For years Whistler's letters to the papers puzzled the people. George Moore laboured to account for them in Modern Painting by an elaborate theory of physical feebleness, and George Moore has been taken seriously in the provinces and America. One glimpse of Whistler at the printing-press, sleeves rolled up showing two strong arms, and the theory and the theorist would have been knocked out. The letters were not an eccentricity; they were not a weakness. From the first, written to the Athenæum in 1862, they had one aim, "to make history." Buried in the papers, they were lost; if the history were to be made they must be collected. They were collected and edited as The Gentle Art of Making Enemies as Pleasingly Exemplified in Many Instances, Wherein the Serious Ones of this Earth, Carefully Exasperated, Have Been Prettily Spurred on to Unseemliness and Indiscretion, While Overcome by an Undue Sense of Right.
The book, born of years of fighting, was ushered into the world by a fight. The work of collecting and arranging the letters was undertaken by Mr. Sheridan Ford, an American journalist in London. Whistler said that Ford only helped him. Ford said that the idea was his, that he, with Whistler's approval, was collecting and editing the letters for a publication of his own. We give Ford's story and that of one who followed it at the time, Mr. J. McLure Hamilton, and this we are better pleased to do because Whistler misunderstood Mr. Hamilton's part in the matter, and credited him with a malice and enmity that few men could be so incapable of as he. Whistler would never consent to meet him and could not understand why we should not agree in his view of Mr. Hamilton as "a dangerous person." By accident they did meet in our flat. Whistler was dining with us, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton called in the evening. Other people were there, and they simply ignored one another; chance had blundered in its choice of the moment for the meeting. We think Whistler would have felt the unfairness of his judgment of Mr. Hamilton's conduct could he have read Mr. Hamilton's version which he has sent us:
"In the spring of 1889 I met Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan Ford. Sheridan Ford was writing for the New York Herald, and Mrs. Sheridan Ford had been interesting picture-dealers in the work of Swan, Clausen, Melville, and others. Ford had a very strong taste for art, and seemed to be opposed to all forms of trickery, and was engaged on a series of articles which appeared in the New York Herald, London edition, upon Whistler and his work. He was also the author of Art, a Commodity, a pamphlet widely read both in England and America. He came to me one day, and told me of an idea that he thought could be carried out with advantage to himself and Whistler. He suggested that the letters which Whistler had been publishing from time to time in the Press should be published in book form. The title was to be The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, and was, I understood, Ford's. Whistler and he had talked the matter over, and it was agreed between them that Ford should collect the letters, edit them with remarks of his own, and publish the book for his own profit.
"The work went on for some months, and occasionally Ford would bring me letters that he had unearthed from the newspaper files at the British Museum to read. I was not acquainted with Whistler, but from what Ford told me I understood that Whistler was as much interested in the progress of the book as Ford. The latter seemed to be looking forward with great eagerness to the production of a book which could not fail to amuse the art world.
"One morning Ford came to me at Alpha House in great distress. He brought with him a letter from Whistler requesting him to discontinue the making of the book, and containing a cheque for ten pounds in payment for the trouble that he had had in collecting the materials. The book at that time was almost complete, and the preface written. After a prolonged talk with him upon all the bearings of the case, I concluded that Whistler's change of mind had been determined by the discovery that there would be too much credit and profit lost to him if he allowed Ford to bring out the work, and that probably Mrs. Whistler had suggested to Whistler that it would be a great gain to him if he were to issue the letters himself. Ford asked me what I would advise him to do. I replied that I personally would not go on with the book, but that if he were careful to omit all copyright matter he would be perfectly justified in continuing, after having, of course, returned the cheque to Whistler. I have no doubt that Ford asked the advice of others, for soon he brought me the advance proofs to read, and I spent a great deal of time going over them, sometimes suggesting alterations and improvements. A note from Ford reached me telling me that the book was finished, and asking my permission to dedicate it to me. I wrote, in reply, that I did not wish the work dedicated to me. Ford found a good publisher who was willing to undertake the publication of the work, and, as far as I could see, everything was going on satisfactorily, when one morning Ford called to see me and told me that Whistler had discovered the printer and had threatened to proceed against him if he did not immediately destroy the sheets, and he (Whistler) found and seized the first sewn-up copy (or leaves) with my name on the dedication page, in spite of the refusal I had given.
[The dedication was as follows: "Dedicated to John McLure Hamilton, A Great Painter and a Charming Comrade. In Memory of Many Pleasant Days." The proposed title was The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. J. McNeill Whistler as the Unattached Writer. With Some Whistler Stories Old and New. Edited by Sheridan Ford. Brentano's. London, Paris, New York, Washington, Chicago, 1890. Both dedication and title we have seen in Ford's handwriting.]
"This brought at once a letter from Whistler to me, in which he abruptly accused me of assisting Ford in wronging him. I replied in a few words denying his allegations. At this interview Ford's manner was strange, and for several weeks after he was confined to his house, a natural consequence of seeing all his hopes shattered. He had foreseen in the successful production of The Gentle Art of Making Enemies the opening of a happy and profitable career in letters. After his recovery Mr. and Mrs. Ford went away, pursued by the relentless activity of Whistler. In the end, the so-called 'pirated edition,' paper-bound, appeared in Mechlin or some other Continental city and was more or less clandestinely offered for sale in England. Whistler's handsome volume appeared almost simultaneously.
