocturne"?'

"Mr. Jones: 'Absolutely none.'

"Mr. Bowen: 'Do you think two hundred guineas a large price for that picture?'

"Mr. Jones: 'Yes, when you think of the amount of earnest work done for a smaller sum.'"

Evidence of Mr. Jones, R.A., Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

10.—NOCTURNE.

In Black and Gold—The Falling Rocket.

"A dark bluish surface, with dots on it, and the faintest adumbrations of shape under the darkness, is gravely called a Nocturne in Black and Gold."

Knowledge.

"His Nocturne, black and gold, 'The Falling Rocket,' shows such wilful and headlong perversity that one is almost disposed to despair of an artist who, in a sane moment [sic], could send such a daub to any exhibition."—Telegraph.

"For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."

Professor John Ruskin, July 2, 1877.

"The 'Nocturne in black and gold' is not a serious work to me."

Mr. Firth, R.A.—Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

"The 'Nocturne in black and gold,' I do not think a serious work of art."

The Art Critic of the "Times." Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

"The Nocturne in black and gold has not the merit of the other two pictures, and it would be impossible to call it a serious work of art. Mr. Whistler's picture is only one of the thousand failures to paint night. The picture is not worth two hundred guineas."

Evidence of Mr. Jones, R.A. Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

11.—NOCTURNE—OPAL AND SILVER.

Lent by H. Theobald, Esq.

"With what feelings must we regard the mad new style, the Nocturnes in 'Blue and Silver,' the Harmonies in Flesh-colour and Pink, the Notes in Blue and Opal."—Knowledge.

"The blue and black smudges which purport to depict the 'Thames at Night.'"—Life.

12.—HARMONY IN GREEN AND ROSE.

The Music Room.

Lent by Madame Reveillon.

"He paints in soot-colours and mud-colours, but, far from enjoying primary hues, has little or no perception of the loveliness of secondary or tertiary colour."—Merrie England.

13.—CREPUSCULE IN FLESH COLOUR AND GREEN.

Valparaiso.

Lent by Graham Robertson, Esq.

"Now, the best achievement of The Impressionist School, to which Mr. Whistler belongs [sic], is the rendering of air—not air made palpable and comparatively easy to paint, by fog—but atmosphere which is the medium of light."—Merrie England.

14.—CAPRICE IN PURPLE AND GOLD.

The Gold Screen.

Lent by Cyril Flower, Esq., M.P.

"I take it to be admitted by those who do not conclude that art is necessarily great which has the misfortune to be unacceptable, that it is not by his paintings so much as by his etchings that Mr. Whistler's name may aspire to live."—F. Wedmore.

15.—SYMPHONY IN GREY AND GREEN.

The Ocean.

Lent by Mrs. Peter Taylor.

"In Mr. Whistler's picture, 'Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean,' the composition is ugly, the sky opaque, the suggestion of sea leaden and without light or motion."—Times.

"Mr. Whistler continues these experiments in colour which are now known as 'Symphonies.' It may be questioned whether these performances are to be highly valued, except as feats accomplished under needless and self-imposed restrictions—much as writing achieved by the feet of a penman who has not been deprived of the use of his hands."—Graphic.

"We can paint a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up; but we cannot imitate the Ocean or the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-glass, but not the rainbow."—John Ruskin, Esq., Teacher of Art.

16.—NOCTURNE.

Grey and Gold—Chelsea Snow.

Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq.

"Mr. Whistler sends two of his studies of moonlight, in which form is eschewed for harmonies of 'Grey and Gold' and 'Blue and Silver;' and which, for the crowd of exhibition visitors, resolve themselves into riddles or mystifications.... In a word, painting to Mr. Whistler is the exact correlative of music, as vague, as purely emotional, as released from all functions of representation.

"He is really building up art out of his own imperfections [sic!] instead of setting himself to supply them."—Times.

17.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Silver—Battersea Reach.

Lent by W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.

"J. M. Whistler is here again with his nocturnes."

Scotsman.

18.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Silver—Chelsea.

Lent by W. C. Alexander, Esq.

