Chapter X (4)

“I am Miss Alexander,” she said, primly, “and I am going to have my portrait painted.”

The sage shook his head in commiseration, and muttered, as he passed on:

“Puir lassie, puir lassie!”

If proof were required of the underlying sincerity and earnestness of Whistler in those days when the world refused to take him seriously, this long and intimate association with Carlyle would be more than sufficient.

They were neighbors. Carlyle had every opportunity of seeing Whistler on the street and in his studio. Seemingly two beings could not be less sympathetic, and yet the philosopher who had so few good words for any one, who was the implacable foe of sham and falsehood, who was intolerant of the society of others, who cared little for art and less for artists, freely gave his time and society to the most unpopular painter in England.

In truth there was a good deal in common between the two,--in the attitude of the one towards literature and what his fellow-writers were saying, and in the attitude of the other towards art and what his fellow-painters were doing. Each stood in his own sphere for the highest ideals, and no doubt each recognized in the other the quality of sincerity in his profession.

* * * * *

Poor Carlyle! your name should never be mentioned without an anathema for the scavengers who dealt with your memory. If they are not suffering the torments of the damned, the mills of the gods have ceased to turn.

Froude prefaced the Life of Carlyle with a long protestation that it contained the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; which, it seems, according to even his notions, was a lie; for in the secrecy of his closet he prepared a pamphlet containing the revelations of the Jewsbury creature,--the expert opinion of “an ill-natured old maid,” as Mrs. Carlyle called her,--to the effect that Carlyle should never have married; and this pamphlet, containing the salacious tittle-tattle between himself and

this old maid, is given the world as presumably his last instalment of revelations, though no one knows how much similar stuff the Jewsbury creature, a romancer by profession, may have left pigeon-holed for still further harm.

And the answer to it all is that Carlyle, in spite of the old maid’s opinion, was married; and what is more to the point, remained married forty years, with no more of differences and dissensions, even accepting all the Froude-Jewsbury tattle, than any good wife will have with any good Scotchman; and during their long married life she was a help and an inspiration to her husband, and after her death she was mourned as few wives in the history of mankind have been mourned.

A depth beyond the imagination of Dante must be found for the Froude-Jewsbury combination.

* * * * *

As the portrait neared completion, Carlyle took a good look at it one day, seemed pleased, and said:

“Weel, man, you have given me a clean collar, and that is more than Meester Watts has done.”

The portrait was begun and ended as a labor of love, and for nearly twenty years it remained unsold.

After Carlyle died some citizens of Glasgow, from purely patriotic motives, and with no appreciation whatsoever of the painting, thought it should be purchased, and a public subscription was started.

When the amount first talked of--quite a small sum--had been nearly subscribed, Whistler learned that the subscription paper expressly disavowed all approval of himself and his art, whereupon he promptly more than doubled the price, to the dismay of the canny Scots, who wished to buy the portrait without the art; and when they hesitated, he again raised the price, to their utter discomfiture, and the picture was not purchased until 1891.

It is now owned by the corporation of Glasgow, and hangs in the public gallery surrounded by a mass of lesser works which completely dwarf its great proportions and render adequate appreciation impossible.

It is worth while to visit Glasgow to see this portrait, but until the authorities have the good judgment to give it a room, or at least a wall to itself, the journey will prove an exasperation.

* * * * *

The hanging of pictures is a “lost art;” and most of the art of pictures is lost in the hanging.

A picture is painted in a certain environment of light, color, and tone,--and to Whistler this environment was a vital consideration. For the time being the canvas is the one conspicuous thing in the studio, of even greater importance than subject or model. From this environment of creation, and with which it is in perfect harmony, it is violently forced into conjunction with great squares of atrocious gilt frames and expanses of clashing canvases.

A gallery of pictures is the slaughter-house of art; annual exhibitions are the shambles of beauty.

So far as galleries are concerned, the advantage is usually with the dealer, for he knows the value of arrangement and shows his best things more or less detached. One by one the gems of his collection are presented to the customer and time given for appreciation.

* * * * *

There are but two uses to which a painting can be put with any sense of the fitness of things: it may be used decoratively alone or in connection with one or two others which harmonize and which are distributed to produce a perfect effect; this is the noblest use to which a painting of any kind can be put, the production of an effect in which the painting, however great, is but an element in a perfect whole.

Another and commoner use is the enjoyment of a picture by itself, as one reads a poem or listens to music, more or less oblivious to all surroundings. It is obvious that this sort of enjoyment implies the subordination of all surroundings to the painting, or the poem, or the music, the arrangement of the environment so as to secure the greatest possible freedom from intrusive and distracting sights and sounds,--in short, as regards painting, the reproduction in a sense of the atmosphere of the studio where the picture was created, or of the place, altar, or chapel for which it was intended; and it means most emphatically freedom from sharp contrast with pictures by other men and of other times, schools, and conditions, however good, which will clash precisely as would two orchestras playing different pieces in the same hall.