"While these incidents were progressing, I was asked to dine at the Hogarth Club, and it had evidently been prearranged that I should meet Whistler after dinner in the smoking-room. This was my first introduction to the great master. We talked Art and commonplace, but he never touched upon the subject of the book, and as I was quite sure the meeting had been arranged in order that he might discuss with me Ford's conduct, I could not understand his silence. Our next meeting was at a conversazione held at the Grosvenor Galleries, when we both freely discussed together the whole question before Melville, who was displeased at the attitude I took with Whistler. I frankly told him that I thought he had done Ford a great wrong in withdrawing the editorship of the book which rightly belonged to him."
Sheridan Ford, persisting that Whistler had conferred on him the right to publish the collection, announced the simultaneous publication of his book in England and America. The English publishers, Messrs. Field and Tuer, of the Leadenhall Press, supposed that Ford was acting for Whistler when he brought them the MS., which at that time is said to have been called The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler. The text was set up and cast, the type distributed; they were ready to print when they discovered their mistake. "We then sent for the person in question," they wrote to Messrs. Lewis and Lewis, Whistler's solicitors, "and told him that until he obtained Mr. Whistler's sanction, we declined to proceed further with the work."
Sheridan Ford went to Antwerp, and had the book printed there. Sir George Lewis followed and seized the edition at the printers on the day of publication, when vans for its distribution were at their door. The two thousand copies were carried off by the Procureur du Roi. The matter came before the Belgian Courts in October 1891, M. Edmond Picard and Maître Maeterlinck, cousin of Maeterlinck the poet, appearing for Whistler. M. Harry, of the Indépendance Belge, described Whistler in the witness-box, with the eyes of a Mephistopheles flashing and sparkling under the thick eyebrows, his manner easy and gay, his French fluent and perfect. He was asked his religion and hesitated. The Judge, thinking to help him, suggested, "A Protestant, perhaps?" His answer was a little shrug, as much as to say, "I am quite willing. You should know. As you choose!" He was asked his age—even the Belgian reporter respected his objection to having any. Judgment was given for him. Sheridan Ford was sentenced to a fine of five hundred francs or three months' imprisonment; to three thousand francs damages or three months more; to the confiscation of the two thousand copies, and to costs. After the trial Whistler was taken to the cellars of the Palais de Justice, and shown the confiscated copies, stored there with other fraudulent goods, by the law of Belgium destined to perish in dampness and gloom.
The affair has not been forgotten in Belgium—nor has Whistler. One impression has been written for us by M. Edmond Picard, the distinguished Senator, his advocate:
"En me demandant de parler de l'illustre et regretté Whistler, vous ne désirez certes pas que j'ajoute mon lot à la riche pyramide d'admiration et d'éloges définitivement érigée à sa gloire.
"Il ne peut s'agir, dans votre pensée que de ce que je pourrais ajouter de spécial et de pittoresque à la Biographie du Grand Artiste.
"Si j'ai beaucoup vu et aimé ses œuvres, je n'ai qu'entrevu son originale personne.
"Voici deux traits intéressants qui s'y rapportent.
"Il y a quelques années il s'inquiéta d'une contrefaçon qu'un étranger habitant Anvers avait perpétré en Belgique de son curieux livre, 'L'Art charmant de se faire des ennemis.' Je le vis un jour entrer dans mon cabinet et il me dit avec un sourire sarcastique, 'Je souhaiterais que vous fussiez mon avocat dans cette petite affaire parcequ'on m'a dit que vous pratiquez aussi bien que moi l'art charmant de se faire des ennemis.'
"Le procès fut gagné à Anvers avec la collaboration de mon confrère, M. Maeterlinck, parent du poète qui honore tant notre pays. On célébra chez lui cette victoire. Quand Whistler, héros de la fête, arriva dans l'hospitalière maison, il s'attardait dans l'antichambre. La bonne qui l'avait reçu vint, avec quelque effarement, dire en flamand au salon où l'on attendait, 'Madame, c'est un acteur; il se coiffe devant le miroir, il se pommade, il se met du fard et de la poudre!' Après un assez long intervalle, Whistler parut, courtois, correct, ciré, cosmétiqué, pimpant comme le papillon que rappêle son nom et qu'il mit en signature sur quelques-uns des billets qu'il écrivit alors à ses conseils.
"Et voilà tout ce que je puis vous offrir.
"J'ai demandé à M. Maeterlinck les documents qu'il pouvait avoir conservés de cet épisode judiciaire. Ses recherches ont été vaines. Alors que d'innombrables pièces insignifiantes ont été conservées, le Hasard qui se permet tout à fait disparaître ces précieuses épaves."[10]
The "Extraordinary Piratical Plot," as Whistler called it in The Gentle Art, did not end in Antwerp. Sheridan Ford took the book to Paris, where it was issued by Delabrosse et Cie, 1890, though it is said by Mr. Don C. Seitz to have been printed in Ghent; in Antwerp, Mr. Ford recently told an interviewer—this edition we have seen; while other copies, with the imprint of Frederick Stokes and Brother, were sent to the United States. Sir George Lewis suppressed the Paris edition and prevented the importation of the book into England, and Messrs. Stokes cabled to London that their name was used without their permission. The balance of the edition is stated to have been destroyed by fire. Copies through the post reached England, sent to newspapers for review and to individuals supposed to be interested, among whom we were included. In June 1890 a so-called "second edition" from Paris was received by some papers. Mr. Seitz says that hardly any copies are in existence. Sheridan Ford says that nine thousand were sold. But that was the last heard of it, and Sheridan Ford's book was killed.