"Mr. Whistler confines himself to two small canvases of the nocturne kind. One is covered with smudgy blue and the other with dirty black."

Saturday Review.

*/

"A reputation, for a time, imperilled by original absurdity"—F. Wedmore, "Academy."

"I think Mr. Wedmore takes the Nocturnes and Arrangements too seriously. They are merely first beginnings of pictures, differing from ordinary first beginnings in having no composition. The great originality was in venturing to exhibit them."

P. G. Hamerton, "Academy."

19.—NOCTURNE.

Grey and Gold—Westminster Bridge.

Lent by the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham.

"Two of Mr. Whistler's 'colour symphonies'—a 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' and a 'Nocturne in Black and Gold.' If he did not exhibit these as pictures under peculiar and, what seems to most people, pretentious titles, they would be entitled to their due meed of admiration [sic!]. But they only come one step nearer pictures than delicately graduated tints on a wall-paper do.

"He must not attempt, with that happy, half-humorous audacity which all his dealings with his own works suggests, to palm off his deficiencies upon us as manifestations of power."—Daily Telegraph.

20.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Gold—Southampton Water.

Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq.

"There is always danger that efforts of this class may degenerate into the merely tricky and meretricious; and already a suspicion arises that the artist's eccentricity is somewhat too premeditated and self-conscious."—Graphic.

21.—BLUE AND SILVER.

Blue Wave—Biarritz.

Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq.

"Mr. Whistler is possessed of much audacity and eccentricity, and these are useful qualities in an artist who desires to be talked about. When he comes out into the open, and deals with daylight, we find these studies to be only the first washes of pictures. He leaves off where other artists begin. He shirks all the difficulties ahead, and asks the spectator to complete the picture himself."—Daily Telegraph.

"The absence, seemingly, of any power, such as the great marine painters had, of drawing forms of water, whether in a broad and wind-swept tidal river or on the high seas...."

F. Wedmore,

"Nineteenth Century."

22.—ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN.

Miss Rosa Corder.

Lent by Graham Robertson, Esq.

"It is bad enough, in all conscience, to be caricatured by the gifted pencil and brushes of the admirable Whistler; and it is surely adding insult to injury to describe the victims and sufferers as 'Arrangements.' With regard to Mr. Whistler's Symphonies, Harmonies, and so on, we will relate a parable. Here it is:—A lively young donkey sang a sweet love song to the dawn, and so disturbed all the neighbourhood, that the neighbours went to the donkey and begged him to desist. He continued his braying for some time, and then ended with what appeared, to his own ears, a flourish of surpassing brilliancy.

"Will you be good enough to give over that hideous noise?" said the neighbours.

"'Good Olympus!' said the donkey, 'did you say hideous noise? Why, that is a "Symphony," which means a concord of sweet sounds, as you may see by referring to any dictionary.'

"'But,' said the neighbours, 'we do not think that "Symphony" is the word to describe your performance. "Cacophony" would be more correct, and that means "a bad set of sounds."'

"'How absurdly you talk!' said the donkey. 'I will refer it to my fellow-asses, and let them decide.'

"The donkeys decided that the young donkey's song was a most symphonious and harmonious, sweet song; so he continues to bray as melodiously as ever. There is, we believe, a moral to this parable, if we only knew what it was. Perhaps the piercing eye of the 'Nocturnal Whistler' may find it out."—Echo.

"Miss Rosa Corder, and Mr. H. Irving as Philip, are two large blotches of dark canvas. When I have time I am going again to find out which is Rose and which is Irving.

"The rest of the collection is marred by the impatience which has prevented his achieving any finished work of Art."—Weekly Press.

23.—"HARMONY IN GREY AND GREEN."

Portrait of Miss Alexander.

Lent by W. Alexander, Esq.

"A sketch of Miss Alexander, in which much must be imagined."—Standard.

"There is character in it, but it is unpleasant character. Of anything like real flesh tones the painting is quite innocent."—Builder.