One can imagine Whistler and Carlyle--painter and philosopher, two masters, each in his vocation--in the studio, and the growing portrait, a thing of beauty _there_, a bond of union between two men so divergent, and one can imagine how beautiful the portrait would be anywhere if by itself amidst harmonious surroundings, whether used as the chief ornament of a dignified hall or placed in a more neutral atmosphere for study and appreciation. But one cannot imagine more destructive surroundings than those of a public gallery, the walls of which teem with writhing, wriggling things in huge gilt frames and glaring colors.

And the painters, who ought to know better, but who encourage these great collections and exhibitions, who live for them, work for them, slave for them, are more to blame for the existence of these heterogeneous conglomerations than the public, who do not know better, but walk helplessly about amidst endless rows of staring canvases, dimly conscious that all is not right.

* * * * *

Pictures of equal merit do not necessarily hang together. A Velasquez and a Raphael, each supremely beautiful in the place for which it is intended, produce an inharmonious effect if placed side by side.

A rabble, with men or pictures, is a throng composed of more or less incongruous and unsympathetic units.

With the exception of the few instances, as in the Turner room in the National Gallery in London, where the works of one man are grouped for the express purpose of comparison and study, every collection of pictures is a rabble, and as a whole--ugly.

Nor does the grouping of the works of one man in one room produce a beautiful effect, a beautiful room; not at all, for they are grouped for a scientific rather than an æsthetic purpose, for the purpose of study and comparison in a room which is, as it should be, otherwise barren and neutral.

One or, at most, two fine pictures are all any ordinary room will stand, and to produce an effect wherein nothing overwhelmingly predominates, but everything finds its place and remains there, requires genius different from but of the same high order as that of the painter, and that sort of genius has been lacking in the Western world for some centuries.

So low has the once great art of painting fallen that it has helplessly relinquished its original field of great achievement, the adornment of buildings inside and out, and that has become a separate trade so incompetently followed that the phrase “interior decorator” is one of reproach.

And yet little as the commercial “interior decorator” knows about decoration, it is safer to trust to his fustian stock of burlaps, wall-papers, imitation leathers, metals, lustres, and illuminations than follow the guidance of the painters themselves,--for, with rare exceptions, they know nothing beyond the narrow confines of their frames, and their own houses and studios resemble curiosity-shops.

The art of decoration, which implies the co-operation of architect, sculptor, and painter as a unit, has not been practised since the sixteenth century, and not in any high degree of perfection since three hundred years before.

With the disintegration of the union among the arts, each has accomplished endless detached and isolated perfections, but nothing that is really worth while in the sense that a Greek temple or a Gothic cathedral was worth while,--for nothing so chaste and perfect as the former or so sublime and beautiful as the latter has been done since each of the three constructive arts began to work in jealous independence of the others.

* * * * *

Rossetti and Whistler were both friends of the wealthy and eccentric ship-owner F. R. Leyland, of No. 50 Prince’s Gate. He was a collector of things rare and beautiful, a “patron” of art and artists, a musician, and altogether a character one associates with Romance rather than with London.

It was for him that Whistler painted the famous “Peacock Room,” under the following circumstances:

Leyland had bought the “Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” and one day Whistler went to see it in place. He found it in a dining-room which was richly decorated with costly Spanish leather and a heavy ceiling of wood, a place altogether too sombre for his bright and brilliant “Princess,” and he protested against the discord.

* * * * *

“What would you do?” asked Leyland.

“Paint the room.”

“What! paint that beautiful Spanish leather?”

“Most assuredly,--if this is to be the boudoir of the ‘Princess.’”

Whistler was told to go ahead and make the room harmonize with the painting.

He started in and covered every inch of wall surface, even the insides of the shutters, with a wonderful scheme of decoration in blue and gold, the brilliant coloring of the peacock, making a color-effect rich beyond description.

Unhappily, nothing had been said concerning the price, and that finally named by Leyland seemed to Whistler quite inadequate; but he made no complaint and went on with the work. The trouble came when Leyland paid in pounds instead of in guineas. That was more than Whistler could stand.

All professional men in England being paid in guineas, he would not permit art to be dealt with as merchandise. He felt, therefore, that he had been robbed of his shillings, and the whole affair, which from the beginning had been a matter of pleasure rather than of profit with him, was placed on a commercial footing. Considering the time spent, the surface covered, the work done, the price fixed by Leyland was quite inadequate. Then, to pay in scant pounds, instead of full guineas, that was, in truth, adding insult to injury.

The work was not quite complete, and he took his revenge by painting his “patron” in the guise of a peacock, with his claws on what might be mere decoration, or, as any one might fancy, a pile of guineas. The likeness was not immediately perceptible, but, with a hint, the world soon saw it, and laughed.

* * * * *

Leyland has been dead a long time, and the house has passed from his family, but the “Peacock Room” is still in existence, and the curious visitor is occasionally, but not often, admitted. The “Princess” no longer hangs at one end, for long ago she went to Scotland, and will soon find her way to America; but the two peacocks are at the other end,--one the personification of the grasping “patron” and the other bearing a faint though perceptible likeness to the defiant painter with the white lock.

The shelves, which were once filled with the rarest of blue-and-white china, are now given over to books, and altogether the place is but a melancholy reminder of former beauty. But the decoration is in good condition, and could the walls and ceilings be removed and the “Princess” restored, the original effect would be reproduced.