Judging from the facts, Whistler treated Ford badly, but Sheridan Ford acted in defiance of Whistler, and in the Paris edition published an article so vile that papers refused to print it. Three versions are given as to the cause of the quarrel. The first is that Mrs. Whistler interfered and told Whistler to take the work over himself; the second is Sheridan Ford's statement that Whistler wished M. Duret to prepare the book; and the third is the suggestion of Mr. Seitz that the difference arose over the insertion of a letter of Oscar Wilde's. As this letter was printed in Whistler's edition, Mr. Seitz's conclusions are of little value and his assertions differ from Sheridan Ford's contemporary tale. Whistler's version, published by Sheridan Ford in the letter dated August 18, 1889, is: "I think, for many reasons, we would do well to postpone the immediate consideration of the proposed publication for a while. At this moment I find myself curiously interested in certain paintings, the production of which might appropriately
be made anterior to mere literature." We have heard that he was urged to come to this decision by Mr. Theodore Roussel, who told him he ought to prepare the book, pay Sheridan Ford, and get rid of him. Whistler obtained possession of Sheridan Ford's work, or rather of his letters collected by Sheridan Ford, arranged them, commented on them, and published them in his own fashion. Sheridan Ford's book is undistinguished; Whistler's contains on every page evidence of his care in carrying out his ideas of book decoration.
Whistler, who was delighted with Mr. William Heinemann's artistic instinct, sympathy, enthusiasm, and quick appreciation of his intention, gave him the book to publish. From the day their agreement was signed the publisher entered into the matter with all his heart. Whistler's fights were his fights, Whistler's victories his victories. Whistler was flattered by his understanding of things and came daily almost to take out his "publisher, philosopher, and friend," as he described Mr. Heinemann, to breakfast at the Savoy. He would arrive at eleven, when the business man had hardly got into the swing of his morning's work. Was it not preposterous that there should be other books to be prepared, other matters to be thought of, while this great work of art was being born? The Savoy balcony overlooking the Embankment was, at so early an hour, deserted, and there they could discuss, change, and arrange every detail without interruption. Hours were spent often over a single Butterfly, and usually Whistler's pockets were full of gay and fantastic entomological drawings.
Whistler was constantly at the Ballantyne Press, where the book was printed. He chose the type, he spaced the text, he placed the Butterflies, each of which he designed to convey a meaning. They danced, laughed, mocked, stung, defied, triumphed, drooped wings over the farthing damages, spread them to fly across the Channel, and expressed every word and every thought. He designed the title-page; a design contrary to established rules, but with the charm, the balance, the harmony, the touch of personality he gave to everything, and since copied and prostituted by foolish imitators who had no conception of its purpose. Mr. MacCall, of the Ballantyne Press, has told us of his interest and has a proof of it in a collection of Butterflies and proof sheets covered with Whistler's corrections. Here, too, as everywhere by those he worked with, he is remembered with affection, and the printers were delighted to profit by his suggestions. The cover was in brown, with a yellow back. The title, though attributed to Sheridan Ford, can be traced to Whistler's speech at the Criterion dinner and the gentle answer that turneth not away wrath. The dedication is: "To the rare Few, who, early in Life, have rid Themselves of the Friendship of the Many, these pathetic Papers are inscribed."
The book was published in June 1890 and has gone through eight editions, Messrs. John M. Lowell and Co., and then Messrs. Putnam's Sons, issuing it in America. It met the fate of all his works. The Press received it with the usual smile at Mr. Whistler's eccentricities, and here and there a word of praise and appreciation said with more courage than of old. To the multitude of readers it was a jest; to a saving remnant it was serious, to none more serious than to Whistler, who knew it would live with the writings of Cellini, Dürer and Reynolds.
The Gentle Art is an artistic autobiography. Whistler gave the sub-title Auto-Biographical to one section—he might have given it to the whole. He had a way, 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 often said to us in answer to some question about his work or his life. The trial, the pamphlets, The Ten O'Clock, the Propositions, the letters, the catalogues take their place and appear in their proper sequence, not as disconnected, inconsequent little squibs and the elaborate bids for notoriety they were supposed to be. The book, which may be read for its wit, is really his Manifesto.
He included also the criticisms and comments that had provoked him into print, for his object was to expose the stupidity and ridicule he was obliged to face, so that his method of defence should be understood. To read the book is to wonder the more that there should have been necessity for defence, so simple and right is his theory, so sincere and reverent his attitude. We have spoken of most of the different subjects in it as they appeared. The collection intensifies the effect each made individually. Everything he wrote had the same end: to show that "art should be independent of all clap-trap; should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it, and that is why I insist on calling my works 'arrangements' and 'harmonies.'"
