“Mr. Whistler has on view at the Fine Art Society’s some half-a-hundred etchings; but it was not to see these only that he invited his friends, and many fine people besides, last Saturday. In the laudable effort for a new sensation, he had been engaging in literature; and a grave servant, dressed in yellow and white (to suit the temporary decoration of the walls during the show) pressed into the hands of those who had come in all innocence to see the etchings a pamphlet in which Mr. Whistler’s arrangements had extended to an arrangement of critics.”[15]
The catalogue which stirred the ire of the critics was an innocent little thing in brown-paper cover containing a list of the prints; but beneath each was a line or two from the critics, and they were all there in outspoken condemnation of the work of the man who is now placed, by even the critics, on a plane with Rembrandt. Some have since confessed their errors in print and begged for the mantle of charity.
On the title-page appeared:
“Out of their own mouths shall ye judge them.”
And here, as an example, is what he printed beneath “No. 51, Lagoon; Noon.” In mercy the names of the critics are omitted.
“Years ago James Whistler was a person of high promise.”
“What the art of Mr. Whistler yields is a tertium quid.”
“All of which gems, I am sincerely thankful to say, I cannot appreciate.”
“As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?”
“Disastrous failures.”