SPIRIT OF THE SERIES AGE UNDER THIS TITLE IT IS MR FOULIS' IN- TENTION TO ISSUE A SERIES OF STUDIES OF THE LIFE, GENIUS, AND ACHIEVEMENT OF THE GREAT SPIRITS OF THE AGE IN ART, LITER A TURE, MUSIC, AND POLITICS. THESE STUDIES WILL BE FROM THE PEN OF WELL- KNOWN WRITERS, AND WILL BE ISSUED IN A FORM BOTH A TTR ACTIVE IN STYLE AND MODERA TE IN PRICE IN FOLDING-IN PAPER COVER, 6d. NET: IN BOARDS WITH BUCKRAM BACK, i/- NET : PRINT- ED ON HAND-MADE PAPER, WITH ILLUSTRA- TIONS ON JAP. VELLUM, HALF-A-CROWN NET. *** One hundred numbered copies, printed on Jap. vellum and bound in vellum, signed by the author, seven shillings and sixpence net. THE FIRST OF THIS SERIES IS WHISTLER BUTTERFLY, WASP, WIT MASTER OF THE ARTS ENIGMA By HALDANE MACFALL (i Ha, ha! this man knows" was Whistlers judgment on the art criticism of the author, written under the pen- name of '■''Hal Dane." T. N. FPU LIS 3 FREDERICK STREET EDINBURGH 35 LEICESTER SQUARE, LONDON SPIRIT OF THE AGE SERIES NO I. WHISTLER BY HALDANE MACFALL WHISTLER BUTTERFLY, WASP, WIT MASTER OF THE ARTS ENIGMA BY HALDANE MACFALL AUTHOR OF <( THE MASTERFOLK," ETC. T. N. FOULIS EDINBURGH & LONDON 9 ° 5 TO JOSEPH AND ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL WHOSE LIFE OF THE MASTER THE WORLD OF ART AWAITS ILLUSTRATIONS LA PRINCESSE DU PAYS DE LA P0RCELA1NE By permission of William Burrell, Esq. frontispiece CARLYLE By permission of the Corporation of Glasgow page twenty-four THE FUR JACKET By permission of William Burrell, Esq. page forty THE THAMES IN ICE By permission of J. /. Cowan, Esq. page forty -eight THE MAN " Ha, ha ! amazing ! " He flits across the Victorian years — gay, debonair, laughing, quar- relsome, huffy — a dandified ex- quisite of a man, insolent, charm- ing, unexpected — a wit amongst the chiefest wits — and he drew his rapier upon them all ! hi- dalgic,swaggering; blithely step- ping into frays for mere love of a quip ; like one of those tem- pestuous Spaniard dons of his be- loved Velasquez, hot upon his honour always, just to keep his blood jigging. Strutting it like gamecock, he fought his duel ; drew blood ; and, almost before his blade was wiped, had forgot- ten his man and, with flashing 2 9 WHISTLER eyeglass in choleric eye, was peer- ing for another. And it was behind this so mock- ing fantastic figure, which he whimsically created and set up, and almost came to believe in, to trick the herd of men, that he strove to hide the wounds he suf- fered from the dull unseeing eyes and clownish malice of his stupid day. For, mark you ! behind that quaint screen there wrought and toiled, in splendid labour, the sen- sitive soul of one of the greatest artists of which the English race has been delivered. He knew it. The suffering that comes to a man of genius, who is giving of his magnificence to a blind gen- eration, was his. And with the bitterness of years of hate and ob- loquy in his heart, and stung by the^injustice ofjit all, he grasped 10 THE MAN that what the world would not see he could whip it into seeing — so he whipped it — with flout and knout and jeer and sneer and cau- stic jibe he whipped it, until its unwieldy bulk became first un- easy, then wholly perplexed, then tolerant — then forgave itself — then recognised him and paid him cautious homage, admiring first his truculent audacities, dis- covering only his greatnesses after fearsomely bowing to his small disdains. So he smiled away the agonies, playing the fop, with flashing eyeglass and long cane and flat- brimmed silk hat and the long glove and devil-may-care laugh ; and, except from a few, hid as best he might the great soul that was in him. All that was great in him he spent in the eager agony of artistic endeavour. The rest 1 1 WHISTLER of his day he played at play-acting in a fantastic farce, dressing up in theatric attire, and thrusting be- fore the footlights the dandified, quarrelsome little figure that strutted it with bigod airiness, making even of nature's defect, the white forelock amidst his black hair, a source of pride — moving in a whirl of mockeries, acid witticisms, and rough and stinging repartee, reckless of con- sequence except the answering laugh, reckless of friendships broken. He essays to play the part of Butterfly — the gorgeous wings but thinly veil the venom- ous body of Wasp. He did not wholly deceive himself — the butterfly that was his pictured signature he often drew with sting for tail. But, be it remembered, this man, by nature affectionate, blithe, and 12 THE MAN happy, was made to fight his way for every leaf of his bays. He came armed to the business with- out the plain man's limitations — or he had fallen. And, as though his wayfaring were not thorny enough, he himself set up barriers across his path the surmounting of which at times