The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 32

April 1, 1889.

"_Aussi que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?_"

[Sidenote: _The Morning Post._]

Sir--I have read Mr. Bayliss's letter, and am disarmed. I feel the folly of kicking against the parish p.r.i.c.ks. These things are right in Clapham, by the common.

"_V'la ce que c'est, c'est bien fait-- Fallait pas qu'il y aille! fallait pas qu'il y aille!_"

And when, one of these days, all traces of history shall, by dint of much turpentine, and more Bayliss, have been effaced from the board that "belongs to us," I shall be justified, and it will be boldly denied by some dainty student that the delicate b.u.t.terfly was _ever_ "soiled" in Suffolk Street.

Yours, &c.,

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_The Royal Society of British Artists and their Signboard_

[Sidenote: _The Athenaeum_, April 27, 1889.]

Sir--The moment has now arrived when, it seems to me proper that, in your journal, one of the recognized Art organs of the country, should be recorded the details of an incident in which the element of grave offence is, not unnaturally, quite missed by the people in their indignation at the insignificance of the object to which public attention has so unwarrantably been drawn--a "notice board"!--the common sign of commerce!

Now, however slight might be the value of the work in question destroyed, it is surely of startling interest to know that _work may be destroyed_, or worse still, defaced and tampered with, at the present moment in full London, with the joyous approval of the major part of the popular press.

I leave to your comment the fact that in this instance the act is committed with the tacit consent of a body of gentlemen officially styled "artists," at the instigation of their president, as he unblus.h.i.+ngly acknowledges, and will here distinctly state that the "notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists" _did not_ "bear on a red ground, in letters of gold, the t.i.tle of the Society," and that "to this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency," _did not_ "add with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a b.u.t.terfly." This d.a.m.ning evidence, though in principle irrelevant--for what becomes of the soul of a "Diocesan member of the Council of Clapham" is, artistically, a matter of small moment--I nevertheless bring forward as the only one that will at present be at all considered or even understood.

The "notice board" was of the familiar blue enamel, well known in metropolitan use, with white lettering, announcing that the exhibition of the Incorporated Society of British Artists was held above, and that for the sum of one s.h.i.+lling the public might enter.

I myself mixed the "red ground," and myself placed, "in letters of gold, the" _new_ "t.i.tle" upon it--in proper relation to the decorative scheme of the whole design, of which it formed naturally an all-important feature. The date was that of the Society's Royal grant, and in commemoration of its new birth. With the offending b.u.t.terfly, it has now been effaced in one clean sweep of independence, while the lion, "not so badly drawn," was differently dealt with--it was found not "necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent colour, and that," with a bottle of Brunswick black, "has accordingly been done;" and, as Mr. Bayliss adds, with unpremeditated truth, in the thoughtless pride of achievement, "the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr. Whistler!"

This exposure of Mr. Bayliss's direct method I have wickedly withheld, in order that the Philistine impulse of the country should declare itself in all its freshness of execration before it could be checked by awkward discovery of mere mendacity, and a timid sense of danger, called justice.

Everything has taken place as I pleasantly foresaw, and there is by this time, with the silent exception of one or two cautious dailies, scarcely a lay paper in the land that has been able to refrain from joining in the hearty yell of delight at the rare chance of coa.r.s.ely, publicly, and safely insulting an artist! In this eagerness to affront the man they have irretrievably and ridiculously committed themselves to open sympathy with the destruction of his work.

I wish coldly to chronicle this fact in the archives of the _Athenaeum_ for the future consideration of the cultured New Zealander.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_An Official Letter_

Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, officially informing me that the Committee award me a second-cla.s.s gold medal.

Pray convey my sentiments of tempered and respectable joy to the gentlemen of the Committee, and my complete appreciation of the second-hand compliment paid me.

And I have, Sir, The honour to be Your most humble, obedient servant,

J. MCNEILL WHISTLER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

TO THE 1ST SECRETARY, CENTRAL COMMITTEE, INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION, MUNICH.

_The Home of Taste_

_The Ideas of Mr. Blankety Blank on House Decoration_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, Dec. 1, 1888.]

The other day I happened to call on Mr. Blank,--j.a.panese Blank, you know, whose house is in far Fulham. The garden door flew open at my summons, and my eye was at once confronted with a house, the hue of whose face reminded me of a Venetian palazzo, for it was of a subdued pink.... If the exterior was Venetian, however, the interior was a compound of Blank and j.a.pan. Attracted by the curiously pretty hall, I begged the artist to explain this--the newest style of house decoration.

I need not say that Blank, being a man of an _original_ turn of mind, with the decorative b.u.mp strongly developed, holds what are at present peculiar views upon wall papers, room tones, and so on. The day is dark and gloomy, yet once within the halls of Blank there is sweetness and light.

You must look through the open door into a luminous little chamber covered with a soft wash of lemon yellow.

From the antechamber we pa.s.sed through the open door into a large drawing-room, of the same soft lemon-yellow hue. The blinds were down, the fog reigned without, and yet you would have thought that the sun was in the room.

Here let me pause in my description, and put on record the gist of our conversation concerning the Home of Taste.

"Now, Mr. Blank, would you tell me how you came to prefer tones to papers?"

"Here the walls used to be covered with a paper of a sombre green, which oppressed me and made me sad," said Blank. 'Why cannot I bring the sun into the house,' I said to myself, 'even in this land of fog and clouds?' Then I thought of my experiment and invoked the aid of the British house-painter. He brought his colours and his buckets, and I stood over him as he mixed his washes.

"One night, when the work was nearing completion, one of them caught sight of himself in the mirror, and remarked with astonishment upon the loveliness of his own features. It was the lemon-yellow beautifying the British workman's flesh tones.

"I a.s.sure you the effect of a room full of people in evening dress seen against the yellow ground is extraordinary, and," added Blank, "perhaps flattering."

"Then do I understand that you would remove all wall papers?"

"A good ground for distemper," chuckled Mr. Blank.

"But you propose to inaugurate a revolution."

"I don't go so far as that, but I am glad to be able to introduce my ideas of house furnis.h.i.+ng and house decoration to the public," said Blank, "and I may tell you that when I go to America with my Paris pictures, I shall try and decorate a house according to my own ideas, and ask the Americans to think about the matter."