Chapter XI: Whistler and Cecil Lawson

Apart from Burne-Jones, whose gathered works, the fruit of many years’ labour, naturally occupied the dominant place in the first exhibitions of the Grosvenor Gallery, there were two painters, Whistler and Cecil Lawson, whose pictures made it in their different ways notable and interesting.

At that time Whistler’s claims as an artist were not seriously entertained beyond the limits of a very narrow circle. I had known him personally for some little time, and had included his work in that series of articles written in 1873 to which reference has already been made. Writing of him then, I had said, “Opinions as to his merits differ widely enough, but there is nothing vague or uncertain about them. He is either blamed or praised heartily, and for the most part he is heartily blamed.

“Persons who do not admire his pictures are rather disposed to regard them in the light of a personal insult, and to behave as though the painter had deliberately intended to cause annoyance. The consequence is that Mr. Whistler receives more abuse than any other painter, and abuse of a kind that implies something also of pity; for when he is not regarded in the light of a wilful wrong-doer, his work is accepted as the expression of a defective intelligence.”

These sentences, I think fairly enough, represent Mr. Whistler’s position at that time, nor had the public estimate of his powers greatly changed when the Grosvenor Gallery was established in 1877.

It is not necessary now to fight over again that battle that was waged by some of us on his behalf. To me it was never difficult to appreciate at their true value the distinguished qualities of his art; and at this time of day his claims are so widely and so loudly announced, that it is sometimes difficult for those who admired him first to keep pace with his later worshippers.

About the year 1876 I had written a notice of the exhibition of his work held in Pall Mall which had greatly pleased him, and when he was decorating the late Mr. Leyland’s house in Prince’s Gate I used often to go down while he was at work, and during the luncheon hour--which was an improvised meal daintily set out under Whistler’s order in the empty house--our talk used to roam widely over things of Art and Life, for Whistler was as acute in his perception of the foibles of character as he was fastidious and exacting in the execution of even the lightest of his designs.

Whistler’s public attitude was one of uncompromising hostility to all critics. For him Art was always a thing exclusively for the expert, and he regarded the intrusion of any comment, unless it proceeded from a brother craftsman, as not only futile but mischievous. This was a very natural attitude in view of the special gifts he possessed, for he was above all things a man of the “métier,” conceiving Art as a thing isolated and detached from thoughts that found expression in other mediums, a thing only to be judged by its own exclusive laws which he deemed could not be fully interpreted save by the artist himself.

But he had even in this respect his little human weaknesses, and the praise which I had bestowed upon his work on more than one occasion brought from him a warm letter of appreciation, the existence of which I think he afterwards forgot; for I remember at a dinner-party, during the later days of our friendship, when he was denouncing, with his accustomed liberty of speech, that hated tribe of which I had been a member, I ventured softly from the other end of the table to interject the remark, “Ah yes, Jimmy, but you didn’t always think so,” and then upon the top of a reiterated expression of his contempt for those who wrote about Art, I reminded him of my possession of a little letter which I had been very happy to receive and was well content to preserve.

And so the incident closed with some graceful and half-jesting reference on his part to my superior claims, which he had always, of course, as he declared, impliedly excepted from his general condemnation of the class.

As a companion I found him delightful, and his hospitality at the several houses he successively occupied in Chelsea, however restricted it might occasionally prove owing to his shifting financial fortunes, had an inimitable grace and distinction peculiarly his own; though there were some, however, whose more exacting appetite was not always content with the slender material of those delightful little breakfasts over which he so perfectly presided.

To me the charm of the host sufficed to cover any deficiency in the feast, even in those days when he laughingly told me that his fishmonger was the only tradesman who could afford to deal with him. But I remember meeting, during one of these periods of narrow resources, a foreign painter who at one time had felt himself greatly favoured by an invitation to Cheyne Walk. I asked him if he had seen anything of Whistler lately, to which he replied, “Ah no, not now so much. He ask me a leetle while ago to breakfarst, and I go. My cab-fare two shilling, ’arf-crown. I arrive, very nice. Gold fish in bowl, very pretty. But breakfarst--one egg, one toast, no more! Ah no! My cab-fare, two shilling, ’arf-crown. For me no more!”

This, I think, was an exaggerated picture of the limits which Whistler was sometimes compelled to set to his hospitality. I know, for my own part at any rate, that these breakfasts were always delightful, and sometimes, when the mood took him, he would go himself into the kitchen and prepare a “plat” of his own devising, thus giving a final charm to his graceful entertainments.

His talk on these occasions, swift in its wit and always ready in repartee, was not, however, often of a kind that bears recording, so much depended upon the man himself, his personality and his manner, and so much upon the exact appropriateness of every word he uttered to the mood of the occasion. There was always about him a substratum of impish mischief which gave flavour and colour either to his criticism or his appreciation.