The construction of the room was not Whistler’s, so he worked under great disadvantages in dealing with architectural features, particularly the ceiling, which he did not like; so the room, if ever removed, would not represent his ideas of proportion and construction. It would simply show how he made the best of a difficult situation.

The architect who designed the room and looked upon the house as his stepping-stone to fame, when he saw the--to him--desecration, was completely unbalanced, went insane, and died not long after.

* * * * *

If opportunities had offered, Whistler would have been a great decorator, for such was his susceptibility to color that he could not tolerate discordant effects about him. It was ever his habit to decorate his studio, his house, or any rooms he occupied to suit his exceedingly fastidious taste.

He did not “decorate” in the sense the term is accepted nowadays. In truth, the casual visitor to his studio or to his house would depart under the impression there was no decoration at all, for neither figures nor patterns made the walls attractive, yet from floor to ceiling every square inch was a matter of extreme solicitude. He would mix colors and apply them with his own hands until the room was in harmony.

Even the great barn of an attic which was his studio in Paris was painted by him, so that from its dark--not black--rich oak floor, along base-boards and walls, to sloping roof, the effect was such as he sought as an environment for his pictures,--a brown, a grayish brown, a soft and singular shade of brown, hard to describe, difficult to see, but delightful to _feel_ in its sober and retiring neutrality,--and that is the best color, the best tone, against which to hang Whistler’s paintings in any general exhibition, for it remains quietly and unobtrusively in the background, and at the same time the silvery quality in it gives it life.

* * * * *

When London laughed at his “Yellow and White” exhibition of etchings it did not know that a master of color was giving an object-lesson in interior decoration.

Who can recall without a feeling of restful satisfaction the delightful reception-room of that later home in Paris, at 110 Rue du Bac? So simple that, really, there was not a conspicuous feature about it, and yet every detail had been worked out with as much care as he bestowed on a painting.

This feature of Whistler’s art, this susceptibility to color and line in surroundings will be referred to again in the discussion of his exquisite color-sense.

For the present it is sufficient to point out that he was something more than a painter of easel pictures; that instinctively he was akin to those great masters who combined their efforts with those of the architect in the endeavor to produce beautiful results.

A sympathetic writer has said:

“Although he was in no way a spendthrift, he would make every sort
of sacrifice to his art. Had he been given more opportunity, there
seems no reason to doubt that he would have made other rooms even
more beautiful than the famous ‘Peacock’ dining-room. But, frankly,
the public did not care for his work enough to buy much of it from
him at anything like a fair price; so that he was obliged to limit
himself to comparatively small surfaces, easel pictures, over
which collectors will soon begin to wrangle, we dare say, now that
the clever hand which created them can work no more, and the big,
kind heart which gave this man the courage to fight through fifty
years against ‘_la bêtise humaine_’ is cold and still.”[23]

In showing his work to visitors he exercised all the reserve and discretion of the Japanese, who places before his guests but one kakemona during that most formal and elaborate of social festivities, the “Tea Ceremony,” or who, under pressure of repeated requests, takes from its little box and unfolds from its many silken wrappings one, just one, of his precious bits of porcelain. No more on the same day, lest the surfeited guests fail in appreciation.

If in his studio, Whistler would first turn to the wall every picture and arrange the few pieces of furniture so that nothing should attract the vagrant eye, then he would place the one picture he wished seen on the easel in the best of light, without, however, letting it be seen until frame and glass were carefully wiped, when, stepping back on a line with his visitor, he, too, would enjoy his work as if he saw it for the first time. He would never exhibit anything he was tired of, and he never tired of anything he exhibited. This appreciation of his own work, his enthusiasm over what he had done, was often misunderstood by people accustomed to the false modesty of artists who stand dumb while others vainly strive to see in their work the beauties which they of all people can best make known.

* * * * *

If time permitted he might bring forth two, or even three, pictures, but rarely more, and always each by itself. If some visitor, presuming on his good nature,--and he was indulgent in the extreme to those he liked,--insisted on placing the pictures side by side for comparison, as is the custom in shops, he was as uneasy and unhappy as would be a poet if several persons insisted on reading aloud before him several of his poems at the same time,--for what is a picture but a poem, mute to the ear but clarion-voiced to the eye?

* * * * *

In public exhibitions of his works he had the same sense of the eternal fitness of things.

First of all, the room must be properly lighted, and Whistler’s paintings require a soft light. In his studio the skylight was well arranged with shades, so he could keep the light soft and constant; and frequently he would draw the shades so as to make the room quite dark, and then view portrait and sitter as they loomed up in shadow.

“Some students planned to call on him one New Year’s morning. A
friendly student, not at all sure that Whistler would like it, gave
him a little tip as to the surprise party.

“‘Tell them that I never receive callers,’ he exclaimed, excitedly.
The student explained that he wasn’t supposed to know anything
about it.

“‘Are you sure they mean well?’ he inquired, anxiously. And on
being reassured, ‘Well, tell them I never receive visitors in the
morning.’