"But what can we say of Mr. Whistler? His portrait of Miss Alexander is certainly one of the strangest and most eccentric specimens of Portraiture we ever saw. If we were unacquainted with his singular theories of Art, we should imagine he had merely made a sketch and left it, before the colours were dry, in a room where chimney-sweeps were at work.... Nobody who sets any value upon the roses and lilies that adorn the cheeks of our blooming girls can accept such murky tints as these as representative of a young English lady"—Era.

"It is simply a disagreeable presentment of a disagreeable young lady."—Liverpool Weekly Mercury.

"Mr. Whistler again appears on the walls with a characteristic full-length life-size portrait of a girl, Miss Alexander.

"This work is devoid of colour, being arranged in Black and White and intermediate tones of grey. The general effect is dismal in the extreme, and one cannot but wonder how an artist of undoubted talent should wilfully persist in such perversities of judgment."—Western Daily Mercury.

"Miss Alexander, almost in Black and White, and about the most unattractive piece of work in the Galleries."—Edinburgh Daily Review.

"A 'gruesomeness in Grey.'

"Well, bless thee, J. Whistler! We do not hanker after your brush system. Farewell!"—Punch.

"'An Arrangement in Silver and Bile.'

"The artist has represented this bilious young lady as looking haughty in a dirty white dress, a grey polonaise, bound by a grey green sash, a grey hat, with the most unhealthy green feather; furthermore, she wears black shoes with green bows, and stands defiantly on a grey floor cloth, opposite a grey wall with a black dado. Two dyspeptic butterflies hover wearily above her head in search of a bit of colour ... evidently losing heart at the grey expanse around.... A picture should charm, not depress, it should tend to elevate our thoughts!"—Society.

"This picture represents a child of ten, and is called a harmony in grey and green, but the prevailing tone is a rather unpleasant yellow, and the complexion of the face is wholly unchildlike."—Echo.

"A large etching in oil, a 'Rhapsody in Raw Child and Cobwebs,' by Mr. Whistler."—Artist.

"Mr. Whistler is as spectral as ever in an unattractive portrait of an awkward little girl, happily not rendered additionally ridiculous by a musical title."

Bedford Observer.

"Flattery is objectionable in art as elsewhere, but some portrait painters seem to find it impossible to tell the truth without being rude."—Academy.

"Mr. Whistler has a portrait of a young lady that excites absolute astonishment.

"What charm can there be in such colours as these? What effect do they produce which would not have been better by warmer and less repulsive tints?"

Leeds Mercury.

"Mr. Whistler's single contribution is a child's portrait, posed and painted in a rather distant, if obsequious, imitation of the manner of Velasquez, the great difference being that whereas the Spaniard's work is most remarkable for supreme distinction, the present portrait is uncompromisingly vulgar."

Magazine of Art.

24.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Silver—Bognor.

Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq.

"We protest against those foppish airs and affectations by which Mr. Whistler impresses on us his contempt of public opinion. In landscape he contributes what he persists in calling a Nocturne in 'Blue and Silver,' and a Nocturne in 'Black and Gold' which is a mere insult to the intelligence of his admirers. It is very difficult to believe that Mr. Whistler is not openly laughing at us."—Pall Mall Gazette.

25.—NOCTURNE.

Battersea Reach.

Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq.

"Under the same roof with Mr. Whistler's strange productions is the collection of animal paintings done by various artists for the proprietors of the Graphic, and very refreshing it is to turn into this agreeably lighted room and rest on comfortable settees whilst looking at 'Mother Hubbard's Dog,' or the sweet little pussy cats in the 'Happy Family.'"

Liverpool Courier.

"A few smears of colour, such as a painter might make in cleaning his paint brushes, and which, neither near at hand nor far off, neither from one side nor from the other, nor from in front, do more than vaguely suggest a shore and bay, was described as a Note in Blue and Brown.... One who found these pictures other than insults to his artistic sense could never be reached by reasoning."—Knowledge.

26.—GREEN AND GREY.

Channel.

Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq.

27.—PINK AND GREY.

Chelsea.

Lent by Cyril Flower, Esq., M.P.

"... of the insolent madness of that school of which Mr. Whistler is the most peccant—we wish we could say the only—representative."—Knowledge.

28.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Gold—Valparaiso.

Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq.