came near to tragedy. He tried to despise the good opinion of the world ; and he came near to breaking his heart in the effort to prevent the world from taking him at his word and ignoring him. He was of the breed of the con- querors. He had to discover to the world a new world. As must all who would reach to majesty and dominion, he had to break the table of the laws. He took the risks — if he had failed, he had had to pay. But whilst he stooped he conquered. He was a 13 WHISTLER great man with many faults. So be it. And, when all's said, what is the sum of his littlenesses a- gainst his magnificence ? Yes, he stooped — on occasion. Endowed with supreme gifts, he would spend precious hours of his working day in attacking critics, sometimes friends, for stupidities or unmeant slights. To this end he would cudgel his keen wits to pen the spontaneous epigram, or to find a victim for a ready-made slur. He would belabour the Royal Academy for its neglect of him, protesting the while that he did not desire its favours. He protested so much that he had no wounds, he but drew the atten- tion to the hiding of wounds — he, who was high above any honour that the Royal Academy could give, and, to its eternal shame, was too petty to honour H THE MAN itself by the giving ! . . . He stepped into the Victorian years out of some old-world tan- gle, some old romantic brawl, un- reasonable, quixotic. He is of the blood of the dictators. He must never be in the wrong. He ruffles it, dapper, fire-eating, striking insults with his cane across offending shoulders, call- ing men out to duel — and in whimsical aside, tongue in cheek, hopes to God they may not come out. He threatens to compel the man who desires his friend- ship to purge his visiting list of all such of whom he shall dis- approve, blind to the simple fact that he himself would be the first to shun so scurvy a fellow. He is a rollicking law to himself, whether in the country taking his walks abroad in dancing-shoes, or climbing rocks by the seashore *5 WHISTLER in the same — whether in town posing and strutting by the hour before the mirror at the tailor's or the hairdresser's. He is a very strategist. Pie de- tests the vulgarities. If pos- sible, the rude personal scuffle is to be avoided. But war must be. He has the genius for war. If it has to be the personal scuffle, fearless but small, he does not give battle until the more power- ful enemy is at disadvantage — then darts in and flings the clumsy fellow, taken unawares, through the plate-glass window in Picca- dilly. He sets his wits against the other's strength. And before the other has recovered from the fierce surprise of the first on- slaught, Whistler has skipped in- to the public eye, and is crowing over his victory. The most mischievous of sprites, 16 THE MAN he detested war as an unmitigated horror and unclean. He hated sport — abhorred killing. Up with the lark — ever blithe — he was an early riser, a tireless worker, the man of taste in all the things that he did. He lived delicately on slender fare ; was temperate with wine, of which he was an exquisite judge. He is the dandy always, dressed even at his work as though ready to enter the drawing-room of fashion. His day's work done, he sallies out to dine with the wits. With friends he spends his evening at the playhouse — Shakespeare's or other serious play a huge joke to him — the comic song of the music-hall a joy. He has no sense of music. Intellectual pursuits are not for him. He has few books — reads fewer. Religion troubles him «7 WHISTLER little. His day's work shed from him, he must enjoy life — know men through contact with their wit and gossip. He is always fresh, always bright, never weary. He was never heard to utter an indecent phrase — he detested all uncleanness. He is vague in affairs of money ; and his difficulties at times are pathetic. He loves his work — to part with the work of his hands is an agony — it is the drawing of blood. He refuses an etching to a dealer for a guinea — gives it to a poor admirer for a crown. He makes excuse to get back a picture from its owner. For years the distressed owner appeals for it. Preposterous! cries Whistler — for ten whole years she has had the privilege of living with this masterpiece, and now she has the presumption to want 1 8 THE MAN it back again ! He is full of life's energy. Never lounges in an armchair. His home contains no comfortable furniture. "If you want com- fort," cries he, laughing — " go to bed." Prefers Adam's chairs ! And his evening's gadding over, he walks home, making of his exercise an opportunity to study the beauty of the night — when fools are abed. A constant lover, a loyal husband, a devoted son. The tales of his tenderness to children discover in him some- thing of