PENCIL SKETCH
Formerly in the possession of J. H. Wren, Esq.
Whistler explained this position in Whistler v. Ruskin—Art and Art Critics (December 1878), the first of his series of pamphlets in brown-paper covers. It was printed by Spottiswoode, though his idea was to have it lithographed by Way, and published by Chatto and Windus. He dedicated it to Albert Moore. It is a protest against the folly of the Pen in venturing to criticise the Brush. Literature is left to the literary man, science to the scientist, why then should art be at the mercy of "the one who was never in it," but whose boast it is that he is doing good to art. The critics "are all 'doing good'—yes, they all do good to Art. Poor Art! what a sad state the slut is in, and these gentlemen shall help her." Ruskin resigned the Slade Professorship. He wrote to Dean Liddell from Brantwood (November 28, 1878) that the result of the Whistler trial left him no option. "I cannot hold a chair from which I have no power of expressing judgment without being taxed for it by British Law." Unless he continued to be the Pope and the Prophet he believed himself, he could not go on. He could not stand criticism, and he collapsed when his criticism was questioned. The trial, he wrote, made his professorship a farce. Whistler suggested that Ruskin might fill a Chair of Ethics instead. "Il faut vivre," was the cry of the art critic but Whistler said, "Je n'en vois pas la nécessité."
Whistler won. The trial was a triumph. But he had to pay heavily for his victory.
Footnotes
[8] This picture then belonged to Mr. Graham, and some years after at his sale at Christie's was received with hisses. It was purchased by Mr. Robert H. C. Harrison for sixty pounds, and at the close of the London Whistler Memorial Exhibition was sold for two thousand guineas to the National Arts Collection Fund, by whom it was presented to the nation. It now hangs in the National Gallery. See Chapter XXIX.
CHAPTER XX: BANKRUPTCY.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-EIGHT AND EIGHTEEN SEVENTY-NINE.
Whistler's financial affairs were in hopeless confusion. The builder's estimate for the White House was largely exceeded, the cost of the trial had to be paid for, the atelier waited for pupils, and the debts brought from Lindsey Row were many. He wrote to his mother at Hastings of his economies and his hopes to pay his debts, but he did not know the meaning of economy. There is a legend of a grocer who had let a bill for tomatoes and fruit run up to six hundred pounds, and when, after the trial, he insisted on settlement, Whistler said: