The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 42

THE GOLD SCREEN.

_Lent by Cyril Flower, Esq., M.P._

"I take it to be admitted by those who do not conclude that art is necessarily great which has the misfortune to be unacceptable, that it is not by his paintings so much as by his etchings that Mr. Whistler's name may aspire to live."--_F. Wedmore._

15.--SYMPHONY IN GREY AND GREEN.

THE OCEAN.

_Lent by Mrs. Peter Taylor._

"In Mr. Whistler's picture, 'Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean,'

the composition is ugly, the sky opaque, the suggestion of sea leaden and without light or motion."--_Times._

"Mr. Whistler continues these experiments in colour which are now known as 'Symphonies.' It may be questioned whether these performances are to be highly valued, except as feats accomplished under needless and self-imposed restrictions--much as writing achieved by the feet of a penman who has not been deprived of the use of his hands."--_Graphic._

"We can paint a cat or a fiddle, so that they look as if we could take them up; but we cannot imitate the Ocean or the Alps. We can imitate fruit, but not a tree; flowers, but not a pasture; cut-gla.s.s, but not the rainbow."--_John Ruskin, Esq., Teacher of Art._

[Sidenote: [Ill.u.s.tration]]

16.--NOCTURNE.

GREY AND GOLD--CHELSEA SNOW.

_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._

"Mr. Whistler sends two of his studies of moonlight, in which form is eschewed for harmonies of 'Grey and Gold' and 'Blue and Silver;'

and which, for the crowd of exhibition visitors, resolve themselves into riddles or mystifications.... In a word, painting to Mr. Whistler is the exact correlative of music, as vague, as purely emotional, as released from all functions of representation.

"He is really building up art out of his own imperfections [_sic!_]

instead of setting himself to supply them."--_Times._

17.--NOCTURNE.

BLUE AND SILVER--BATTERSEA REACH.

_Lent by W. G. Rawlinson, Esq._

"J. M. Whistler is here again with his nocturnes."

_Scotsman._

18.--NOCTURNE.

BLUE AND SILVER--CHELSEA.

_Lent by W. C. Alexander, Esq._

"Mr. Whistler confines himself to two small canvases of the nocturne kind. One is covered with smudgy blue and the other with dirty black."

_Sat.u.r.day Review._

"A reputation, for a time, imperilled by original absurdity"--_F.

Wedmore, "Academy."_

"I think Mr. Wedmore takes the Nocturnes and Arrangements too seriously. They are merely first beginnings of pictures, differing from ordinary first beginnings in having no composition. The great originality was in venturing to exhibit them."

_P. G. Hamerton, "Academy."_

19.--NOCTURNE.

GREY AND GOLD--WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.

_Lent by the Hon. Mrs. Percy Wyndham._

"Two of Mr. Whistler's 'colour symphonies'--a 'Nocturne in Blue and Gold' and a 'Nocturne in Black and Gold.' If he did not exhibit these as pictures under peculiar and, what seems to most people, pretentious t.i.tles, they would be ent.i.tled to their due meed of admiration [_sic!_]. But they only come one step nearer pictures than delicately graduated tints on a wall-paper do.

"He must not attempt, with that happy, half-humorous audacity which all his dealings with his own works suggests, to palm off his deficiencies upon us as manifestations of power."--_Daily Telegraph._

20.--NOCTURNE.

BLUE AND GOLD--SOUTHAMPTON WATER.

_Lent by Alfred Chapman, Esq._

"There is always danger that efforts of this cla.s.s may degenerate into the merely tricky and meretricious; and already a suspicion arises that the artist's eccentricity is somewhat too premeditated and self-conscious."--_Graphic._

21.--BLUE AND SILVER.

BLUE WAVE--BIARRITZ.

_Lent by Gerald Potter, Esq._

"Mr. Whistler is possessed of much audacity and eccentricity, and these are useful qualities in an artist who desires to be talked about. When he comes out into the open, and deals with daylight, we find these studies to be only the first washes of pictures. He leaves off where other artists begin. He s.h.i.+rks all the difficulties ahead, and asks the spectator to complete the picture himself."--_Daily Telegraph._

"The absence, seemingly, of any power, such as the great marine painters had, of drawing forms of water, whether in a broad and wind-swept tidal river or on the high seas...."

_F. Wedmore, "Nineteenth Century."_