He often found, as he said, "a long face and a short account at the bank." Complaining to Sidney Starr one day of the sums earned by a certain eminent "R.A.," while he received little or nothing, Starr reminded him that R.A.'s painted to please the public and so reaped their reward.
"I don't think they do," demurred Whistler; "I think they paint as well as they can."
Of Alma-Tadema's work he observed, "My only objection to Tadema's pictures is that they are unfinished."
Starr spoke approvingly of the promising work of some of the younger artists. "They are all tarred with the same brush," said Whistler. "They are of the schools!" Of one particular rising star Whistler remarked: "He's clever, but there's something common in everything he does. So what's the use of it?"
Starr indicated a distinguishing difference between the work of a certain R.A. and another. "Well," he replied, "it's a nasty difference."
* * * * *
M.H. Spielmann, the art-critic, spoke of "Ten o'Clock " as "smart but misleading." Whistler retorted, "If the lecture had not seemed misleading to him, it surely would not have been worth uttering at all!"
* * * * *
Walter Sickert, then a pupil of Whistler's, praised Lord Leighton's
"Harvest Moon" in an article on the Manchester Art Treasure
Exhibition. Whistler telegraphed him at Hampstead:
"The Harvest Moon rises at Hampstead and the cocks of Chelsea crow!"