“The students called in the afternoon, and found awaiting them a
most genial and delightful host. He told stories and showed them
his palettes to prove that he practised what he preached, and
pictures and sketches were exhibited to them never seen by the
public, among the surprising ones being some allegorical studies.
He served them with champagne and fruits and cakes, and was most
solicitous as to their enjoyment. One of them asked him how he
arranged his subjects so as to produce the low tone noted in his
pictures. He posed a visitor, pulled over the shades so as to shut
out all light, save from one window, and there before them was a
living Whistler ‘arrangement’ ready to recede behind a frame, as he
says all portraits should do.”

It is a pity to ever subject his pictures to the trying light of the usual gallery, and it is a still greater pity to exhibit them at night in competition with foot-lights and foyer. His work should not be made the attraction for either a “five-o’clock tea” or a dress rehearsal. People who will not go during the day are not worth inviting.

The fact that people are content to view the best paintings of all time by artificial light, and even profess to find a “softness” and “charm” lacking by day, is but additional evidence of that want of susceptibility and fine feeling which characterizes the modern world, artists and laymen alike. For no picture that was painted by daylight should be seen at night, if all its beauties are to be felt.

* * * * *

A room for the exhibition of his pictures should be of precisely the right tone, and this is a matter of no little difficulty.

When president of the Society of British Artists, in 1886, his arrangement of the rooms was criticised as being “tentative,” because he had left the battens on the walls; whereupon he wrote that in the engineering of the light and the treatment of the walls and the arrangement of the draperies everything was intentional; that the battens were meant to remain, “not only for their use, but as bringing parallel lines into play that subdivide charmingly the lower portions of the walls and add to their light appearance; that the whole combination is complete.”

There is a hint to all managers of exhibitions.

* * * * *

To summarize the foregoing suggestions:

The tone of the walls should be such as to keep them in the background.

The monotonous blankness of the walls may be broken by unobtrusive lines, not arbitrarily for effect, but justifiably for use and effect.

Only such draperies should be used as are absolutely necessary to reduce vacancies or to soften harsh lines, and these should lose themselves in the tone of the room.

Floor should be low in tone, the rich, dark brown of old oak keeping its place under foot best of all.

If the room is large and a few chairs and benches are admitted, they should be of wood, plain and for service alone, as becomes a room that is arranged but for one purpose,--namely, the exhibition of certain pictures,--and they should be painted or stained in tone to correspond with the room.

The light should be under absolute control, and kept quite soft, diffused, and constant throughout the day.

The room should be closed at night, or at least the people fully warned by notices in catalogue and elsewhere that if they have any real desire to see and understand the pictures they will come during the day.

The pictures should be well spaced, so that each may, to a certain degree, be studied by itself, for each is as complete a work as a piece of music.

In short, in an exhibition of pictures, or of anything else, everything should be subordinated to the things exhibited; nothing should be permitted to obtrude upon the attention to their disadvantage; the work of the decorator and furnisher on such an occasion is perfect when it is unnoticed.

For black-and-whites, experiments in color may be made, but for paintings which are compositions in color the background should be neutral,--silent like the background of music.

As every one knows, green and red, side by side, accentuate and help each other; therefore, pictures in which the prevailing tone is green are helped by a red or crimson background, while pictures in which the prevailing tone is red are helped by a green background.

The foregoing is elementary and a matter of common observation, and the walls of art galleries and exhibitions are frequently covered with either a shade of green or a shade of crimson; but in placing pictures no discrimination is exercised,--landscapes and marines in which green predominates are placed side by side with portraits and interiors in which red frequently predominates on the same green or red background, to the advantage of one set of pictures and the detriment of the other.

So far as color-effect is concerned, the pictures themselves go very well side by side, the red of the life pieces helping the green of the nature pieces, and _vice versa_; but if the background is permitted to assert itself, if the pictures are spaced on the wall, any background which accentuates the one class does so at the expense of the other.

If pictures in which the prevailing tone is green are to be placed on the same wall with pictures in which red predominates, the background should be neither red nor green, but, theoretically, a gray, which is neutral and helps all colors in contrast; practically, however, a grayish hue of brown, because pure gray requires a greater expanse of wall between each picture than the exigencies of an exhibition or of a typical picture gallery permit, while the element of brown permits the wall to assert itself a little more positively between the frames, and, at the same time, the quality of neutrality is almost as well preserved.

The stronger the tone of the background the nearer together pictures may be placed; the weaker and more neutral the background the wider the spacing must be,--a pure gray requiring the widest spacing of all backgrounds, a deep crimson the narrowest. In other words, it requires a wide expanse of gray to support a little color, while a very little crimson will carry a very large expanse of color in the way of gilt frames and strong landscapes and marines.

Wide frames, whether of gold or dark wood, enable green walls to carry green pictures and red walls to carry red pictures without the pictures suffering so much; the frames intervene, and the immediate contrast is between canvas and frame instead of canvas and wall. But the secondary contrast is there and is felt precisely in proportion to the extent of the spacing between the pictures, and the pictures suffer accordingly.