Once I remember, when a friend at the table was gravely reproaching him upon his lack of admiration of certain examples of Dresden china, Whistler still remained entirely impenitent and unconvinced until his friend was tempted to round off his rebuke by the somewhat audacious protest, “But, my dear Jimmy, you are not catholic in your taste,” to which Jimmy supplied the lightning retort, “No, that’s true. I only care for what’s good.”

Sometimes his remarks were almost startling in their reckless daring, and were apt to produce in the company in which he found himself a feeling of consternation. Once at an assembly at Lady Lindsay’s, on the entry of a painter whose face seemed to bear on that night even more than its wonted gravity of expression, Jimmy went up to the new-comer and in his shrillest tones remarked to him, “My dear,--your face is your fortune,” ending this outrageous compliment with one of those wild laughs that sounded like the war-whoop of an Indian who has just scalped his foe.

Of literature, in the wider sense of the term, I never discovered that Whistler had any profound knowledge, though when he wanted a quotation to heighten the sarcasm of any biting sentence it was happily chosen, and most often, strangely enough, such quotation would be taken from Dickens, whose humour strongly appealed to him.

But he was an artist first and last; and when not preoccupied with the things of his art, he so far resembled Millais that he loved to feel the pulse of the life of his time as it was exhibited in general society.

Towards men, especially those for whom he had no great liking, he was scathing and unsparing in the exercise of a wit that took small account of any conventional limitation, but towards women he was unfailingly courteous, with something of almost chivalrous deference of bearing and manner. Of all the painters of his time the man whom he most respected was, I think, Albert Moore; and the affinity was natural enough, for Moore, like Whistler, deliberately excluded from his art all reference to emotion and passion, and sought, within rigorous limitations, for a grace that owed nothing to any art but his own.

In Moore this was due to an accepted principle that was patiently obeyed; in Whistler it was intuitive instinct. In his case there was no need of any process of exclusion. Life, as it came into the region of his art, only appealed to him in virtue of those qualities he sought to present, and it was by no deliberate choice but by natural inclination that he left the entire story of human emotion and human passion untouched and untold.

A common prejudice of that time, long dissipated now, but which found utterance then in the intemperate condemnation by Mr. Ruskin that afterwards formed the subject of the celebrated libel action, was to the effect that the results of Whistler’s painting, often so fragile and so slight in their final appearance upon the canvas, were due to a wilful neglect of the resources at his command. It was widely held among the public who loved him not, and even among brother artists who should have known better, that his painting revealed the lack of pains and labour. Nothing really could have been more unjust or more untrue. I have often sat in his studio while he was at work, and found ample reason to be convinced that not a touch was ever set upon the canvas that was not finely considered and fastidiously chosen.

I think in himself he was hardly aware of the degree to which his painting lent itself to an opposite impression. He was so keenly concentrated upon the kind of truth he sought to render that he was half unconscious that the form in which he chose to present it was strange and repugnant to the taste of the time; but although genuinely modest in the presence of his task, he was often almost arrogant in his assertion of the excellence of the result when the task was ended. The picture once completed and set in its frame, Whistler became from that moment an ardent champion of his own genius.

Combat was the delight of his life, and there was no violence of assertion he did not love to employ if he thought that by no other means could he encourage an opponent into the dangerous arena of controversy.

As a matter of fact, I do not think he was ever quite happy unless one of these pretty little quarrels was on hand, and whenever he suspected that any particular dispute in which he was engaged showed signs of waning, he would, I think out of pure devilment, cast about to lay the foundations of a new quarrel.

Something of the kind occurred in my own case. At his own earnest suggestion, while I was the English editor of _L’Art_, I invited him, with the concurrence of the proprietors in Paris, to furnish an etching for publication. Knowing well the amiable idiosyncrasies of my dear friend, I was very insistent that he should set down precisely and in writing all the terms and conditions which he thought it right to impose, and yet, when this had been done and the etching had been given to the world, with almost impish ingenuity he thought he had detected some breach in our contract, and wrote me thereupon a little letter of reproach which I saw plainly, when I received it, was destined for ultimate publication as the preface to a controversy into which he thought he could lure me.

But for once he made an unfortunate choice of a foe. “Not with me, my dear Jimmy,” I replied to him. “No one enjoys more keenly your essays as a controversialist, or more deeply appreciates the wit and ingenuity which they display, but not with me.” I think that he must have perceived that I had detected his amiable design, for when he came to see me after the receipt of my letter it was in a spirit of the most boisterous good-humour that he reproached me with having despoiled him of a promised affray.

The fact that he was in many quarters unpopular he realised with a sense of conscious enjoyment. On one occasion I had been put up as a candidate for a club of which he was already a member, and on meeting him at an evening party he said, “My dear Joe, why didn’t you tell me? I would have put my name down on your page,” to which I replied in something of his own spirit--knowing that I had already been elected, a fact of which he was unaware--“Well, my dear Jimmy, put it down now, it can do no harm now”--a delicate tribute to that unpopularity to which I have referred, which he received with riotous laughter.