"'A Nocturne' or two by Mr. Whistler—and here we have it in the usual style—a daub of blue and a spot or two of yellow to illustrate ships at sea on a dark night, and a splash and splutter of brightness on a black ground to depict a display of fireworks."

Norwich Argus.

29.—GREEN AND GREY.

The Oyster Smacks—Evening.

Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq.

"Other people paint localities; Mr. Whistler makes artistic experiments."—Academy.

30.—GREY AND BLACK.

Sketch.

Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq.

31.—BROWN AND SILVER.

Old Battersea Bridge.

Lent by Alexander Ionides, Esq.

"Nor can I imagine any one acquainted with Mr. Whistler's works speaking of any of them as 'completed.'"—Letter to "Pall Mall."

32.—NOCTURNE.

Black and Gold.

33.—SYMPHONY IN WHITE, No. 11.

The Little White Girl.

Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq.

"Another picture, 'The Little White Girl' was exhibited about the same time, containing the germ of that paradoxical Whistlerian humour lately so fully exemplified in various places about London. It was called 'A Little White Girl' in the catalogue, and yet its colour generally was grimy grey."—London.

"The white girl was standing at the side of a mirror where the laws of incidence and refraction would unfortunately not permit her to see her own beauty."

Merrie England.

34.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Silver—Cremorne Lights.

Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq.

"I have expressed, and still adhere to the opinion, that these pictures only come one step nearer than a delicately tinted wall paper."

The Art Critic of the "Times" Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

"Paintings, like some of the 'Nocturnes' and some of the 'Arrangements,' are defended only by a generous self-deception, when it is urged for them that they will be famous to-morrow because they are not famous to-day."

Mr. Wedmore,

"Nineteenth Century."

35.—GREY AND SILVER.

Chelsea Wharf.

Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq.

36.—GREY AND SILVER.

Old Battersea Reach.

Lent by Madame Coronio.

37.—BLUE AND SILVER.

"He has no atmosphere and no light. Instead of air he studies various kinds of fog—and his 'values' are the relative powers of darkness, not of light. He never paints a sky."—Merrie England.

38.—NOCTURNE.

Blue and Gold—St. Mark's, Venice.

Lent by Monsieur Gallimard.

"The mannerism of Canaletto is the most degraded that I know in the whole range of art....

"... It gives no one single architectural ornament, however near—so much form as might enable us even to guess at its actual one; and this I say not rashly, for I shall prove it by placing portions of detail accurately copied from Canaletto side by side with engravings from the daguerreotype.

"... There is no stone drawing, no vitality of architecture like Prout's."—Prof. Ruskin, Art Teacher.

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

"Imagine a man of genius following in the wake of Whistler!"—Oracle.

"The measure of originality has at times been overrated through the innocent error of the budding amateur, who in the earlier stage of his enlightenment confuses the beginning with the end, accepts the intention for the adequate fulfilment, and exalts an adroit sketch into the rank of a permanent picture."

F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."

39.—CREPUSCULE IN OPAL.

Lent by Fred. Jameson, Esq.

"Mr. Whistler is eminently an 'Impressionist.' The final business of art is not with 'impressions.' We want not 'impressionists' but 'expressionists,' men who can say what they mean because they know what they have heard. [Sic!]

"We want not always the blotches and misty suggestions of the impressionist, &c."—Artist.

40.—HARMONY IN FLESH COLOUR AND GREEN.

The Balcony.

Lent by John Cavafy, Esq., M.D.

"It is perhaps a little difficult for any critic to be quite absolutely just to Mr. Whistler at present, on account of his eccentricities and his apparent determination to make us forget the qualities of the artist in our amusement at the freaks and fancies of the man."—P. G. Hamerton, in the "Academy."

"A Variation in Flesh Colour and Green. The damsels—they were not altogether meritorious. The draughtsmanship displayed in them was anything but 'searching.'"—F. Wedmore.

"At about the same time the artist exhibited other sketches (we ask indulgence for the word) of a like character, notes of impressions of white dresses, furniture, balconies, and incidental faces and figures."

Merrie England.

