Chapter 5

The Ruskin Suit—His Attitude towards the World and towards Art—“The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”—Critics and Criticism.

In1877 Ruskin, passing through the Grosvenor Gallery, caught sight of something the like of which he had never seen in the world of art. It was the “Nocturne, Black and Gold. The Falling Rocket,” a faithful transcript of the painter’s impression of a night-scene in Cremorne Gardens. But Ruskin cared less for the subtle glories of night than for the more garish beauties of the day, and still less for the sights and sounds of Cremorne Gardens, and neither he nor any one else in either modern or ancient world knew anything at all about the painting of night as Whistler painted it. It is not surprising, therefore, that he was startled, for the picture seemed to violate all those canons of art which he had laid down in English the beauty of which more than condones his every error, and in the impulse of the moment he wrote in a number ofFors Clavigera:

“For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly

approached the aspect of 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.”

By way of extenuation, it must be borne in mind that this was written off-hand, at a time when Ruskin was saying so many extravagant things, though with them so many profoundly true things, that no one quite understood him, and many thought him not quite sound mentally. The habit of sweeping generalizations, of extravagant appreciations and depreciations had grown apace since the publication of the first volume of “Modern Painters,” nearly forty years before, and he invariably yielded to the impression or the prejudice of the moment.

If Ruskin, in estimating Whistler, had paused but a moment and recalled just a paragraph from the preface to the second edition of the first volume of “Modern Painters” he would have been more tolerant, for he there said:

“All that is highest in art, all that is creative and imaginative, is formed and created by every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated or imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before as by their difference from it; and while we advise him, in the first trials of strength, to set certain models before him, with respect to inferior points,—one for versification, anotherfor arrangement, another for treatment,—we yet admit not his greatness until he has broken away from all his models and struck forth versification, arrangement, and treatment of his own.”

And was not Ruskin himself the life-long apologist for a most original and extraordinary genius,—a man who to his last days was as little understood as Whistler?

Here are some things that were said of Turner as late as 1842, when he was doing some of his best work:

“The ‘Dogano’ (sic) and ‘Campo Santo’ have a gloriousensemble, and are produced by wonderful art, but they mean nothing. They are produced as if by throwing handfuls of white and blue and red at the canvas, letting what chanced to stick, stick, and then shadowing in some forms to make the appearance of a picture; and yet there is a fine harmony in the highest range of color to please the sense of vision. We admire and we lament to see such genius so employed. But ‘Farther on you may fare worse.’ No. 182 is a snow-storm of most unintelligible character,—the snow-storm of a confused dream, with a steamboat ‘making signals,’ and (apparently, like the painter who was in it) ‘going by the head’ (lead?). Neither by land nor water was such a scene ever witnessed. And of 338, ‘Burial at Sea,’ though there is a striking effect, still the whole is so idealized and removed from truth that, instead of the feeling it ought to effect, it only excites ridicule. And No. 353 caps all for absurdity, without even any of the redeeming qualities of the rest. It represents Bonaparte—facetiously described as the ‘Exile and the rock-limpet’—standing on the sea-shore at St. Helena ... the whole thing is so truly ludicrous,” etc.[24]

Another writer says:

“This gentleman has on former occasions chosen to paint with cream, or chocolate, yolk of egg, or currant-jelly,—there he uses his whole array of kitchen-stuff.... We cannot fancy the state of eye which will permit any one cognizant of art to treat these rhapsodies as Lord Byron treated ‘Christabel;’ neither can we believe in any future revolution which shall bring the world round to the opinion of the worshipper, if worshippers such frenzies still possess.”[25]

In reply to these and similar criticisms Ruskin said:[26]

“There is nothing so high in art but that a scurrile jest can reach it; and often the greater the work the easier it is to turn it into ridicule. To appreciate the science of Turner’s color would require the study of a life, but to laugh at it requires little more than the knowledge that yolk of egg is yellow and spinach green,—a fund of critical information on which the remarks of most of our leading periodicals have been of late years exclusively based. We shall, however, in spite of the sulphur-and-treacle criticisms of our Scotch connoisseurs and the eggs and the spinach of our English ones, endeavor to test the works of this great colorist by a knowledge of nature somewhat more extensive than is to be gained by an acquaintance, however familiar, with the apothecary’s shop or the dinner-table.”