It was for the "knowledge of a lifetime" his work was to be valued, he told the Attorney-General in court. In this paragraph, and in this answer, you have the key to The Gentle Art. Fault may be found with arguments; facts and methods may be challenged. But analysis, description, technical statement, and explanation are so many proofs of his belief in the independence of art and of his surrender to that untiring devotion which the "goddess" demands of her disciples.
It would seem impossible that his statement of simple truths should have been suspected, were it not remembered that art in England depended mostly on "clap-trap" when Whistler wrote, and that his manner of meeting suspicion was intended to mystify. He took care that his book should be the expression not only of his belief but of his conception of art. Stupidity in critics and public hurt him as much as insincerity in artists, and when confronted with it he was pitiless. Dullness, too, he could not stand. He met it with "joyousness": to be "joyous" was his philosophy of life and art, "where all is fair," and this philosophy to the multitude was an enigma. His letters to the Press are apt to be dismissed as shrill, cheap, thin, not worthy a great artist, still unworthier of his endeavour to immortalise them. It is true that he might have omitted some things from The Gentle Art, though the names and ridicule he found for the "Enemies" will stick to them for ever. But Whistler thought "history" would be half made if he did not leave on record both the provocation he received and his gaiety of retaliation. When the battle was won and recognition came he wrote to Atlas from Paris: "We 'collect' no more." Messieurs les Ennemis had no longer to fear for their "scalps." Oftener than not the wit is cruel in its sting. We have quoted the "F F F ... Fool" letter. There are others more bitter, because gayer on the surface, to Tom Taylor, for instance that final disposing of him:
"Why, my dear old Tom, I never was serious with you even when you were among us. Indeed, I killed you quite, as who should say without seriousness, 'A rat! A rat!' you know, rather cursorily."
Whistler had the power of expressing himself in words which is rare with artists. He could write, he had style. Literature, no less than art, was to him a "dainty goddess." He worked out his shortest letter as carefully as a portrait or a Nocturne, until all trace of labour in it had disappeared. People, awed by the spectacle of Ruskin wallowing amid the many volumes of Modern Painters without succeeding in the end in saying what he wanted, could not believe that Whistler was saying anything that mattered when he said in a few pages what he wanted with no sign of labour. In his notes to Truth and the World, as in The Ten O'Clock, he reveals his knowledge of the Scriptures, while his use of French which displeased his critics, his odd references, his unexpected quotations, are placed with the same unerring instinct as the Butterfly on his canvas. He chose the right word, he made the division of paragraphs effective, punctuation was with him an art. It is difficult to give examples, because there are so many. The Ten O'Clock is full of passages that show him at his best, none finer than the often-quoted description of London "when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil." The Propositions and The Red Rag are as complete, as simple and direct as his prints. The book, as an exposition of his beliefs and doctrines, ranks with Reynolds' Lectures; as a chronicle of an artist's adventures, it is as personal and characteristic as the Memoirs of Cellini. We have been criticised for devoting so much space to Whistler's wit and his writings, but as a wit and writer Whistler will live. He was a many-sided man, not a lop-sided painter.
The period of the preparation and publication of The Gentle Art was one of unimportant quarrels. In each case there was provocation. Of two or three so much was made at the time that they cannot be ignored. One, in 1888, was with Mr. Menpes, who, making no secret of it, has recorded its various stages until the last, when the Follower adopted the Master's decorations and arrangements in his own house. His Home of Taste was paragraphed in the papers, and Whistler held him up to the world's ridicule as "the Kangaroo of his country, born with a pocket and putting everything into it." The affair came to a crisis not long after the Times Parnell disclosures, and Whistler wrote to him: "You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you what to do under the circumstances, and you know your way to Spain. Good-bye."
Once afterwards, at a public dinner, Whistler saw Mr. Menpes come into the room on Mr. Justin McCarthy's arm: "Ha ha! McCarthy," he laughed as they passed him. "Ha ha! You should be careful. You know, Damien died."
In 1890 Augustus Moore, brother of George, was added to the list of "Enemies." The cause was an offensive reference to Godwin, Mrs. Whistler's first husband, in The Hawk, an insignificant sheet Moore edited. Whistler, knowing that he would find him at any first-night, went to Drury Lane for the autumn production, A Million of Money, and in the foyer hit Moore with a cane across the face, crying, "Hawk! Hawk!" There was a scrimmage, and Whistler, as the man who attacked, was requested to leave the house. The whole thing was the outcome of a sense of honour, a feeling of chivalry, which is not now understood in England, though it would have been found magnificent in the days of duels. The comic papers made great fun of the episode, and the serious ones lamented the want of dignity it showed. No one understood Whistler's loyalty and his devotion to the woman he had married.
Footnotes
[10] See Appendix at end of volume.
The world owed him a living, Whistler said, but it was not until 1891 that the world began to pay the debt with the purchase of the Carlyle for Glasgow and the Mother for the Luxembourg.