"The 'evolution principle' has been visibly in operation for a dozen years or so in the successive Whistlers put before the public during that time. First of all we remember pictures of ladies pale and attenuate poring with tender interest over vermilion scarfs. The taint of realism was on them, but even in them were hints of the pensive humour that was to fetch mankind in the well-known 'arrangements' at a later time. A good deal was left to the spectator's imagination even in them."—London.

"We note his predilections for dinginess and dirt."

Weekly Press.

41.—ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK.

La Dame au Brodequin Jaune.

"All these pictures strike us alike.

"They seem like half-materialised ghosts at a spiritualistic séance. I cannot help wondering when they will gain substance and appear more clearly out of their environing fog, or when they will melt altogether from my attentive gaze."—Echo.

"He has placed one of his portraits on an asphalte floor and against a coal-black background, the whole apparently representing a dressy woman in an inferno of the worldly."—Merrie England.

"Mr. Whistler has a capricious rendering of a lady dressed in black, in a black recess, on a dark green floor. She is turning affectedly half-round towards the spectator as she buttons the gant de suède upon her left hand, &c. &c. Its obvious affectations render the work displeasing."—Morning Advertiser.

42.—ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK.

Thomas Carlyle.

Lent by the Corporation of Glasgow.

"The purpose of this picture is a form of hero-worship which would certainly not have received the approbation of Carlyle.

"... This very doubtful masterpiece—unhappy ratepayers of Glasgow."—Dundee Advertiser.

"... and to have recorded on a doleful canvas the head and figure of Carlyle...."—F. Wedmore.

"... The rugged simplicity of Mr. Carlyle ... to have painted these things alone—however strange their mannerism or incomplete their technique."

Nineteenth Century.

"The portentous purchase by the civic authorities of Mr. Whistler's senile Carlyle renders it necessary for that section of the community who are not enamoured of Impressionism to watch with some vigilance the next steps taken by that body towards the formation of the permanent collection.

"A portrait which omits entirely to bring out the individuality of the sitter, stands but little chance of recognition even from immediate posterity."

Letter to "Glasgow Herald," March 4, 1892.

"We cannot forget his encounter some years ago with Mr. Ruskin, nor the contemptuous terms in which that foremost of art critics denounced his work. It has been left to Glasgow to rectify Mr. Ruskin's blunder in this matter, and it vindicates the merits of the American artist over whose artistic vagaries—his nocturnes and harmonies in blue and gold—the whole press of Britain made merry."

Dundee Advertiser.

"There is, among portraits of great writers, Mr. Whistler's portrait of Carlyle. It is a picture whose story is complete, whose honours have been gathered abroad—in Paris, in Brussels, in Munich. Its destiny has been accomplished; it belongs to the City of Glasgow, and from the corporation of that city was borrowed for the Victorian Exhibition. The corporation lent it in good faith; the borrowers have treated it with all the indignity it is in their power to bestow on it.

"Could there be a better epitome of the recent history of art in England? One work of Mr. Whistler's is received with high honour in the Luxembourg on its way to the Louvre; and at that very moment another work of his, worthy to rank with the first, is hoist with equally high disrespect to the ceiling of a gallery in London."—N. Y. Tribune, Jan. 17, 1892.

43.—HARMONY IN PINK AND GREY.

Portrait of Lady Meux.

Lent by Sir Henry Meux.

"Portrait of Mrs. Meux, in which it was not so much the face as the figure and the movement that came to be deftly suggested, if hardly elaborately expressed."—F. Wedmore.

"All Mr. Whistler's work is unfinished. It is sketchy. He no doubt possesses artistic qualities, and he has got appreciation of qualities of tone; but he is not complete, and all his works are in the nature of sketching."

The Art Critic of the "Times," Evidence at Westminster, Nov. 16, 1878.

44.—ARRANGEMENT IN GREY AND BLACK.

Portrait of the Painter's Mother.

Photograph of Picture.

"This canvas is large and much of it vacant.

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

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

"It is not a picture, and we fail to discover any object that the artist can have in view in restricting himself almost entirely to black and grey."—Examiner.

"The 'arrangement' is stiff and ugly enough to repel many."—Hour.

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