_VI_

_The Ruskin Suit--His Attitude towards the World and towards
Art--“The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”--Critics and Criticism._

In 1877 Ruskin, passing through the Grosvenor Gallery, caught sight of something the like of which he had never seen in the world of art. It was the “Nocturne, Black and Gold. The Falling Rocket,” a faithful transcript of the painter’s impression of a night-scene in Cremorne Gardens. But Ruskin cared less for the subtle glories of night than for the more garish beauties of the day, and still less for the sights and sounds of Cremorne Gardens, and neither he nor any one else in either modern or ancient world knew anything at all about the painting of night as Whistler painted it. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was startled, for the picture seemed to violate all those canons of art which he had laid down in English the beauty of which more than condones his every error, and in the impulse of the moment he wrote in a number of _Fors Clavigera_:

“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.”

* * * * *

By way of extenuation, it must be borne in mind that this was written off-hand, at a time when Ruskin was saying so many extravagant things, though with them so many profoundly true things, that no one quite understood him, and many thought him not quite sound mentally. The habit of sweeping generalizations, of extravagant appreciations and depreciations had grown apace since the publication of the first volume of “Modern Painters,” nearly forty years before, and he invariably yielded to the impression or the prejudice of the moment.

* * * * *

If Ruskin, in estimating Whistler, had paused but a moment and recalled just a paragraph from the preface to the second edition of the first volume of “Modern Painters” he would have been more tolerant, for he there said:

“All that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative,
is formed and created by every great master for himself, and cannot
be repeated or imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a
rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what
has been done before as by their difference from it; and while we
advise him, in the first trials of strength, to set certain models
before him, with respect to inferior points,--one for
versification, another for arrangement, another for treatment,--we
yet admit not his greatness until he has broken away from all his
models and struck forth versification, arrangement, and treatment
of his own.”

And was not Ruskin himself the life-long apologist for a most original and extraordinary genius,--a man who to his last days was as little understood as Whistler?

Here are some things that were said of Turner as late as 1842, when he was doing some of his best work:

“The ‘Dogano’ (_sic_) and ‘Campo Santo’ have a glorious _ensemble_,
and are produced by wonderful art, but they mean nothing. They are
produced as if by throwing handfuls of white and blue and red at
the canvas, letting what chanced to stick, stick, and then
shadowing in some forms to make the appearance of a picture; and
yet there is a fine harmony in the highest range of color to please
the sense of vision. We admire and we lament to see such genius so
employed. But ‘Farther on you may fare worse.’ No. 182 is a
snow-storm of most unintelligible character,--the snow-storm of a
confused dream, with a steamboat ‘making signals,’ and (apparently,
like the painter who was in it) ‘going by the head’ (lead?).
Neither by land nor water was such a scene ever witnessed. And of
338, ‘Burial at Sea,’ though there is a striking effect, still the
whole is so idealized and removed from truth that, instead of the
feeling it ought to effect, it only excites ridicule. And No. 353
caps all for absurdity, without even any of the redeeming qualities
of the rest. It represents Bonaparte--facetiously described as the
‘Exile and the rock-limpet’--standing on the sea-shore at St.
Helena ... the whole thing is so truly ludicrous,” etc.[24]

Another writer says:

“This gentleman has on former occasions chosen to paint with cream,
or chocolate, yolk of egg, or currant-jelly,--there he uses his
whole array of kitchen-stuff.... We cannot fancy the state of eye
which will permit any one cognizant of art to treat these
rhapsodies as Lord Byron treated ‘Christabel;’ neither can we
believe in any future revolution which shall bring the world round
to the opinion of the worshipper, if worshippers such frenzies
still possess.”[25]

In reply to these and similar criticisms Ruskin said:[26]

“There is nothing so high in art but that a scurrile jest can reach
it; and often the greater the work the easier it is to turn it into
ridicule. To appreciate the science of Turner’s color would require
the study of a life, but to laugh at it requires little more than
the knowledge that yolk of egg is yellow and spinach green,--a fund
of critical information on which the remarks of most of our leading
periodicals have been of late years exclusively based. We shall,
however, in spite of the sulphur-and-treacle criticisms of our
Scotch connoisseurs and the eggs and the spinach of our English
ones, endeavor to test the works of this great colorist by a
knowledge of nature somewhat more extensive than is to be gained by
an acquaintance, however familiar, with the apothecary’s shop or
the dinner-table.”

There is Ruskin in arms on the other side,--it making all the difference in the world which ox is gored.

What an interesting chapter in the history of appreciation it all makes. Here we have the critics fulminating against Turner in “egg and spinach” terms and Ruskin fulminating against the critics in “pot and kettle” terms. A few years later we have Ruskin fulminating against Whistler in the same old terms; but Whistler greatly improved the language of vituperation by introducing humor, and answered with words that bit like acid and epigrams pointed like needles--the etcher in controversy.

“Produced as if by throwing handfuls of white and blue and red at the canvas,” said the critic of Turner. “Flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face,” said Ruskin of Whistler. Beyond this, criticism begins to be personal.

And Whistler drew the line on the “pot and kettle” stage and brought suit for libel.

The case was heard in November, 1878, before Baron Huddleston and a special jury.

The cross-examination of Whistler by the attorney-general, who appeared for the defendant, was one of the features of the case, and brought out many of the artist’s views concerning art and art critics.