the heroic essence. We listen to the gossip of his ill- humours until — suddenly — we realise that this is small talk, the gossip of the backstairs ; that there was something larger and deeper and richer than the spit- fire that darts through the pages l 9 WHISTLER of The Gentle Art of Making 'Enemies. There is that in the reservations of the man which makes us suspect the truth of the one and only picture that Whist- ler wrought blunderingly— part Butterfly, part Wasp, wholly laughing Enigma. Behind the cloak of his truculent flippancies, there was concealed within the vindictive poses of the fragile body a giant of stature — a large -souled, silent, self-reliant, dignified, deep-hearted man. Kindness opened the heart of this man and showed how tender a flower dwelt therein, how thin was the husk of his asperities. Only God's aristocracy are cruci- fied. It is often a pathetic part of the awful tragedy that the agony of the sacrifice is, to an ex- tent, the work of their own hands. HIS CAREER ii July 1834 : 17 July 1903 In the Gospel of St Patrick to the Irish it is written : Whensoever you shall see a head, for the love of God hit it. James Abbott M'Neill Whistler came of Anglo-Irish forefathers, settled in America for a couple of generations. Major John Whist- ler, the emigrating grandfather, was an Irishman of good family. Major George Washington Whistler, the father, married, as his second wife, Anna Matilda M'Neill, of the old Southern aristocracy of Baltimore. To them was born at Lowell in Mas- sachusetts, on the eleventh day of July 1834, the child who was 21 WHISTLER to make the name of Whistler famous. When the boy was nine, his father, an engineer, was called to Russia to the making of railways. And thither, to St Petersburg, went the family. At his father's death, the lad being fifteen, the widowed mother returned to America with her sons — the devotion of the mother and son is one of the sweetest passages in Whistler's stormy life. At seven- teen, the youth entered the West Point Military Academy as a cadet ; but he appears to have shown little liking for his career thereat ; and it must have been with the breath of relief that he gave up the soldier's calling and found himself free to give his whole strength and feverish energy to the art to which he was destined to bring such rare dis- 22 HIS CAREER tinction. He left his native land at twenty,and never again set foot on it. With enthusiastic delight, he turned his face towards the art- student's life in France, and — taking England on his way — he being now twenty-one, settled in Paris in 1855, entering for two years the studio of Marc Gleyre, a romantic painter of mediocre talent, having for comrades in his studentship the stimulating per- sonalities of Degas, Alphonse Legros,Fantin-Latour, DuMau- rier. But there was a more potent master in Paris at whose studio the young Whistler worked, to- gether with Manet, a young Frenchman of genius — the ghost of Velasquez was risen from the dead, and his majestic spirit was abroad. Light-hearted and boisterous, 2 3 WHISTLER his pranks the talk of the quarter, it was during these three years of studentship in Paris, never- theless, that the young fellow etched " The Little French Set," published in his twenty-fourth year. When, at twenty-five, he came to settle down in London, with his brother-in-law, SeymourHaden, the surgeon whose high artistic achievement in etching won him knighthood, he sent his first con- tribution, two Thames etchings, to the walls of the Royal Aca- demy. We find him soon after sharing astudio with DuMaurier in Newman Street ; then, paint- ing and etching at Wapping ; about theendof theyearhesettled in Chelsea. Whistler was always jealous of any place he usurped ; and amusing stories are told of the serious anger with which he 24 CARLYLE HIS CAREER would order other artists to be- gone from his realm. The following year, the begin- ning of the 'sixties, saw his first painting at the Royal Academy, " At the Piano." It was bought by that rare artist and stout cham- pion of Velasquez, John Phillip, R.A. — " Phillip of Spain" as his nickname had it — a passionate admirer of Butterfly from the start. For several years Whist- ler is to be seen in painting and etching on the walls of the Royal Academy — "TheThamesinlce" was shown in 1862. It was from France, Paris, from the heaven to which all good Americans go when they die, that he received his first great rebuff. In 1863, Whistler being on the edge of thirty, his "White Girl" was rejected by the Salon. Hung at the indignation collection of the 3 25 / WHISTLER " Salon des Refuses/' it was one of the sensations and enthusiasms of the year amongst the younger men; and the success of this act of rebellion probably taught Whist- ler, always combative, the great value of the stir caused by attack- ing critics and buffeting the authorities in the face. His first rebuff was his first high success. It has been wittily said of Whist- ler that, should he be denied en- trance to heaven, he was not of the mean spirits that would go lower down — he would set up a splendid heaven of his own oppo- site toPeter's gate, andthe trouble would be that all the best people would go there. His thirty -second and thirty- third years saw Whistler at Val- paraiso, the source of inspiration of some of his most superb sea- scapes. 26 HIS CAREER It was the splendid moment of his career. This change of scene, or some increasing self-revelation of his genius, seems to have made a marvellous impression upon the man. It was in this thirty-third year that he drew completely away from tradition and the achievement of his own and former ages — it was in this year that he found himself. His hand becomes bolder ; his spirit frees itself from the ages ; he rises above the schooling of tradition ; and his confidence is justified and supreme. The superb " Noc- turne in Blue and Gold — Valpar- aiso " is the revelation of the mastery of an original and con- summate genius. It is the perfect thing. The pupil of Velasquez has thrown off the splendid tyr- anny of his master, and stands re- 27 WHISTLER vealed a giant amongst men. He uses colour with an emotional exquisiteness and sense that no man has ever approached. His creative faculty bathes itself in the sheer joy of emotional a- chievement. Beauty of state- ment, ease of statement, have become a confirmed habit. He has come into a kingdom un- dreamed of even by Velasquez ; and he braces himself to his sover- eignty; disciplines himself for its high governance. It is the ec- static moment in which he takes the mystic sacraments of coron- ation. He knows that the sceptre of empire over a king- dom of the imagination is given into his hand ; and, with the can- dour of the conqueror, he accepts it, knowing the power that is behind his throne; knowing, too, that his life must be the keen- 28 HIS CAREER eyed fight of the usurper to keep that throne. . . . He came back to Chelsea, and from her banks painted master- piece after masterpiece in a series of poetic Thames river- pieces. But there is now a wondrous mystic music inhis utterancethat the world has never before heard — a beauty of statement that the world has never before seen. Some magic has fallen upon the vision of the man ; and his skill of hand leaps eagerly to express the poetry that is in him. From now his craftsmanship states emotionally every impression that he desires to express. What has rent the veil and yielded him the mysteries, he himself, may- be, could not have put into pre- cise words, mayhap did not fully realise in terms ; the significant 29 WHISTLER fact remains that he felt it, and his hand's skill could by its wiz- ardry execute it. Two factors seem to have in- fluenced the splendid revelation. His eyes were become opened to the beauty of craftsmanship of the painters of Japan, and to the close affinity and the oneness of the laws of colour with those of music. And he took these twain revelations from Japan and from music, dissolved into them the revelation of Velasquez, and created the beauty of craftsman- ship which makes him one of the painters of the world. . . . In place of palette, Whistler al- ways used a large polished table, set in the full light of the window. In the middle of this he mixed a great patch of the colour he de- cided should be the key to his scheme, and into this he dragged 3° HIS CAREER each colour of his gamut as he used it. He painted his picture so that the object appeared bathed in the same depth of atmosphere within theframeasthe object was bathed in from the eye. In doing so he set himself the most difficult task in painting; and his triumph was complete. Commencing on a neutral grey ground,hesketched in hisscheme in black as a decorative whole, and thenceforth painted over the whole canvas at every painting, so that at each stage the picture wasadvanced as acomplete whole up to that stage. He never paint- ed in patches. Herequired many sittings. In his early work, his paint was thick, bold, vigorous. As his powers increased, he began to paint in hisfinal manner, with the 3 1 WHISTLER paint very liquid and flowing, in a very full brush,using as medium turpentine and linseed oil, and making the ground show under the brushing, and both ground and brushing assist the colour. The stroke of the brush he never softened away or toned down, but used it with directness and firm- ness, that gave an added quality of its own to the enhancement of his workmanship. In painting flowers or the like, the simplicity and boldness of the thing, as