Wilde v Whistler / Being an Acrimonious Correspondence on Art Between Oscar Wilde and James A McNeill Whistler

Chapter 3: TENDERNESS IN TITE STREET

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About This Book

The pamphlet collects a sharp, public exchange of letters, essays, and newspaper pieces in which two prominent art figures trade praise, parody, and rebuke while arguing about the nature and purpose of art. Through polemical responses to lectures and reviews, they dispute whether beauty should be cultivated or shunned, whether painters alone may judge painting, and whether art must relate to social surroundings or stay autonomous. The pieces alternate wittily between satire and earnest aesthetic reflection, showcasing paradox, theatrical insult, and close readings of artistic practice, and offering an episodic portrait of late Victorian debates over criticism, taste, and the artist's role.

TENDERNESS IN TITE STREET

TO THE POET:

The World.

OSCAR—I have read your exquisite article in the Pall Mall.

Nothing is more delicate, in the flattery of “the Poet” to “the Painter,” than the naïveté of “the Poet” in the choice of his Painters—Benjamin West and Paul Delaroche!

You have pointed out that “the Painter’s” mission is to find “le beau dans l’horrible,” and have left to “the Poet” the discovery of “l’horrible” dans “le beau!”

J. A. McN. WHISTLER.

CHELSEA.