It is said that during the trial one of Whistler’s counsel was holding up the nocturne in controversy before the jury, when one of the counsel on the other side called out:

“You are holding that upside down.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I tell you, you are.”

“How do you know which is the top and which is the bottom?”

“Oh, I don’t know; only when I saw it hanging in the Grosvenor Gallery it was the other side up.”

Whereupon--out of deference to precedent--the nocturne was reversed.

When Whistler was asked whether the nocturne represented a view of Cremorne, he answered:

“If it were called a view of Cremorne, it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement.”

And again, when asked whether a certain nocturne in blue and silver was a “correct” representation of Battersea Bridge, he replied:

“I did not intend it to be a ‘correct’ portrait of the bridge. It is only a moonlight scene, and the pier in the centre of the picture may not be like the piers at Battersea Bridge as you know them in broad daylight. As to what the picture represents, that depends upon who looks at it. To some it may represent all that is intended; to others it may represent nothing.”

“The prevailing color is blue?”

“Perhaps.”

“Are these figures on the top of the bridge intended for people?”

“They are just what you like.”

“Is that a barge beneath?”

“Yes. I am very much encouraged at your perceiving that. My whole scheme was only to bring about a certain harmony of color.”

* * * * *

Mr. Ruskin did not appear, but others testified in his behalf.

Edward Burne-Jones admitted the picture had fine color, but found absolutely no detail and composition. It was “bewildering in form,” and “one of the thousand failures to paint night,” and “not worth two hundred guineas.”

All of which opinions have been reversed by time,--even to the value, which quintupled many years ago.

Mr. Frith--of whose art both Burne-Jones and Ruskin probably had opinions that could not be expressed in temperate language--presented his credentials as the author of the “Railway Station,” “Derby Day,” and the “Rakes Progress,” and testified that Whistler’s pictures were “not serious works of art.” But, then, he confessed he had not been invited to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery, and, as every one knows, what is considered art in one exhibition may not be so considered in another.

And Tom Taylor, of the _Times_,--well, for Tom Taylor’s testimony and opinions one must go to the “Gentle Art.” It is his one sure niche in the temple of fame.

In addressing the jury, the attorney-general said “he did not know when so much amusement had been offered to the British public as by Mr. Whistler’s pictures.”

The verdict was for the plaintiff, and the damages assessed at one farthing; which coin Whistler wore on his chain long afterwards.

The costs assessed against Ruskin amounted to £386 12s. 4d., and were paid by public subscription, one hundred and twenty persons contributing.

Concerning this suit, Ruskin said, “I am blamed by my prudent acquaintances for being too personal; but, truly, I find vaguely objurgatory language generally a mere form of what Plato calls ‘shadow-fighting.’” And long after, when a friend asked him about the case, he said, “I am afraid of a libel action if I open my mouth; and if I can’t say what I like about a person, I prefer to say nothing at all.”[27]

* * * * *

Even Ruskin could not say what he liked about any one, though every one, including the victim, might like the manner of his saying it. Still, it will ever remain a matter of wonder how Whistler induced an English jury, who could not possibly understand him, to give him a nominal verdict and saddle the costs upon Ruskin, who was something of a popular idol.

Whistler’s lawyers must have been cleverer than those of the other side. The attorney-general probably proved, as his speech indicates, a clumsy defender in a case involving nice questions of art.

Be it said to the credit of Whistler’s sagacity, he always employed the best lawyers available. He once said, “Poor lawyers, like poor paintings, are dear at any price.”

* * * * *

While Whistler had practised the gentle art of making enemies from the beginning of his career, his suit against Ruskin was, so to speak, his first public appearance, and he threw his dart at a shining mark.

What his real feelings towards Ruskin were no man can say,--for towards the public and his critics he was one man, towards his art he was quite another.

To the world he seemed the incarnation of vanity and conceit; to the few whose privilege it was to see him at work he appeared, and was, the embodiment of sincerity and earnestness, of simplicity to the verge of diffidence.

It is impossible to conceive two personalities so different as Whistler at work and Whistler at play, and all his controversies were play to him, the amusement of his hours of relaxation.

* * * * *

He sued Ruskin, not because his status before art was in any wise affected, but because his status before the public was assailed; not because he cared the snap of his finger for any adverse opinion concerning his pictures, but because he felt that he had a certain position, pose one might say, to maintain, and because it amused him to sue one who was considered so infallible; and he, no doubt, felt reasonably sure he would be more than recompensed by the solemn testimony of opposing witnesses.

* * * * *

Whistler has been so often charged with being a poser that in the eyes of the world he really must have seemed so.

He was a poser in the sense already indicated,--namely, he was one man before the public and another at work. In this sense every man clever enough to forget himself at times is something of a poser, for only the stupid who can talk nothing but “shop,” wherever they are, are the same day in and day out.

Most men are able to leave their work behind and adopt a _rôle_ more or less artificial in social intercourse. The brilliant few who make society possess this faculty in an eminent degree.

The objection that social England has against the shopkeeper is, no doubt, based upon many sad experiences that the shopkeeper brings his shop with him to dinner, and will not, or cannot, pose to the extent of forgetting his material concerns in the presence of the frivolous.

