Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, New York
MR. KENNEDY: PORTRAIT STUDY.
Most of his adversaries were smaller men or, at any rate, lacked the faculty of repartee, and for a witty man it was easy enough to mock them out of existence. Only Oscar Wilde, who himself made a profession of scattering corrosive epigrams, occasionally got the best of him. His sarcastic remark, "With our James, vulgarity begins at home; would that it might stop there," was one of the sentences that made Whistler lay aside his pen for a while and ponder on reciprocity. The famous Whistler _v_. Ruskin libel suit was gotten up, I believe, largely for effect. It happened naturally enough, but Whistler made the most of it. And, from the press agent's point of view, it was the opportunity of a life time.
In 1877 Sir Coutts Lindsey had organized an independent gallery in opposition to the London Royal Academy. Among the exhibitors were Burne-Jones, Millais, Leighton and Whistler. The works of the pre-Raphaelites were praised but Whistler's nocturnes were ignored or sneered at. He perhaps would have taken no notice of the ordinary criticisms, but when John Ruskin, who then was in the prime of his fame, wrote in his "Fors Clavigera," an art publication, a short and most obtrusive paragraph about the pictures, he put on his paint and feathers once more and went on the war path. It is incredible how a man like Ruskin could have ever been so bitter and pedantic, to write the following paragraph:
"Lastly the mannerisms and errors of these pictures (by Burne-Jones), whatever may be their extent, are never affected or indolent. Their work is natural to the painter, however strange to us; and it is wrought with utmost conscience of care, however far, to his own or our desire, the result may be yet incomplete. Scarcely so much can be said for any other pictures of the modern school; their eccentricities are most always in some degree forced, and their imperfections gratuitously, if not impertinently indulged. For Mr. Whistler's sake, no less than for the protection of the purchasers, Sir Coutts Lindsey ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of the wilful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.
John Ruskin."
The suit went to trial before Judge Huddleston and a special jury, November 25th, 1878, and Whistler won the case, although one farthing damages were allowed him. He published a small brown covered paper pamphlet: "Whistler v. Ruskin—Art and Art Critics," the same year. Not satisfied with his scant victory, he endeavoured to strike back at his still powerful adversary by publishing a hodge-podge résumé of Ruskin's writings and deliberately stringing together a number of well known sentences in such a way that they have no connection whatever. All this is amusing but smacks of the mountebank.
The Mortimer Menpes incident shows a different side of his nature. It was a controversy as to who was "the father of the decorative revolution," Menpes or Whistler. Intensely sympathetic with the work of Japan's great painters and craftsmen, Menpes' impressions of her cities, temples, shrines, theatres, gardens, and museums, received during a few months' stay in that land of delight, are worthy of consideration, but he had no claim to the decorative innovation, not even to the pink hue of his house, as Whistler had mixed the colour himself one summer afternoon, when Menpes was still his pupil. When a dispute was of real importance Whistler was apt to ignore it entirely, and let others fight it out for him. It was too serious a matter for exchange of witty remarks. This shows that Whistler, at times, realized the value of silence.
Even as there were friends and acquaintances and associates with whom he never quarrelled, he liked Carlo Pelligrini to the very end. He never picked a quarrel with Sarasate, nor with the Comte Montesquieu, though most people did. Charles Keene, the caricaturist, never writhed under Whistler's "strong arm." Even Sheridan Ford came out unscathed, although they were never on terms of "commonplace" amity and acquiescence. Nor did ever his American acquaintances advance to "warm personal friends." H. W. Singer says in his little monograph that "Perhaps Whistler's human soul was occupied by a double portion of malice, invidiousness and pettiness, so that his artistic spirit might be entirely free and unfettered in its greatness." As good an explanation as many others.
He wrote down those records he thought important as did Casanova his amours and Cellini his assassinations and, collected into a book, they form a sort of autobiography to those who can read between the lines. He had a way, as Pennell tells us, half-laughing, half-serious, of calling it his Bible. "Well, you know, you have only to look, and there it all is in the Bible," or "I am afraid you do not know the Bible as you should," he would reply to some question about his work or his experiences as an artist.
As remarked previously, his attacks were remarkably free from all personal and domestic references, they referred solely to art transactions related to the profession. Whistler was an artist, and naturally over-sensitive. He could not help being impatient of criticisms that utterly failed to see the aim of his work, sometimes praising him for qualities a painter would blush to possess and again heaping unmerited blame on admirable achievements. Things really irritated him and he worked himself into a white fury, often over nothing. Later on his love for notoriety and his pose made him exaggerate the importance of events. As in the case of every master, there were, of course, followers and disciples. To these, the master held forth, now instilling a principle of art, now relating an encounter with this or that critic. Mr. Menpes speaks quite truthfully when he says: "All the same, he was one of the true fearless champions that art ever had, he fought with the dignity of the artist, demanded consideration and courteous treatment, and upheld dignity of workmanship, never tired of exposing and exploiting the ignorance of the average press critic."