While the Carlyle was at the Glasgow Institute in 1888, Mr. E. A. Walton and Sir James Guthrie made up their minds to try to keep it for the city. Since the attempt to secure it for Edinburgh, the Glasgow School had become a power, and as they proclaimed themselves followers of Whistler, it was only right they should do everything to retain the picture in Glasgow. A petition was presented to the Glasgow Corporation, signed by a long list of names of influential people, which greatly pleased Whistler, for they included Gilbert, Orchardson, Millais, Walton, Guthrie, and many others. The price asked by Whistler was a thousand guineas, and a deputation from the Corporation came to call on him in London. Whistler told us:
"I received them, well, you know, charmingly, of course. And one who spoke for the rest asked me if I did not think I was putting a large price on the picture—one thousand guineas. And I said, 'Yes, perhaps, if you will have it so!' And he said that it seemed to the Council excessive; why, the figure was not even life-size.' And I agreed. 'But, you know,' I said, 'few men are life-size.' And that was all. It was an official occasion, and I respected it. Then they asked me to think over the matter until the next day, and they would come again. And they came. And they said, 'Have you thought of the thousand guineas and what we said about it, Mr. Whistler?' And I said, 'Why, gentlemen, why—well, you know, how could I think of anything but the pleasure of seeing you again?' And, naturally, being gentlemen, they understood, and they gave me a cheque for the thousand guineas."
What Whistler meant by "life-size" he has explained. "No man alive is life-size except the recruit who is being measured as he enters the regiment, and then the only man who sees him life-size is the sergeant who measures him, and all that he sees of him is the end of his nose; when he is able to see his toes, the man ceases to be life-size."
Before the Carlyle went to Glasgow Whistler wished to show it in London, where, except in Queen Square, it had not been seen since the Grosvenor Exhibition of 1877, and it was exhibited at the Goupil Gallery. Mr. D. Croal Thomson, then director of the Gallery, saw that the tide was turning, and suggested offering the Mother to the Luxembourg. In Paris there was a sluggish sort of curiosity and the beginning of a sort of appreciation. During the last ten years Whistler had shown at the Salon his Lady Meux, the Mother, Carlyle, Miss Alexander, The Yellow Buskin, M. Duret, Sarasate, and in 1891 his Rosa Corder was in the new Salon; but save for the third-class medal awarded the Mother in 1883 his pictures received no official recognition, and while several scarcely known Americans were made full members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts he was at first simply an Associate. Many of his smaller works had been seen at different times in the Petit Gallery. At Mr. Croal Thomson's suggestion the Mother was sent to Messrs. Boussod Valadon in Paris, and subscriptions for the purchase were opened. Before any amount worth mentioning was subscribed the French Government, on the initiative of M. Georges Clémenceau and by the advice of M. Roger Marx, bought it for the nation. M. Bourgeois, the Minister of Fine Arts, had some doubt as to the possibility of offering for so fine a masterpiece the small price that the nation could afford. But Whistler set him at ease on this point, writing to him that it was for the Mother, of all his pictures, he would prefer so "solemn a consecration," and that he was proud of the honour France had shown him. The price paid was four thousand francs. Whistler told Mr. Cole, November 14, 1891, that his pleasure was in the fact of "his painting of his mother being 'unprecedentedly' chosen by the Minister of Beaux-Arts for the Luxembourg," and France that same year bestowed upon him an honour he valued higher than almost any he ever received, by making him Officer of the Legion of Honour. But the choice was not unprecedented, pictures of other American artists having already been purchased, while the honour had already been bestowed upon American artists now forgotten.
The event was celebrated by a reception at the Chelsea Arts Club on the evening of December 19, 1891. Whistler was presented with a parchment of greetings signed by a hundred members as "a record of their high appreciation of the distinguished honour that has come to him by the placing of his mother's portrait in the national collection of France."
Whistler said in reply that he was gratified by this token from his brother artists: "It is right at such a time of peace, after the struggle, to bury the hatchet—in the side of the enemy—and leave it there. The congratulations usher in the beginning of my career, for an artist's career always begins to-morrow."
He promised to remain for long one of the Chelsea artists, a promise Chelsea artists showed no desire to keep him to. He was a member of the Club until he went to Paris. When, later, Mr. (now Sir John) Lavery proposed him as an Honorary Member, there was not enough enthusiasm to carry the motion. And when, still later, it was further proposed that the Chelsea Arts Club should officially recognise the Whistler Memorial they refused, and the comment of one man was, "What had an English Club to do with a memorial by a Frenchman to a Yankee in London?"
Early in 1892 Mr. Croal Thomson arranged with Whistler for an exhibition of Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet Pieces to be held at the Goupil Gallery in London, or, as Whistler called it, his "heroic kick in Bond Street." Mr. Croal Thomson says his first idea was to show the portraits only. But he soon found that Whistler wanted to include all the paintings and was going to take the matter in hand, and that he was "only like the fly on the wheel" once the machinery was set in motion.
One reason of the success of the exhibition, which surprised not only Mr. Croal Thomson but all London, was Whistler's care when selecting his pictures to secure variety. The collection was a magnificent refutation of everything that the critics had been saying about him for years. They dismissed his pictures as sketches, and he confronted them with The Blue Waves, Brown and Silver—Old Battersea Bridge, The Music Room, which had not been seen in London since the early sixties. They objected to his want of finish and slovenliness in detail, and his answer was the Japanese pictures, full of an elaboration the Pre-Raphaelites never equalled, and finished with an exquisiteness of surface they never attempted. He was told he could not draw, and he produced a group of his finest portraits. He was assured he had no poetic feeling, no imagination, and he displayed the Nocturnes, with the factories and chimneys transformed into a fairyland in the night. He was as careful in arranging the manner in which the pictures should be presented. His letters to Mr. Croal Thomson from Paris, where he spent the greater part of 1892, were minute in his directions for cleaning and varnishing the paintings, and putting them into new frames of his design. Indeed, the correspondence on the subject, which we have seen, is a miracle of thoughtfulness, energy, and method.