There is Ruskin in arms on the other side,—it making all the difference in the world which ox is gored.

What an interesting chapter in the history of appreciation it all makes. Here we have the critics fulminating against Turner in “egg and spinach” terms and Ruskin fulminating against the critics in “pot and kettle” terms. A few years later we have Ruskin fulminating against Whistler in the same old terms; but Whistler greatly improved the language of vituperation by introducing humor, and answered with words that bit like acid and epigrams pointed like needles—the etcher in controversy.

“Produced as if by throwing handfuls of white and blue and red at the canvas,” said the critic of Turner. “Flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face,” said Ruskin of Whistler. Beyond this, criticism begins to be personal.

And Whistler drew the line on the “pot and kettle” stage and brought suit for libel.

The case was heard in November, 1878, before Baron Huddleston and a special jury.

The cross-examination of Whistler by the attorney-general, who appeared for the defendant, was one of the features of the case, and brought out many of the artist’s views concerning art and art critics.

It is said that during the trial one of Whistler’s counsel was holding up the nocturne in controversy before the jury, when one of the counsel on the other side called out:

“You are holding that upside down.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I tell you, you are.”

“How do you know which is the top and which is the bottom?”

“Oh, I don’t know; only when I saw it hanging in the Grosvenor Gallery it was the other side up.”

Whereupon—out of deference to precedent—the nocturne was reversed.

When Whistler was asked whether the nocturne represented a view of Cremorne, he answered:

“If it were called a view of Cremorne, it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement.”

And again, when asked whether a certain nocturne in blue and silver was a “correct” representation of Battersea Bridge, he replied:

“I did not intend it to be a ‘correct’ portrait of the bridge. It is only a moonlight scene, and the pier in the centre of the picture may not be like the piers at Battersea Bridge as you know them in broad daylight. As to what the picture represents, that depends upon who looks at it. To some it may represent all that is intended; to others it may represent nothing.”

“The prevailing color is blue?”

“Perhaps.”

“Are these figures on the top of the bridge intended for people?”

“They are just what you like.”

“Is that a barge beneath?”

“Yes. I am very much encouraged at yourperceiving that. My whole scheme was only to bring about a certain harmony of color.”

Mr. Ruskin did not appear, but others testified in his behalf.

Edward Burne-Jones admitted the picture had fine color, but found absolutely no detail and composition. It was “bewildering in form,” and “one of the thousand failures to paint night,” and “not worth two hundred guineas.”

All of which opinions have been reversed by time,—even to the value, which quintupled many years ago.

Mr. Frith—of whose art both Burne-Jones and Ruskin probably had opinions that could not be expressed in temperate language—presented his credentials as the author of the “Railway Station,” “Derby Day,” and the “Rakes Progress,” and testified that Whistler’s pictures were “not serious works of art.” But, then, he confessed he had not been invited to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery, and, as every one knows, what is considered art in one exhibition may not be so considered in another.

And Tom Taylor, of theTimes,—well, for Tom Taylor’s testimony and opinions one must go to the “Gentle Art.” It is his one sure niche in the temple of fame.

In addressing the jury, the attorney-general said “he did not know when so much amusement had been offered to the British public as by Mr. Whistler’s pictures.”

The verdict was for the plaintiff, and the damages assessed at one farthing; which coin Whistler wore on his chain long afterwards.

The costs assessed against Ruskin amounted to £386 12s. 4d., and were paid by public subscription, one hundred and twenty persons contributing.

Concerning this suit, Ruskin said, “I am blamed by my prudent acquaintances for being too personal; but, truly, I find vaguely objurgatory language generally a mere form of what Plato calls ‘shadow-fighting.’”And long after, when a friend asked him about the case, he said, “I am afraid of a libel action if I open my mouth; and if I can’t say what I like about a person, I prefer to say nothing at all.”[27]

Even Ruskin could not say what he liked about any one, though every one, including the victim, might like the manner of his saying it. Still, it will ever remain a matter of wonder how Whistler induced an English jury, who could not possibly understand him, to give him a nominal verdict and saddle the costs upon Ruskin, who was something of a popular idol.

Whistler’s lawyers must have been cleverer than those of the other side. The attorney-general probably proved, as his speech indicates, a clumsy defender in a case involving nice questions of art.

Be it said to the credit of Whistler’s sagacity, he always employed the best lawyers available. Heonce said, “Poor lawyers, like poor paintings, are dear at any price.”

While Whistler had practised the gentle art of making enemies from the beginning of his career, his suit against Ruskin was, so to speak, his first public appearance, and he threw his dart at a shining mark.

What his real feelings towards Ruskin were no man can say,—for towards the public and his critics he was one man, towards his art he was quite another.

To the world he seemed the incarnation of vanity and conceit; to the few whose privilege it was to see him at work he appeared, and was, the embodiment of sincerity and earnestness, of simplicity to the verge of diffidence.

It is impossible to conceive two personalities so different as Whistler at work and Whistler at play, and all his controversies were play to him, the amusement of his hours of relaxation.

He sued Ruskin, not because his status before art was in any wise affected, but because his status before the public was assailed; not because he cared the snap of his finger for any adverse opinion concerning his pictures, but because he felt that he had a certain position, pose one might say, to maintain, and because it amused him to sue one who was considered so infallible; and he, no doubt, felt reasonably sure he would be more than recompensed by the solemn testimony of opposing witnesses.

Whistler has been so often charged with being a poser that in the eyes of the world he really must have seemed so.

He was a poser in the sense already indicated,—namely, he was one man before the public and another at work. In this sense every man clever enough to forget himself at times is something of a poser, for only the stupid who can talk nothing but “shop,” wherever they are, are the same day in and day out.

Most men are able to leave their work behind and adopt arôlemore or less artificial in social intercourse. The brilliant few who make society possess this faculty in an eminent degree.

The objection that social England has against the shopkeeper is, no doubt, based upon many sad experiences that the shopkeeper brings his shop with him to dinner, and will not, or cannot, pose to the extent of forgetting his material concerns in the presence of the frivolous.

The preacher, the politician, the lawyer, the soldier may introduce a little “shop” in general conversation, for these occupations are supposed to have a more general interest; but the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker cannot. But preacher, politician, lawyer, and soldier make the better guests if they pose a little and forget, for the time being, their occupations.

Convictions must be introduced sparingly in social intercourse; a very few go a great way.

Why not adopt and duly post some such salutary rule as this? In social intercourse the utterance of one’s profound convictions shall bear the same ratio to one’s total utterances on any given occasion that the speaker bears to the number present and participating in the conversation. That is to say, if the conversation is between two alone, half that either says may be his convictions, the other half a polite, though futile, endeavor to understand the other’s convictions. If at a table of twelve, about a twelfth of one’s real thoughts are permissible, and all that, in justice to others, should be attempted.

But, then, conversation is a lost art. An Athenian could talk better about everything than a modern can talk about anything. Cast a subject, a thought, so much as a suggestion, into a knot of Greeks, and in a trice, like dogs over a bone, they would be wrestling with it, and the less they knew about it the brighter the discussion.

Knowledge is the last refuge of the stupid. Facts are the sinkers of talk. Ideas are the flash-lights of the imagination; and conversation depends not upon knowledge but upon ideas. One who knows nothing of a subject may have more ideas concerning it than one who knows all about. Women are frequently better conversers than men, because less hampered by facts.

Knowledge is a heavy weight for conversation to carry. But of all the bores who find their way tothe dinner-table the specialist in knowledge is the most hopeless. The man who knows everything about something is at the stupid end; the man who knows something about everything at the brilliant, with a place at his right hand for the woman who knows nothing about anything.

Whistler was of the choice few who would never speak seriously of his serious pursuits in general conversation. At those very moments when he seemed to be saying most about art and artists he was in reality saying least of what he really thought. When he talked most of himself he said nothing that he really felt. It was almost impossible to draw from him a serious opinion concerning a picture or a painter. Though he might rail by the hour against this man or that, if the mood seized him, it all meant nothing.

In his studio, when at work, opinions and appreciations worth remembering would drop from his lips; but he rarely committed himself; not because his convictions were not clear, but because he seldom thought it worth while.

Once he was dining with quite a distinguished company. The conversation—possibly as tribute to the presence of so noted an artist—turned upon art, and finally upon a notorious picture, called “Nana,” of a naked woman on a couch, that was quite a sensation in London. It has been seen on this side.

Loud were the expressions of approval. Whistler remained silent.

“What do you think of ‘Nana,’ Mr. Whistler?” asked the distinguished lady at his right.“Is it not wonderful?—so life-like,” exclaimed the distinguished lady at his left.But Whistler, apparently spellbound by the bird before him, was silent.“But, Mr. Whistler, you have not told us whatyouthink about ‘Nana,’”said the distinguished lady opposite.At bay at last, he said:“Really, madam, you know, it is quite—presumptious—quite, for one who—who is simply, as one might say, a painter, and therefore—you know—not entitled to opinions—to express himself in the presence of so—so many distinguished connoisseurs; but—since you demand my opinion—as a highwayman would a purse—I yield to superior strength and say—with all deference—that ‘Nana’ is—trash.”“Oh!”“Oh, Mr. Whistler.”“But have you seen it?”“No.”“Then, how can you say it is trash?”“It must be—it—is so—popular.”“Will you go to see it?”“That is not necessary.”“But I want you to go with me to-morrow to see ‘Nana.’”And the charming lady on his right insisted so imperiously that he should go with her and several of the company who wished to be of the party, that he yielded, saying, however:“On one condition.”“What is it?”“That you will go with me afterward, to the National Gallery and see some pictures I am sure you have never seen.”“Some new ones?”“To you—yes.”It was agreed; and the following day Whistler with several of the party paid each a shilling to see “Nana” stretched atease under a strong light at the far end of a dark room. It might have been a painting or “Nana” herself, the realism was so gross.All save Whistler were in raptures over the wondrous thing. He was silent.Then they went to the National Gallery, and he took them before one great portrait after another.“But we have seen these before,” chorused the voices.“Impossible!” exclaimed Whistler.“Oh, yes, many times,” sang the voices.“But you do not like them; you detest them.”“Oh, no! no! no——!”“But they are not at all like ‘Nana’; they haven’t ‘Nana’s’ wonderful flesh-tones, ‘Nana’s’ beautiful skin; are not so life-like as ‘Nana,’ and beside ‘Nana’ you must consider them as poor, wretched daubs.”And so he took them from one masterpiece to another, repeating before each one their raptures over “Nana” until they were silent. Then he said:“I have shown you some pictures that are considered good by those whose opinions are precious, and you have not found in one a single characteristic that you admired in ‘Nana,’ and you yourselves would not admit her to this glorious company; therefore, again I say, ‘Nana’ is—trash.”

“What do you think of ‘Nana,’ Mr. Whistler?” asked the distinguished lady at his right.

“Is it not wonderful?—so life-like,” exclaimed the distinguished lady at his left.

But Whistler, apparently spellbound by the bird before him, was silent.

“But, Mr. Whistler, you have not told us whatyouthink about ‘Nana,’”said the distinguished lady opposite.

At bay at last, he said:

“Really, madam, you know, it is quite—presumptious—quite, for one who—who is simply, as one might say, a painter, and therefore—you know—not entitled to opinions—to express himself in the presence of so—so many distinguished connoisseurs; but—since you demand my opinion—as a highwayman would a purse—I yield to superior strength and say—with all deference—that ‘Nana’ is—trash.”

“Oh!”

“Oh, Mr. Whistler.”

“But have you seen it?”

“No.”

“Then, how can you say it is trash?”

“It must be—it—is so—popular.”

“Will you go to see it?”

“That is not necessary.”

“But I want you to go with me to-morrow to see ‘Nana.’”And the charming lady on his right insisted so imperiously that he should go with her and several of the company who wished to be of the party, that he yielded, saying, however:

“On one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you will go with me afterward, to the National Gallery and see some pictures I am sure you have never seen.”

“Some new ones?”

“To you—yes.”

It was agreed; and the following day Whistler with several of the party paid each a shilling to see “Nana” stretched atease under a strong light at the far end of a dark room. It might have been a painting or “Nana” herself, the realism was so gross.

All save Whistler were in raptures over the wondrous thing. He was silent.

Then they went to the National Gallery, and he took them before one great portrait after another.

“But we have seen these before,” chorused the voices.

“Impossible!” exclaimed Whistler.

“Oh, yes, many times,” sang the voices.

“But you do not like them; you detest them.”

“Oh, no! no! no——!”

“But they are not at all like ‘Nana’; they haven’t ‘Nana’s’ wonderful flesh-tones, ‘Nana’s’ beautiful skin; are not so life-like as ‘Nana,’ and beside ‘Nana’ you must consider them as poor, wretched daubs.”

And so he took them from one masterpiece to another, repeating before each one their raptures over “Nana” until they were silent. Then he said:

“I have shown you some pictures that are considered good by those whose opinions are precious, and you have not found in one a single characteristic that you admired in ‘Nana,’ and you yourselves would not admit her to this glorious company; therefore, again I say, ‘Nana’ is—trash.”

In the sense, therefore, that he presented a careless, trivial, or cynical side to the public and a serious side to his art, Whistler was a poser, and during his idle hours he had the habit of amusing himself at the expense of any one who crossed his path. And why not? Did not the world try so hard to amuse itself at his expense? Were his feelings spared? Was aught of ridicule or insult that human ingenuity could devise withheld?

But his opponents were so clumsy that, save as he himself preserved their crude repartees, only his epigrammatic utterances are remembered; and therefore he has all the blame for the controversies, while the truth is that, considering the flood of opprobrium poured out upon him in print and in speech, he said very little, took but occasional notice of his assailants. All he said fills but a portion of a small book,—the “Gentle Art,”—while his opponents have the balance; and if all adverse personal comments of a despicable nature were gathered together from both sides of the Atlantic, they would make up many closely-printed volumes.

For a man who could write so well, Whistler exercised great restraint in writing so little, but—that little!

And yet it is a pity, from one point of view, that he wrote at all; his art did not need it, and in the way of general estimation and recognition suffers not a little on account of it.

For twenty-odd years the public has been amused, startled, and irritated by the letters and utterances which make up “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” and it will be many a long day before they are so far forgotten that Whistler’s art will be judged wholly upon its merits.

If the “Gentle Art” did not exist as it does in its harmony in brown, English literature would lack a volume which is in itself a bit of art and unique of its kind. There is nothing at all like it, and onlyWhistler could have done it. The book is a perfect expression of one side of his many-sided and extraordinary personality, and as such is therefore a work of art, and, at the same time, material which cannot be spared if the man is to be thoroughly understood; but it reveals the side which is least worth understanding, it accentuates traits which are inconsequential, and it gives the public an entirely erroneous impression, because the public find it easy to buy and read the book, but difficult to so much as see the pictures, and quite impossible to understand them when they do see them.

In Whistler’s life the writing of the few lines and the putting together of the matter contained in the “Gentle Art” occupied an almost infinitesimal fraction of his leisure hours, whereas for fifty years he painted, etched, and lithographed industriously; yet, so far as the public of England and America is concerned, his controversies overshadow his art; while to the French, who happily could not read the book, he is known only as an artist.

Criticism of art afforded Whistler a world of amusement, and the art critic was his especial aversion.

“That writers should destroy writings to the benefit of writing” seemed to him just, but that writers should criticise painting seemed to him altogether illogical.

And he quotes the critic of theTimes, who said of Velasquez’s “Las Menimas” that it was “slovenlyin execution, poor in color,—being little but a combination of neutral grays and ugly in its forms.”

And he shows how the same great critic praised a Turner that turned out to be no Turner. When this particular critic died, a few years ago, Whistler sorrowfully said, “I have hardly a warm personal enemy left.”

And he showed how one said that Daubigny had neither drawing nor color, and another that the works of Corot to the first impression of an Englishman “are the sketches of an amateur,” and another that everything Courbet touches “becomes unpleasant.”

All these by the most eminent critics in the land,—men whose say-so in days gone by made and unmade, for the time being, the reputations of artists.

And he grouped together a number of Ruskin’s dogmatic utterances, where in his enthusiasm for certain men he condemned others who were infinitely superior,—as, for instance, where he praises without limitations the work of the forgotten Prout, and says that Rembrandt’s colors are wrong from beginning to end, and that “Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety will indeed always express themselves through art in brown and gray, as in Rembrandt;” and again where he places Rubens above Titian and Raphael, and compares an unknown Mulready with Albert Dürer, to the disadvantage of the latter.

These things it pleased Whistler to do, and he has done them with rare piquancy in the “Gentle Art.”

If what is contained therein savors in aught of malice, let it be remembered that public, critics,painters were snapping at his heels during the years that he was doing the very work which public, critics, and painters now worship, and a lesser man would have yielded to the storm of adverse opinion and ridicule.

With the exception of a few friends and admirers, he was absolutely without support during the period when an artist most needs encouragement.

It is everlastingly to his credit that neither the ridicule of others—“the voice of the nation”—nor his own necessities, and they pressed heavily at times, caused him to swerve a hair’s breadth from what he believed to be worth doing in art.

Nearly every great artist of whom we have any record has at one time or another in his career yielded to the temptation—frequently under pressure of dire necessity—to do something that would sell. No such reproach can be laid at Whistler’s door.

The galled critics complained that he did not treat them fairly,—that he selected small excerpts from voluminous essays; whereas, if he had reprinted the essays entire, language apparently plain would have been reversed in meaning. For instance, he of theTimes, who had written of Velasquez, complained that the quotation gave “exactly the opposite impression to that which the article, taken as a whole, conveys.” It must have been an extraordinary article to transform what was quoted into praise; but Whistler, in reply, said:

“Why squabble over your little article? Youdidprint what I quote, you know, Tom; and it is surely unimportant what more you may have written of the Master. That you should have written anything at all is your crime.”

Ruskin never complained of anything Whistler wrote. The one utterance which caused the suit for libel was probably the first and last that passed his lips. The eloquent old man never did pay very much attention to what others thought of him; he was too busy with his own dreams and fancies.

He did write what Whistler quoted about Rembrandt, but the whole passage is a lament over the lack of appreciation of color, and is as follows:

“For instance: our reprobation of bright color is, I think, for the most part, mere affectation, and must soon be done away with. Vulgarity, dulness, or impiety will indeed always express themselves through art in brown and gray, as in Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Salvator; but we are not wholly vulgar, dull, or impious, nor, as moderns, are we necessarily obliged to continue so in any wise. Our greatest men, whether sad or gay, still delight, like the great men of all ages, in brilliant hues. The coloring of Scott and Byron is full and pure; that of Keats and Tennyson rich even to excess. Our practical failures in coloring are merely the necessary consequences of our prolonged want of practice during the period of Renaissance affectation and ignorance; and the only durable difference between old and modern coloring is the acceptance of certain hues by the modern, which please him by expressing that melancholy peculiar to his more reflective or sentimental character and the greater variety of them necessary to express his greater science.”[28]

Again, on the subject of color, he says:

“We find the greatest artists mainly divided into two groups,—those who paint principally with respect to local color, headed by Paul Veronese, Titian, and Turner, and those who paint principally with reference to light and shade irrespective of color, headed by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Raphael. The noblest members of each of these classes introduce the element proper to the other class, in a subordinate way. Paul Veronese introduces a subordinate light and shade, and Leonardo introduces a subordinate local color. The main difference is, that with Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Raphael vast masses of the picture are lost in comparatively colorless (dark, gray, or brown) shadow,—these paintersbeginningwith thelightsand goingdownto blackness; but with Veronese, Titian, and Turner the whole picture is like the rose,—glowing with color in the shadows and rising into paler and more delicate hues, or masses of whiteness, in the lights,—they havingbegunwith theshadowsand gone uptowhiteness.”

Ruskin said so much about art, and said it so dogmatically, that no one utterance gives an adequate conception of what he thought about any one man. Furthermore, while his language is crystal itself, his thoughts are often contradictory and confusing in the extreme.

For instance, no man with any sense of color whatsoever would group Leonardo, Rembrandt, and Raphael together as men who painted “irrespective of color,”—for no great Italian from the days of Giotto to those of Michael Angelo painted regardless of color; on the contrary, color is the one conspicuous, brilliant, and beautiful feature of their work,and the color-sense, as it existed in those days in all its exquisite refinement, is, generally speaking, absolutely wanting in ours.

In all but color Rembrandt forgot more than most of the Italians ever knew; but in the use of color—not imitatively, not after the manner of nature, but decoratively and arbitrarily—the Italians forgot more than Rembrandt ever knew; and, so far as color is concerned, there is absolutely nothing in common between Rembrandt and Leonardo or Raphael, while there is much in common between the two latter.

It was not color, butlight, that Ruskin appreciated, as is shown by a hundred passages, but by none moreclearlythan that quoted wherein he says of the three painters last named,—and the italics are his,—“these paintersbeginningwithlightsand goingdownto blackness; but with Veronese, Titian, and Turner the whole picture is like the rose,—glowing with color in the shadows and rising into paler and more delicate hues, or masses of whiteness, in the lights,—they havingbegunwith theshadowsand gone uptowhiteness.”

When he held his exhibition in London, in 1892, of “Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet Pieces,”—a “small collection kindlylenttheir owners,”—he once more printed in his dainty brown-paper-covered catalogue, beneath each picture, the early comments of press, critics, and people, and called it all “The Voice of a People.”

And what a collection of bizarre opinions it is, to be sure, from the seriousTimesto the lightsomeMerrie England, which said:

“He paints in soot colors and mud colors, but, far from enjoying the primary hues, has little or no perception of secondary or tertiary color.”

Which goes to show that the budding science of chromatics is not without effect on vocabularies.

Here we have the “kitchen stuff” criticism of Turner in 1842 paraphrased word for word in the mud and soot criticism of Whistler precisely fifty years later.

Is the jargon of criticism at once limited and exhausted? Are we to linger forever about the cook-stove in the depreciation of art? With the introduction of the steel range of mammoth proportions can we not find new terms of opprobrium? Besides, there are the gas and gasoline stoves of explosive habit, which ought to be suggestive of novelty in vituperation. But, alas, the critic is prone to repeat himself, and the language of the fathers is visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate.

And press, critics, and artists are convicted, once more, of incompetency. But what does it matter, save as a warning that will not be heeded? Are we any wiser in our generation? Were Whistler to appear to-day, as he did forty-odd years ago, would he be received with the praise his works command now? Hardly.

Many of his followers were quite as absurd in their misplaced admiration as the maligned public in its denunciation, and no one knew it better than he. He came upon two of them once as they were waxing eloquent before a sketch that had somehow escaped his studio,—possibly overlooked and left behind in some of his movings. He listened a moment to their raptures, fitted his monocle to his eye, took a look at this “masterpiece,” and said:

“God bless me, I wonder where that came from. Not worth the canvas it’s painted on.”

And he turned away.

We who have been taught to see, not wholly but in part, may laugh at our betters who, when he first appeared, could see nothing at all; but our virtue is acquired.

His attitude towards critics is summed up in the short but pointed article written in December, 1878, shortly after the Ruskin suit, and called “Art and Art Critics.”

“Shall the painter, then (I foresee the question), decide upon painting? Shallhebe the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the gentlemen of the quill accept as the canons of art and recognize as the masterpieces of work.”

All of which is undeniably true. The painter must in the end judge of painting, and the sculptor judge of sculpture. But there are two distinct sidesto a work of art,—to every work, for that matter: there is the relation between the worker and his work, and the relation between the completed work and the public,—the work being the intermediary between artist and people, his means of communication, his mode and manner of speech.

There is, therefore, the process of creation and the process of appreciation, of utterance and of understanding.

The painting of a picture is one thing, its appreciation by the public is quite another.

A man need not be a dramatist to watch the effect of a drama upon the audience; a man need not own a vineyard to know good wine.

The critic stands, or, rather, should stand, between the public and the work he criticises, whether it be poem, painting, statue, or drama; the mistake he commonly makes is in forcing himself between the worker and his work, and in trying to teach him something only another and better worker in thesameart is competent to do.

Critics make most of their blunders in judging works according to preconceived notions as to how they should be done,—in condemning, for instance, a picture because not painted after prevailing modes and methods, because it is a departure, whereas with these considerations the lay-critic has nothing to do; they fall entirely within the province of the painter-critic, the one man who is competent, in the long run, to pass upon the methods employed.

Every work is an appeal to the public,—its completion and exhibition make it such; therefore, every work challenges the critical faculties, great or small, of those who see it. It is inevitable that some more interested should spring up to interpret, rightly or wrongly, the work to the public; the artist seldom takes the trouble,—in fact, has neither the time nor the temperament; his message is complete in the picture, others must understand it as best they can.

The playwright cannot address the audience save through the play, the poet speaks only through his poetry, the painter through his pictures, the sculptor through the forms of his creation. Seldom is an artist gifted with more than one tongue, and that tongue is his art. How, then, can artists interpret the work of artists? How can the painter, who is dumb save with his brush, or the sculptor, who is mute save with his clay and chisel, tell the world anything about the work of others?

It is the business of those who can speak and write to tell the people, not how the work was created, unless they were present, but how it impressed them as a finished thing. That is the province of legitimate criticism.

Every man who has done his best to understand, though at the risk of betraying his ignorance, has the right to say how he likes what he sees or hears or tastes. The opinions of some are worth more than those of others; and these opinions, with the reasons therefor, we are delighted to hear. That is about all there is to sound criticism; and in that sensecomment and those whose profession is to comment are inevitable,—until the æsthetic millenium, when critics cease from troubling and the artists are at rest.

Ruskin, unfortunately, attempted the double duty of telling painters how to paint and the public what to like. With all his industry and considerable talent for drawing, he was not competent to tell painters how to paint,—though much that he said is accepted as sound,—and his judgments of the relative merits of painters and pictures were biassed by his own convictions regarding the way the work should be done.

His limitations were due to his strong preferences and violent prejudices. His devotion to Turner—a great painter—was one limitation; lack of appreciation of Rembrandt was another; failure to estimate Velasquez at his real worth was another; and a lot of enthusiasms for men who are now forgotten are so many additional evidences of lack of judicial temper in Ruskin. But all these things are as nothings in comparison with the rich store of things said in English so strong, so simple, and yet so beautiful that it fairly intoxicates and rouses something akin to a religious enthusiasm.

A word concerning the “Voice of a People,” as Whistler called his little collection of criticisms. What is it?

In literature the “Voice of a People” makes itself heard at the bookseller’s counter and over the desk of the circulating library,—and that, too,regardless of critics who praise this book and condemn that. Sometimes, before the Critic has spoken, the “Voice” is heard, and the presses groan with the burden of their task; or, more often, after the Critic has had his say, the “Voice,” disregarding labored precepts, calls loudly for what it is told it should not have; and so in literature the “Voice” makes itself heard loud and clear and natural, and there is no mistaking it.

Likewise in the drama the insistent “Voice” demands trash or otherwise, quite regardless of the protest of the Critic. The run of a play is not determined by the criticisms. The opinion of the Critic is often foreseen and defied; but neither writer, manager, nor actor can foretell the verdict of the “Voice,”—favorable often when least expected; adverse often when least deserved.

But in art the “Voice”—stentorian in literature and the drama—sinks to a whisper so diffident that it cannot be heard amidst the trumpetings of the Critics.

The Critics—those whose business it was to write and talk about art—ridiculed Whistler, not the “Voice.” Left wholly to itself, it is quite likely the “Voice” would have found much that it liked in the beautiful combinations of tones and colors, for there is nothing inherently repulsive in Whistler’s work, as in much other that Critics command the “Voice” to praise; on the contrary, his paintings are exceedingly restful to the eye, and exceedingly attractive as schemes of color if nothing else. The “Voice,” left to itself, would say, “I do not understand them, but I like them,—just as I like music, without knowing much about it.”

But the “Voice”—independent enough in literature, the drama, and even in music—dares not lisp in art until the Critic speaks. Then the “Voice” praises what he praises, condemns what he condemns, until the secret purchases and growing demand for the outcast confounds both Critic and echoing “Voice.” Then the “Voice” turns—as it has in the case of Whistler—and rends the Critics, unless those agile gentlemen change sides and praise what they formerly condemned.

Too bad that Whistler attributed the “Voice” of the Critic to that long-suffering animal—the Public, which, if often wrong, is always honest, and, in all but art—vociferous.

Concerning his habit of persistently impaling the critics, a writer says:[29]

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