One of the latest of the contests in which Whistler loved to involve himself found him pitted against an opponent who was almost his match in ingenuity, and far outstripped him in the unscrupulous use of any weapon that came ready to his hand.

This was Charles Howell, a strange creature whom I had first met at one of Rossetti’s delightful little dinners, and who was at the time welcomed as a companion by all the artists of that special group. Endowed with real taste in all matters of Art, he for a while served as secretary to Mr. Ruskin, and in that capacity was able to ingratiate himself with many of the artists of whose work Ruskin was then the champion.

I met him often at Whistler’s house in Cheyne Walk, where I think he was as much appreciated for the more questionable qualities of his character as for his quick admiration of Whistler’s genius.

The attitude of one to the other was always amusing to watch, for it was obvious that both were on their guard: Howell half conscious that even in his most plausible mood he lay open to the suspicion of a sinister intention, and Whistler, whilst not unaware of the subtlety and skill of his companion, rather encouraging the initiation of a contest in which he never doubted the sufficiency of his own resources.

There are numerous stories of Howell well known to the men with whom he was at that time brought in contact that need not now be revived. What is certainly true, as against any defects that may be alleged against him, is that in conversation he was interesting and attractive, watchful of the effect on his companion of every word that he uttered, and yet so quick in apparent sympathy that it was impossible to ignore the charm of his personality.

What was the end of the particular controversy to which I have referred I do not now rightly remember, but I seem to recall that when Whistler last spoke to me upon the subject he was in some apprehension lest his wily friend should have stolen a march upon him.

During the last years of his life Whistler passed but little time in England, and I think the resentment, not unnaturally aroused at the treatment his work had received at an earlier time, had quickened into something approaching absolute dislike towards this country. The last time I saw him was at a small dinner-party at my sister-in-law’s house in Paris, where his reputation as a painter was firmly and finally established. Whatever his altered feelings towards England, it had made no change in his relations with his old friends, and on that evening it seemed to me he had in him all the old spirit of gaiety and wit as I had first known it in the earlier days of Cheyne Walk.

In temperament and character, as well as in the chosen ideal of his art, he holds a distinctive place in his generation. In spite of his undisguised desire to make enemies, the singular charm of his nature brought him many friends, and I think there is not one who knew him well who does not cherish his memory with something approaching to affection.

Cecil Lawson, whose work was also prominently brought to the notice of the public through the earlier exhibitions at the Grosvenor, was a man of a wholly different stamp. For several years before the hour of his triumph he had not been very well treated by the Hanging Committee of the Academy. It was about this time that, by his request, I had been to visit him at his little studio in Chelsea to see one of his pictures, which he particularly thought had been unjustly treated; and his delight was frankly avowed when a little later I took Sir Coutts Lindsay, who invited him to become an exhibitor at the Grosvenor.

The private view of that year and the next left Cecil Lawson in a state of unconcealed exaltation of spirit. The “Pastoral” and the “Minister’s Garden” set him, at a bound, in the front rank of the painters of his time, and I shall not easily forget the sense of almost intoxication with which he wandered from room to room receiving on every side the meed of well-earned praise which only a year or two before seemed to lie for ever beyond his reach.

The occasion was celebrated by a little dinner given by Lawson in the old garden of his studio in Glebe Place. Whistler was of the party, and it is pleasant to remember with what genuine cordiality he rejoiced in Lawson’s success.

I saw him very often after that time, for he was, I think, disposed to exaggerate the small share I had taken in making his work better known; and he was always anxious for my criticism or approval on new work he had in hand. But I never left his studio without some feeling of melancholy apprehension, for it seemed to me always that his overwrought and highly-strung nervous temperament gave no fair promise of long life.

On one of the last of our meetings he had specially invited my visit, as he particularly wanted my judgment upon a picture just completed. It happened when I reached his studio that it did not so strongly appeal to me as other examples of his work, and yet I did not then quite understand the sudden look of pain that passed over his face when my opinion was expressed. It was only afterwards that I received from him a touching little letter telling me that he saw plainly I did not greatly care for the picture, and that he was disappointed, because he had intended to offer it to me as an acknowledgment of my friendship.

“I hope later,” he said, “to do something that will really please you.” But the time left to him was shorter than either of us could have guessed, and within only a little while his career was ended. He was a very lovable man, full of high ambition, and inspired in the happier moments of his life with a just confidence in his great powers. But these more buoyant moods alternated with seasons of great depression, and in this respect his temperament showed a marked resemblance to that of Fred Walker.

His spirit fed upon itself, and his hunger for success, linked with a still nobler desire to realise the many dreams of beauty that thronged his brain, left him with but little leisure for repose. I think the eager intensity of his nature was sometimes a terror to himself, and although the end came more swiftly than I had divined, it was scarcely wonderful that the constant excitability of his temperament should have prematurely worn down a physique that never was robust.