Mr. Croal Thomson tells us: "Mr. Whistler laboured almost night and day: he wrote letters to every one of the owners of his works in oil asking loans of the pictures. Some, like Mr. Alexander and all the Ionides connection, acceded at once, but others made delays, and even to the end several owners declined to lend. On the whole, however, the artist was well supported by his early patrons, and the result was a gathering together of the most complete collection of Mr. Whistler's best works—forty-three pictures in all.
"The arrangement of the pictures was entirely Mr. Whistler's, for although he wished several young artists to come to the Gallery the evening the works were to be hung, through some mischance they did not arrive, and I was therefore alone with Mr. Whistler and received a great lesson in the art of arranging a collection."
In the face of so complete a series, in such perfect condition, and so well hung, criticism was silenced. We remember the Press view, and the dismay of the older critics who hoped for another "crop of little jokes," and the triumph of the younger critics who knew that Whistler had won. The papers, daily, weekly, and monthly, almost unanimously admitted that the old game of ridicule was played out and praised the exhibition without reserve. The rest, headed by Sir Frederick Wedmore, have since been trying to swallow themselves. Mr. Croal Thomson recalls that:
"Mr. Whistler was not present at the private view. He knew that many people would expect to see him and talk enthusiastic nonsense, and he rightly decided he was better away, and I was left to receive the visitors. Some hundreds of cards of invitation were issued, and it seemed as if every recipient had accepted. Crowds thronged the galleries all day, and it is impossible to describe the excitement. I do not know how it fared with the artist and his wife during the day, but about five o'clock in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Whistler came in, though they would not enter the exhibition; they remained in a curtained-off portion of the Gallery near the entrance. One or two of their most intimate friends were informed by me of the presence of the painter, and a small reception was held, for a little while, but, of course, by that time the battle was won, and there were only congratulations to be rendered to the master."
J. was taken into the little curtained-off room, and later there was a triumphal procession to the Arts Club. Whistler declared that even Academicians had been seen prowling about the place lost in admiration, that it needed only to send a season ticket to Ruskin to make the situation perfect, and that, "Well, you know, they were always pearls I cast before them, and the people were always—well, the same people."
It is said Whistler first intended to print the catalogue without comment or quotation from the Press, but the chance to expose the critics was too good, and previous critical verdicts were placed under the titles of the pictures. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed by Thomas Way, and in a letter to Way's manager, Mr. Morgan, he calls the catalogue "perfect." But he also points out that there are errors, and insists that by no accident or disaster shall any of the first printed batch of two hundred and fifty copies get about, and he further says that he proposes to come to the printing office and destroy them. We know of only four copies, one our own—now in the Library of Congress—of this unbound first edition that have been preserved. The other editions, five in all, are in the usual brown paper covers. As an instance of his care, Mr. William Marchant, then with Goupils', remembers his spending an afternoon over the arrangement of the few words on the cover. In the second edition the word "by" disappeared from the title-page and "Kindly Lent Their Owners" was printed. This was not intentional on Whistler's part, for we possess a letter in which he asks that it may be put back at once, and also that the "Moral" at the end of the catalogue, "Modern British (!) art will now be represented in the National Gallery of the Luxembourg by one of the finest paintings due to the brush of an English artist (!)," should be credited not to him, but to the Illustrated London News. Before the edition was exhausted the "Kindly Lent Their Owners" had become famous, though it did not appear in subsequent editions. But it reappeared when the catalogue was reprinted in The Gentle Art. The extracts he quoted were cruel, but the critics had been cruel. The sub-title, "The Voice of a People" explains his object in publishing them. The catalogue ended with the quotation from the Chronique des Beaux-Arts:
"Au musée du Luxembourg, vient d'être placé de M. Whistler, le splendide Portrait de Mme. Whistler mère, une œuvre destinée à l'éternité des admirations, une œuvre sur laquelle la consécration des siècles semble avoir mis la patine d'un Rembrandt, d'un Titien, où d'un Vélasquez."
This, in later editions, was followed by the "Moral" duly credited to the Illustrated London News.
Before the show closed the pictures were photographed, and twenty-four were afterwards published in a portfolio called Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet Pieces, by Messrs. Goupil. Whistler designed the cover in brown. There were a hundred sets, each photograph signed by him, published at six guineas, and two hundred unsigned at four guineas.
An immediate result of the exhibition was that sitters came. One of the first was the Duke of Marlborough, who gave him a commission for a portrait and asked him and Mrs. Whistler to Blenheim for the autumn. Whistler wrote the Duke one of his "charming letters," then heard of his sudden death, and said:
"Now I shall never know whether my letter killed him, or whether he died before he got it. Well, they all want to be painted because of these pictures, but why wouldn't they be painted years ago when I wanted to paint them, and could have painted them just as well?"
