THE DOORWAY
ETCHING. G. 188
By permission of the Fine Art Society
"As did Tintoret and Paul Veronese, among the Venetians, while not halting to change the brocaded silks for the classic draperies of Athens.
"As did, at the Court of Philip, Velasquez, whose Infantas, clad in inæsthetic hoops, are, as works of Art, of the same quality as the Elgin Marbles."
As did, he might have added, Whistler, during the reign of Victoria, in his portraits and Nocturnes which have carried on the art of the world.
His argument was clear and his facts, misunderstood, are becoming the clichés of this generation. Critics, photographers, even Royal Academicians have appropriated the truths of The Ten O'Clock, for strange things are happening to the memory of the Idle Apprentice. He made his points wittily; he chose his words and rounded his sentences with the feeling for the beautiful that ruled his painting. The Ten O'Clock has passed into literature. Those Sunday wrestlings with Scripture in Lowell, that getting of the Psalms by heart at Stonington developed a style the literary artist may envy. This style in Art and Art Critics had its roughness. He pruned and chastened it in his letters to the papers, devoting infinite thought and trouble to them, for he, more than most men, believed that whatever he had to do was worth doing with all his might. He would write and rewrite them, and drive editors mad by coming at the busiest hour to correct the proof, working over it an hour or more, and then returning to change a word or a comma, while press and printers waited, and he got so excited once he forgot his eye-glass—and the editor stole it, and, of course, later lost it. In his correspondence he was as scrupulous, and we have known him make a rough draft of a letter to his bootmaker in Paris, and ask us to dictate it to him while he wrote his fair copy, as a final touch addressing it to M. ——, Maître Bottier. In The Ten O'Clock he brought his style to perfection. His philosophy, based on the eternal truths of art, was expressed with the beauty that endures for all time.
The critics treated Whistler's lecture as they treated his exhibitions. The Daily News was almost alone in owning that its quality was a surprise. The Times had the country with it when it said that "the audience, hoping for an hour's amusement from the eccentric genius of the artist, were not disappointed." "The eccentric freak of an amiable, humorous, and accomplished gentleman," was the Daily Telegraph's opinion. Oscar Wilde, in the Pall Mall Gazette, was shocked that an artist should talk of art, and was unwilling to accept the fact that only a painter is a judge of painting. This was natural, for as an authority on art Wilde had made himself ridiculous. Nor could he assent to much that Whistler said, for, as a lecturer, he had been a perambulating advertisement for the æsthetic movement, against which The Ten O'Clock was a protest. But he was more generous than other critics in acknowledging the beauty of the lecture and the earnestness of the lecturer, though he could not finish his notice without one parting shot at the man whose target he had often been: "that he is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting is my opinion. And I may add that, in this opinion, Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs." This was not the sort of thing Whistler could pass over. His answer led to a correspondence which made another chapter in The Gentle Art.
Whistler repeated The Ten O'Clock several times; early in March before the British Artists, and later in the same month (the 24th) before the University Art Society at Cambridge, where he spent the night with Sir Sidney Colvin, who writes us, "beyond the mere fact that Whistler dined with me in Hall and had some chat there with Prince Edward—an amiable youth who was a little scared at the idea of having to talk art (of which he was blankly ignorant) but whom Whistler soon put at his ease; I have no precise recollection of what passed." What a pity!
On April 30 he gave his lecture at Oxford. Mr. Sidney Starr "went down with Whistler and his brother, 'Doctor Willie,' to the Mitre. The lecture hall was small, with primitive benches, and the audience was small. The lecture was delivered impressively, but lacking the original emphasis and sparkle. Whistler hated to do anything twice over, and this was the fourth time."
The fifth time was about the same date, at the Royal Academy Students' Club in Golden Square, an unexplained accident, and the sixth at the Fine Art Society's. Dr. Moncure Conway wrote us a year before his death that he heard The Ten O'Clock at Lady Jeune's, but Lady Jeune does not recollect it. Whistler we are sure would have remembered and recorded it. There was a suggestion, which came to nothing, of taking it on an American tour and to Paris. It was heard twice more in London, once at the Grosvenor Gallery in February 1888. Val Prinsep recalled Whistler's "pressing invitation" for him and Leighton to attend:
"During the time he was president of the British Artists, he and the other heads of art sometimes were asked to dine by our President (Leighton). 'Rather late to ask me, don't you think?' Whistler remarked. After dinner, he pressed Leighton and me to come to his lecture, which was to be delivered a few days after. 'What's the use of me coming?' Leighton said sadly. 'You know I should not agree with what you said, my dear Whistler!' 'Oh,' cried Whistler, 'come all the same; nobody takes me seriously, don't you know!'"
