The Royal Society of British Artists and their Signboard
Sir—The moment has now arrived when, it seems to me proper that, in your journal, one of the recognized Art organs of the country, should The Athenæum, April 27, 1889. be recorded the details of an incident in which the element of grave offence is, not unnaturally, quite missed by the people in their indignation at the insignificance of the object to which public attention has so unwarrantably been drawn—a "notice board"!—the common sign of commerce!
Now, however slight might be the value of the work in question destroyed, it is surely of startling interest to know that work may be destroyed, or worse still, defaced and tampered with, at the present moment in full London, with the joyous approval of the major part of the popular press.
I leave to your comment the fact that in this instance the act is committed with the tacit consent of a body of gentlemen officially styled "artists," at the instigation of their president, as he unblushingly acknowledges, and will here distinctly state that the "notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists" did not "bear on a red ground, in letters of gold, the title of the Society," and that "to this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency," did not "add with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a butterfly." This damning evidence, though in principle irrelevant—for what becomes of the soul of a "Diocesan member of the Council of Clapham" is, artistically, a matter of small moment—I nevertheless bring forward as the only one that will at present be at all considered or even understood.
The "notice board" was of the familiar blue enamel, well known in metropolitan use, with white lettering, announcing that the exhibition of the Incorporated Society of British Artists was held above, and that for the sum of one shilling the public might enter.
I myself mixed the "red ground," and myself placed, "in letters of gold, the" new "title" upon it—in proper relation to the decorative scheme of the whole design, of which it formed naturally an all-important feature. The date was that of the Society's Royal grant, and in commemoration of its new birth. With the offending Butterfly, it has now been effaced in one clean sweep of independence, while the lion, "not so badly drawn," was differently dealt with—it was found not "necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent colour, and that," with a bottle of Brunswick black, "has accordingly been done;" and, as Mr. Bayliss adds, with unpremeditated truth, in the thoughtless pride of achievement, "the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr. Whistler!"
This exposure of Mr. Bayliss's direct method I have wickedly withheld, in order that the Philistine impulse of the country should declare itself in all its freshness of execration before it could be checked by awkward discovery of mere mendacity, and a timid sense of danger, called justice.
Everything has taken place as I pleasantly foresaw, and there is by this time, with the silent exception of one or two cautious dailies, scarcely a lay paper in the land that has been able to refrain from joining in the hearty yell of delight at the rare chance of coarsely, publicly, and safely insulting an artist! In this eagerness to affront the man they have irretrievably and ridiculously committed themselves to open sympathy with the destruction of his work.
I wish coldly to chronicle this fact in the archives of the Athenæum for the future consideration of the cultured New Zealander.