And he was besieged by Americans, Whistler said, who were determined "to pour California into his lap," a determination to which he had no objection. His "pockets should always be full, or my golden eggs are addled." He thought it would be "amazing fun" to be rich. Once, driving with Mr. Starr, he said:
"Starr, I have not dined, as you know, so you need not think I say this in any but a cold and careful spirit: it is better to live on bread and cheese and paint beautiful things than to live like Dives and paint pot-boilers. But a painter really should not have to worry about 'various,' you know. Poverty may induce industry, but it does not produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty, it's money. Give a painter money and see what he'll do; if he does not paint his work is well lost to the world. If I had had, say, three thousand pounds a year, what beautiful things I could have done."
ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK
OIL
In the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh
OIL (DESTROYED)
From a photograph lent by Pickford R. Waller, Esq.
No one could know better than Mr. Croal Thomson how complete was this success:
"I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that the exhibition marked a revolution in the public feeling towards Whistler. His artistic powers were hitherto disputed on every hand, but when it was possible for lovers of art to see for themselves what the painter had accomplished the whole position was changed. I will be pardoned, I hope, in stating that whereas up to that time the pictures of Mr. Whistler commanded only a small sum of money, after the exhibition a great number of connoisseurs desired to acquire his works, and therefore their money value immediately increased.
"In the Goupil collection all the pictures were contributed by private owners, and none were offered for sale. I may say in passing that, as a matter of fact, the crowds of visitors were so great that no transaction of any serious kind was carried through in the Gallery between the hanging of the pictures and their dispersal—that is, for nearly five weeks there was practically no record of business.
"But the exhibition altered all this, and it is revealing no secrets to say that within a year after the exhibition was closed I had aided in the transfer of more than one-half of the pictures from their first owners. Mr. Whistler, to whom I always referred before concluding any transaction, came to the conclusion that there was hardly a holder of his pictures in England but who would sell when tempted by a large price. It may be that these owners had become affected by the continual misunderstanding and abuse of Mr. Whistler's works, and that when they were offered double or three times the sum for which they had their pictures insured they thought they had better take advantage of the enthusiasm of the moment. They did not realise that this enthusiasm would continue to enlarge, and that what seemed to them as original purchasers of the pictures to be a great price is only about one-fourth of their present money value.
"It was the artist's wish that a similar exhibition should be held in Paris, but the project fell through, and from more recent experience it would appear as if the London public, sometimes so severely scoffed at by Mr. Whistler, was really more appreciative than the Parisian public, and, therefore, perhaps after all more intelligent."
Whistler sold The Falling Rocket for eight hundred guineas, and wished that Ruskin could know that it had been valued at "four pots of paint." The Leyland sale, May 28, 1892, brought the Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine and smaller works into the auction-room, and, though the Princesse fetched only four hundred and twenty guineas, this was four times as much as Whistler received. What would he have said to the five thousand Mr. Freer paid for it within a year of his death? The sixty or eighty pounds Mr. Leathart paid Whistler for the Lange Leizen increased to six or eight hundred when he sold it. Mr. Ionides had bought Sea and Rain for twenty or thirty pounds, and now asked three hundred. Fifty pounds, the price of the Blue Wave when Mr. Gerald Potter had it from Whistler, multiplied to a thousand when it was his turn to dispose of it. Fourteen hundred pounds was given by Arthur Studd for The Little White Girl and a Nocturne, the two having cost Mr. Potter about one hundred and eighty pounds, and we have been told that Arthur Studd was recently offered six thousand pounds for The Little White Girl alone. Whistler resented it when he found that fortunes were being made "at his expense" by so-called friends, and he complained that they were turning his reputation into pounds, shillings, and pence, travelling over Europe and holiday-making on the profits. The previous sentence was written when our book first appeared. During 1918 and 1919, there has been a fabulous increase in the selling price of Whistler's work. We do not know what amount was paid by Mr. Frick for the Lady Meux, the Rosa Corder, and the Mrs. Leyland which he recently purchased. Some of the reports of prices are greatly exaggerated, no doubt. A few owners of Whistlers do appreciate them. But nearly all collectors in the United States regard art as they do stocks. They buy for a rise, and appreciate only the monetary value of the works they possess. One of the most striking cases is that of Mr. Howard Mansfield, whom Whistler, during many years, furnished with some of his most interesting prints, aided and directed in their collection, hoping, of course, that they would be left to a museum. But Mr. Mansfield sold his collection for an enormous price, altogether out of proportion to what Whistler received. Surprising statements have been circulated about the sale of pictures. The announcement of the price recently paid for the Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine is as incorrect as the title given to the painting, which is simply a small slight sketch and different version of the important subject owned by Mr. Freer. The bigger the lie, the more impressive is such a statement concerning the prices asked and obtained—the merit of the work is of secondary importance. This is a fair specimen of American commercial art criticism.