It was heard for the last time three years later (1891) at the Chelsea Arts Club, which had just started and proposed to hold lectures and discussions; it now gives fancy-dress balls and boxing matches. Before the club found a home it was suggested that the first of these meetings should be at the Cadogan Pier Hotel, and Whistler was invited to read The Ten O'Clock, but his answer was, "No, gentlemen, let us go to no beer hotel," and The Ten O'Clock was put off until the clubhouse in the King's Road was opened.
The Ten O'Clock, originally set up by Mr. Way, was published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus in the spring of 1888. It had much the same reception when it was printed as when it was delivered. The only criticism Whistler took seriously was an article by Swinburne in the Fortnightly Review for June 1888.
Swinburne objected to Whistler's praise of Japanese art, to his rigid line between art and literature, to his incursion as "brilliant amateur" into the region of letters, to his denial of the possibility of an artistic period or an art-loving people, and to much else besides. All this might have passed, but Swinburne went further. He questioned the seriousness of Whistler. He twisted Whistler's meaning to suit his weighty humour, and then, in a surprising vein of insolence, re-echoed the popular verdict. The witty tongue must be thrust into the smiling cheek, he thought, when Whistler wrote, "Art and Joy go together," which meant, according to Swinburne, that tragic art is not art at all.
"'Arter that, let's have a glass of wine,' said a famous countryman of Mr. Whistler's, on the memorable occasion when he was impelled to address his friend Mr. Brick in the immortal words, 'keep cool, Jefferson, don't bust.' The admonition may not improbably be required by the majority of readers who come suddenly and unawares upon this transcendent and pyramidal pleasantry. The laughing muse of the lecturer, 'quam Focus 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, in the paradise of pipkins, in the limbo of blue china, screens, pots, plates, jars, joss-houses, and all the fortuitous frippery of Fusiyama."
This is quoted as an example of Swinburnian humour. The rest of the article is offensive and ridiculous—the brilliant poet but ponderous prose writer trying to be funny—with references to the "jester of genius," to the "tumbler or clown," to the "gospel of the grin." It was this that hurt—that Swinburne, the poet, "also misunderstood," could laugh with the crowd at the "eccentricity" and levity of Whistler. Swinburne's criticism was easy to answer, and was answered in two of the comments printed, with extracts from the article, in The Gentle Art. "That tragic art is not art at all" is, Whistler wrote, Swinburne's "own inconsequence," and this Reflection appears on the opposite margin:
"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. The 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'?"
To the World Whistler wrote the letter called "Freeing a Last Friend" in The Gentle Art. It is short, the sting in the concluding paragraph:
"Thank you, my dear! I have lost a confrère; but then, I have gained an acquaintance—one Algernon Swinburne—'outsider'—Putney."
The letter was sent to Swinburne before it appeared in the World. We have been told that it was received at Putney one Sunday morning when Mr. Watts-Dunton was to breakfast with Whistler. Suspecting that the letter might not be friendly, Mr. Watts-Dunton took it, unopened, with him to Chelsea and begged Whistler to withdraw it. Whistler refused. Mr. Watts-Dunton left the house without breakfasting, and the same day the letter was delivered to Swinburne, who, after reading it, pale with rage, swore that never again would he speak to Whistler. As a result, Mr. Watts-Dunton, we believe, was at pains to avoid Whistler, fearful of a rupture with him. Mr. Meredith had discovered years before that the springs in Whistler were prompt for the challenge, and it cannot be denied that he had reason to see a challenge in Swinburne's article. How much it hurt he did not conceal in The Gentle Art, where the extracts from Swinburne are followed immediately by Et tu, Brute, and there is nothing more dignified, almost pathetic, in the volume:
"... 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 flower beds and bruise himself!...
"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 market-place? '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 recognise your kin?...
"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 are all my joke!"
And Swinburne, in pitiful spite, we have been told, burned Whistler's letters, and tried to sell La Mère Gérard which Whistler had given him. Later, Mr. Watts-Dunton is said to have stated that Whistler asked Swinburne to write the article, and also that he tried to make peace between them.
CHAPTER XXIX: THE BRITISH ARTISTS. THE RISE.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-FOUR TO EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SIX.
In the autumn of 1884, Whistler joined the Society of British Artists. Years later, when a British Artist was dining with us, Whistler came in. "A delightful evening," he said, towards midnight, the British Artist having gone, "but what was it for the British Artist sitting there, face to face with his late President?" And then, he told us how he became connected with the Society:
"Well, you know, one day at my studio in Chelsea, a deputation arrived—Ayerst Ingram and one or two others. And there they were—and I received them charmingly, of course—and they represented to me that the British Artists' was an old and distinguished Society, possibly as old as the Academy, and maybe older, and they had come to ask me if I would do them the honour of becoming a member. It was only right I should know that the Society's fortunes were at a low ebb, but they wished to put new life into it. I felt the ceremony of the occasion. Whatever the Society was at the moment, it had a past, and they were there with all official authority to pay me a compliment. I accepted the offer with appropriate courtesy. As always, I understood the ceremonial of the occasion—and then, almost as soon as I was made a member I was elected President."
In the summer of 1906 Sir Alfred East, President of the British Artists, and the Council, with the courtesy Whistler would have approved, gave us permission to consult the minute-books. The first mention of Whistler is in the minutes of the half-yearly general meeting, November 21, 1884, held at the Suffolk Street Galleries, when it was proposed "that Mr. Whistler be invited to join the Society as a member. A discussion took place concerning the law of electing Mr. Whistler by ballot, when it was proposed by Mr. Bayliss, seconded by Mr. Cauty, that the law relating to the election of members be suspended." This was carried, and the Times (December 3, 1884) said: "Artistic society was startled by the news that this most wayward, most un-English of painters had found a home among the men of Suffolk Street, of all people in the world."
Whistler had never belonged to any society in England, and had never been asked, though we believe he was a Freemason; at any rate he had a pair of sleeve buttons with masonic emblems—apparently—on them. He was fifty, an age when most men have "arrived" officially, if they "arrive" at all. Up to this moment he had stood apart from every school and group and movement in the country. He was as much a foreigner as when he came, a quarter of a century before, from Paris. He was a puzzle to the people, more American than English in appearance, manners, and standards. His short, slight figure, dark colouring and abundant curls, his vivacity of gesture, his American accent, his gaiety, his sense of honour, his quick resentment of an insult, were foreign and, therefore, to be suspected, and his personality increased the suspicion with which his art was regarded. Recent writers have analysed his work and pointed out where it is American, French, Japanese. But to his contemporaries it did not matter what these tendencies were, the result was not English. His art, in its aims and methods, was different from theirs, to them he seemed in deliberate opposition, ruled by caprice, straining after novelty and notoriety.
When Whistler came to England, art was the Academy, an Academy that had strangled the traditions of art and set up sentiment and anecdote. Wilkie explained the ideal of the nineteenth-century Academician when he said that "to know the taste of the public—to learn what will best please the employer—is, to an artist, the most valuable of all knowledge"; and the Royal Academy has only carried on the canny tradition. The classic machines of Leighton, Tadema, and Poynter appealed to the artless scholar; the idylls of Millais, Marcus Stone, and Leslie to the artless sentimentalist. Watts preached sermons for the artless serious, Stacy Marks raised a laugh in the artless humorist, Herbert and Long edified the artless pious. Every taste was catered to. Everybody could understand, and art had never been so popular in England. The Academy became a social power. As art was the last thing looked for on the walls, so the artist was the last thing looked for in the Academician. The situation is summed up in Whistler's reply to a group of ladies who were praising Leighton:
"He is such a wonderful musician! such a gallant colonel! such a brilliant orator! such a dignified President! such a charming host! such an amazing linguist!" they chorused. "H'm, paints, too, don't he, among his other accomplishments?" said Whistler.
It was an extraordinary state of affairs. "Art," was little more than an excuse for intrigues and trivialities. Men who were thought daring in rebellion and leaders of secessions did not improve matters. The Pre-Raphaelites were absorbed in subject, though it was of another kind, and though they paid greater attention to technique and preached, as reformers always have, a return to Nature. Their insistence upon detail and finish, instead of opening their eyes, closed them more hopelessly by making it a duty to see nothing save unimportant facts, and to copy these like a machine. The exception, Alfred Stevens, who neither stooped to the taste of public or patron, nor confused the artist with the missionary, was as complete a pariah as Whistler, and he died unknown and unrecognised.