The preacher, the politician, the lawyer, the soldier may introduce a little “shop” in general conversation, for these occupations are supposed to have a more general interest; but the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker cannot. But preacher, politician, lawyer, and soldier make the better guests if they pose a little and forget, for the time being, their occupations.

Convictions must be introduced sparingly in social intercourse; a very few go a great way.

Why not adopt and duly post some such salutary rule as this? In social intercourse the utterance of one’s profound convictions shall bear the same ratio to one’s total utterances on any given occasion that the speaker bears to the number present and participating in the conversation. That is to say, if the conversation is between two alone, half that either says may be his convictions, the other half a polite, though futile, endeavor to understand the other’s convictions. If at a table of twelve, about a twelfth of one’s real thoughts are permissible, and all that, in justice to others, should be attempted.

But, then, conversation is a lost art. An Athenian could talk better about everything than a modern can talk about anything. Cast a subject, a thought, so much as a suggestion, into a knot of Greeks, and in a trice, like dogs over a bone, they would be wrestling with it, and the less they knew about it the brighter the discussion.

Knowledge is the last refuge of the stupid. Facts are the sinkers of talk. Ideas are the flash-lights of the imagination; and conversation depends not upon knowledge but upon ideas. One who knows nothing of a subject may have more ideas concerning it than one who knows all about. Women are frequently better conversers than men, because less hampered by facts.

Knowledge is a heavy weight for conversation to carry. But of all the bores who find their way to the dinner-table the specialist in knowledge is the most hopeless. The man who knows everything about something is at the stupid end; the man who knows something about everything at the brilliant, with a place at his right hand for the woman who knows nothing about anything.

Whistler was of the choice few who would never speak seriously of his serious pursuits in general conversation. At those very moments when he seemed to be saying most about art and artists he was in reality saying least of what he really thought. When he talked most of himself he said nothing that he really felt. It was almost impossible to draw from him a serious opinion concerning a picture or a painter. Though he might rail by the hour against this man or that, if the mood seized him, it all meant nothing.

In his studio, when at work, opinions and appreciations worth remembering would drop from his lips; but he rarely committed himself; not because his convictions were not clear, but because he seldom thought it worth while.

* * * * *

Once he was dining with quite a distinguished company. The conversation--possibly as tribute to the presence of so noted an artist--turned upon art, and finally upon a notorious picture, called “Nana,” of a naked woman on a couch, that was quite a sensation in London. It has been seen on this side.

Loud were the expressions of approval. Whistler remained silent.

“What do you think of ‘Nana,’ Mr. Whistler?” asked the
distinguished lady at his right.

“Is it not wonderful?--so life-like,” exclaimed the distinguished
lady at his left.

But Whistler, apparently spellbound by the bird before him, was
silent.

“But, Mr. Whistler, you have not told us what _you_ think about
‘Nana,’” said the distinguished lady opposite.

At bay at last, he said:

“Really, madam, you know, it is quite--presumptious--quite, for one
who--who is simply, as one might say, a painter, and therefore--you
know--not entitled to opinions--to express himself in the presence
of so--so many distinguished connoisseurs; but--since you demand my
opinion--as a highwayman would a purse--I yield to superior
strength and say--with all deference--that ‘Nana’ is--trash.”

“Oh!”

“Oh, Mr. Whistler.”

“But have you seen it?”

“No.”

“Then, how can you say it is trash?”

“It must be--it--is so--popular.”

“Will you go to see it?”

“That is not necessary.”

“But I want you to go with me to-morrow to see ‘Nana.’” And the
charming lady on his right insisted so imperiously that he should
go with her and several of the company who wished to be of the
party, that he yielded, saying, however:

“On one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you will go with me afterward, to the National Gallery and
see some pictures I am sure you have never seen.”

“Some new ones?”

“To you--yes.”

It was agreed; and the following day Whistler with several of the
party paid each a shilling to see “Nana” stretched at ease under a
strong light at the far end of a dark room. It might have been a
painting or “Nana” herself, the realism was so gross.

All save Whistler were in raptures over the wondrous thing. He was
silent.

Then they went to the National Gallery, and he took them before one
great portrait after another.

“But we have seen these before,” chorused the voices.

“Impossible!” exclaimed Whistler.

“Oh, yes, many times,” sang the voices.

“But you do not like them; you detest them.”

“Oh, no! no! no----!”

“But they are not at all like ‘Nana’; they haven’t ‘Nana’s’
wonderful flesh-tones, ‘Nana’s’ beautiful skin; are not so
life-like as ‘Nana,’ and beside ‘Nana’ you must consider them as
poor, wretched daubs.”

And so he took them from one masterpiece to another, repeating
before each one their raptures over “Nana” until they were silent.
Then he said:

“I have shown you some pictures that are considered good by those
whose opinions are precious, and you have not found in one a single
characteristic that you admired in ‘Nana,’ and you yourselves would
not admit her to this glorious company; therefore, again I say,
‘Nana’ is--trash.”