Whistler, after the trade in his work began, suggested that a work of art, when sold, should still remain the artist's property; that it was only "lent its owner." It was now his frequent demand to owners and condition to purchasers that his pictures should be available for exhibition when and where and as often as he pleased. This is illustrated in the following letter which Mr. H. S. Theobald, K.C., writes us:
"... About 1870 I began to get such of his etchings as I could, and somewhere early in the eighties I became the fortunate possessor of some thirty or forty drawings and pastels through the Dowdeswells. Whistler became aware of my ownership of these, and they sometimes brought him to my house, which was then in Westbourne Square. The pictures, owing to stress of space, hung mostly on the staircase, and Whistler would stand in rapt admiration before them, with occasional ejaculations of 'how lovely,' 'how divine,' and so on. On one of these occasions he asked my wife if she had had her portrait taken. 'But of course not,' he added, 'as I have not painted you.'
"My intercourse with the Master was limited to occasions when he wanted to borrow the pictures. His manner of proceeding was somewhat abrupt. Some morning a person would appear in a four-wheel cab and present Whistler's card, on which was written, 'Please let bearer have fourteen of my pictures.' Sometimes, but not often, there was a preliminary warning from Whistler himself. But though the pictures went easily, it was a labour of Hercules to retrieve them. Once when I went to fetch them at his studio by appointment, after a previous effort, also by appointment, which was not kept, I found the studio locked, but after a search among the neighbours I got the key, and then I found some two or three hundred pictures stacked round the room buried in the dust of ages. Whistler loved his pictures but he certainly took no care of them. On that occasion I remember I took away by mistake in exchange for one of my pictures, a Nocturne that did not belong to me, though it was very like one of mine. You can imagine the Master's winged words when he found this out. I could only cry mea culpa and bow my head before the storm. It was the risk to which I feared the pictures were exposed which made me harden my heart."
Whistler was as anxious to keep his pictures out of exhibitions when for some reason he did not care to have them shown. The large Three Girls (Three Figures, Pink and Grey, in the London Memorial Exhibition) was at Messrs. Dowdeswell's in the summer of 1891. He had before this tried to get possession of it in order that he might destroy it, and he had offered to paint the portrait of the owner and his wife in exchange. His offer was refused, and while the picture was at Messrs. Dowdeswell's, he wrote a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette (July 28, 1891), to explain that it was a painting "thrown aside for destruction." An impudent answer from a critic led to a more explicit statement of his views on the subject:
"All along have I carefully destroyed plates, torn up proofs and burned canvases that the truth of the quoted word shall prevail, and that the future collector shall be spared the mortification of cataloguing his pet mistakes. To destroy, is to remain."
When this picture, with a number of studies for it, was sent to the London Memorial Exhibition, it was found very interesting and it was hung, and we think it fortunate that it was not destroyed. But had the Committee known it was the picture he wished destroyed it never would have been exhibited by the International Society.
In the summer of 1892, Whistler was invited by the Duke of Argyll to contribute to the British Section at the World's Columbian Exposition to be held in Chicago the following year, and the picture mentioned for the purpose was the Carlyle. The portrait had been skied in a corner the previous winter at the Victorian Exhibition in the New Gallery, of which Mr. J. W. Beck was Secretary, as he was now of the Fine Arts Committee for Chicago. Whistler wrote to Mr. Beck, sending his "distinguished consideration to the Duke and the President" (Leighton) with the assurance "that I have an undefined sense of something ominously flattering occurring, but that no previous desire on his part ever to deal with work of mine has prepared me with the proper form of acknowledgment. No, no, Mr. Beck! Once hung, twice shy!"
When the letter was sent to the papers and printers made "sky" of the "shy" Whistler was enchanted. Mr. Smalley told the story of the invitation in the Times, after Whistler's death, under the impression that he had been invited to show at Burlington House. That Whistler never was invited to show anything there we know, and we have the further testimony of Sir Fred Eaton, Secretary of the Academy, that "No such proposal as Mr. Smalley speaks of was ever made to Mr. Whistler, and it is difficult to understand on what grounds he made such a statement."
It is an amusing coincidence that this would seem to be confirmed by the fate of a letter addressed to Whistler, "The Academy, England," which, after having gone to the newspaper of that name, was next sent to Burlington House, and, finally, reached Whistler with "Not known at the R.A.," written on the cover. Here was one of the little incidents that Whistler called "the droll things of this pleasant life," and he sent the cover for reproduction to the Daily Mail with the reflection:
"In these days of doubtful frequentation it is my rare good fortune to be able to send you an unsolicited official and final certificate of character."
Whistler did not depend upon the British Section at the Chicago Exposition. Americans made up for the official blunders of 1889. Professor Halsey C. Ives, chief of the Art Department, wrote letters that Whistler found most courteous, and everything was done to secure his pictures and prints. He was splendidly represented by The Yellow Buskin, the Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine, The Fur Jacket, among paintings, and by etchings of every period. The medal given him was the first official honour from his native land, where never before had so representative a collection of his work been seen.
Towards the end of 1892 the appreciation of America was expressed in another form. The new Boston Library was being built, and Messrs. McKim, Meade, and White were the architects. It was determined that the interior should be decorated by the most distinguished American artists. Mr. Sargent and Mr. Abbey were commissioned to do part of the work, and they joined with Mr. McKim and St. Gaudens in trying to induce Whistler to undertake the large panel at the top of the stairs. He made notes and suggestions for the design, which, he told us, was to be a great peacock ten feet high; but the work was put off, and, in the end, nothing came of the first opportunity given him for mural decoration since The Peacock Room.