In the sense, therefore, that he presented a careless, trivial, or cynical side to the public and a serious side to his art, Whistler was a poser, and during his idle hours he had the habit of amusing himself at the expense of any one who crossed his path. And why not? Did not the world try so hard to amuse itself at his expense? Were his feelings spared? Was aught of ridicule or insult that human ingenuity could devise withheld?

But his opponents were so clumsy that, save as he himself preserved their crude repartees, only his epigrammatic utterances are remembered; and therefore he has all the blame for the controversies, while the truth is that, considering the flood of opprobrium poured out upon him in print and in speech, he said very little, took but occasional notice of his assailants. All he said fills but a portion of a small book,--the “Gentle Art,”--while his opponents have the balance; and if all adverse personal comments of a despicable nature were gathered together from both sides of the Atlantic, they would make up many closely-printed volumes.

For a man who could write so well, Whistler exercised great restraint in writing so little, but--that little!

* * * * *

And yet it is a pity, from one point of view, that he wrote at all; his art did not need it, and in the way of general estimation and recognition suffers not a little on account of it.

For twenty-odd years the public has been amused, startled, and irritated by the letters and utterances which make up “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” and it will be many a long day before they are so far forgotten that Whistler’s art will be judged wholly upon its merits.

If the “Gentle Art” did not exist as it does in its harmony in brown, English literature would lack a volume which is in itself a bit of art and unique of its kind. There is nothing at all like it, and only Whistler could have done it. The book is a perfect expression of one side of his many-sided and extraordinary personality, and as such is therefore a work of art, and, at the same time, material which cannot be spared if the man is to be thoroughly understood; but it reveals the side which is least worth understanding, it accentuates traits which are inconsequential, and it gives the public an entirely erroneous impression, because the public find it easy to buy and read the book, but difficult to so much as see the pictures, and quite impossible to understand them when they do see them.

In Whistler’s life the writing of the few lines and the putting together of the matter contained in the “Gentle Art” occupied an almost infinitesimal fraction of his leisure hours, whereas for fifty years he painted, etched, and lithographed industriously; yet, so far as the public of England and America is concerned, his controversies overshadow his art; while to the French, who happily could not read the book, he is known only as an artist.

* * * * *

Criticism of art afforded Whistler a world of amusement, and the art critic was his especial aversion.

“That writers should destroy writings to the benefit of writing” seemed to him just, but that writers should criticise painting seemed to him altogether illogical.

And he quotes the critic of the _Times_, who said of Velasquez’s “Las Menimas” that it was “slovenly in execution, poor in color,--being little but a combination of neutral grays and ugly in its forms.”

And he shows how the same great critic praised a Turner that turned out to be no Turner. When this particular critic died, a few years ago, Whistler sorrowfully said, “I have hardly a warm personal enemy left.”

And he showed how one said that Daubigny had neither drawing nor color, and another that the works of Corot to the first impression of an Englishman “are the sketches of an amateur,” and another that everything Courbet touches “becomes unpleasant.”

All these by the most eminent critics in the land,--men whose say-so in days gone by made and unmade, for the time being, the reputations of artists.

And he grouped together a number of Ruskin’s dogmatic utterances, where in his enthusiasm for certain men he condemned others who were infinitely superior,--as, for instance, where he praises without limitations the work of the forgotten Prout, and says that Rembrandt’s colors are wrong from beginning to end, and that “Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety will indeed always express themselves through art in brown and gray, as in Rembrandt;” and again where he places Rubens above Titian and Raphael, and compares an unknown Mulready with Albert Dürer, to the disadvantage of the latter.

These things it pleased Whistler to do, and he has done them with rare piquancy in the “Gentle Art.”

If what is contained therein savors in aught of malice, let it be remembered that public, critics, painters were snapping at his heels during the years that he was doing the very work which public, critics, and painters now worship, and a lesser man would have yielded to the storm of adverse opinion and ridicule.

With the exception of a few friends and admirers, he was absolutely without support during the period when an artist most needs encouragement.

It is everlastingly to his credit that neither the ridicule of others--“the voice of the nation”--nor his own necessities, and they pressed heavily at times, caused him to swerve a hair’s breadth from what he believed to be worth doing in art.

Nearly every great artist of whom we have any record has at one time or another in his career yielded to the temptation--frequently under pressure of dire necessity--to do something that would sell. No such reproach can be laid at Whistler’s door.

* * * * *

The galled critics complained that he did not treat them fairly,--that he selected small excerpts from voluminous essays; whereas, if he had reprinted the essays entire, language apparently plain would have been reversed in meaning. For instance, he of the _Times_, who had written of Velasquez, complained that the quotation gave “exactly the opposite impression to that which the article, taken as a whole, conveys.” It must have been an extraordinary article to transform what was quoted into praise; but Whistler, in reply, said:

“Why squabble over your little article? You _did_ print what I
quote, you know, Tom; and it is surely unimportant what more you
may have written of the Master. That you should have written
anything at all is your crime.”

Ruskin never complained of anything Whistler wrote. The one utterance which caused the suit for libel was probably the first and last that passed his lips. The eloquent old man never did pay very much attention to what others thought of him; he was too busy with his own dreams and fancies.