a whole, are almost like the broad touches on Oriental China. He held truly that it is the pro- vince of art to interpret — not to imitate. He respected the relation of the tool's work to the size of the picture as much as to its subject; and rightly condemned the use of an etching needle on a large 32 HIS CAREER surface. In large paintings he used large brushes. In oils he made constant use of black with all his colour — in water-colours he did the same with Chinese white. Whistler was so impressed by his discovery of the music that is in colour, that he used, for the first time, as title to his next Academy picture, the phrasing which de- noted the key of his colour scheme. He gave as his reason that Beethoven and the masters of music had so done. As a mat- ter of fact, every artist paints to a harmony of colour — and in call- ing the resulting work by the title of his colour scheme, as musicians often do, confusingly enough, with their schemes of sound, he but states the aim of his crafts- manship and leaves his artistic aim to be guessed. He gains 33 WHISTLER nothing — he gives a title difficult to remember and of little dis- tinction — and he adds no virtue to his work. For, if it come to that, he only says in words what his beauty of craft should utter for itself. However, at thirty-three years, he sent to the Royal Academy the painting " Symphony in White — No. 3 " ; and in the doing, raised the first noisy clatter that brought him into general pub- lic notice. Hamerton made his fatuously famous remark about the " Symphony in White " not being " precisely a symphony in white," owing to other colours being employed. But he de- livered his dazed wits into the hands of the most trenchant scoff- er of his day. Whistler wrote the now famous lines of the masterly criticism : " And does he, in his 34 HIS CAREER astounding consequence, believe that a symphony in F contains no other note, but shall be a continued repetition of F F F ? . . . . Fool!" The beautiful canvasses under Japanese influence quickly fol- lowed : " La Princesse du Pays de laPorcelaine"; "DieLange Lei- zen — of the Six Marks"; "The Golden Screen " ; " The Little White Girl," one of the most perfect and most masterly can- vasses he ever painted; and "The Balcony." He was in his thirty-eighth year when his famed Portrait of his Mother was hung at the Royal Academy after a stormy scene, so scandal wags the tongue,in which it would have been rejected but for the threat of Sir William Box- all to resign. It is a strange com- ment on Whistler's oft-repeated 35 WHISTLER law that only artists could judge the work of artists ! His worst rebuffs came from artists. Surely the pathos, the dignity, the re- signation, and the sweetness of the old age of gentlewomanhood have never been more perfectly set down than on this immortal canvas ! Every beautiful quality of a master hand, colour, form, line, mass, arrangement, elu- siveness, mystery, all seem to have conspired together to utter it. In after years the French nation secured this great canvas for the Luxembourg. It is difficult to know why Whistler let it go to the land of his heaviest rebuffs. Itwas outside all suggestion that Whist- ler would even think of parting with so beloved a thing as long as he had life. It went to France for a paltry hundred and sixty 36 HIS CAREER pounds. But all this was not as yet. In his fortieth year, Whistler held his first exhibition of works in Pall Mali, and for the first time the world saw his "Car- lyle," and the great child-portrait of " Miss Alexander." The por- trait of " Miss Alexander" is un- questionably the supreme por- trait of young girlhood wrought by human hands. The subtle at- mosphere of her age is caught with that power of emotional statement that raised Whistler to the heights — a purity and beauty of statement that is not surpassed even by the painting of the air in which the dainty figure stands with the awkward grace of her years. The whole thing melts and moves. The sweetness and tenderness of the colours, the ex- quisite beauty of the brushwork, 37 WHISTLER therichnessof toneinthegreys — he has ranged the whole gamut of the painter's craft to create a sensitive emotional statement of life that lives for ever in the memory. In the "Carlyle" the country possesses a cherished masterpiece of the first rank through the good taste of a city that is a very home and nursery of art — Glasgow. This was the first picture that brought the artist a thousand pounds. And it does the city fathers eternal credit that they turned a deaf ear to the ratepayers who, suffering from Ruskinitis, raised a storm of protest against the squandering of public money upon it. Whistler's versatility is no less remarkable than his right instinct for style in the use of the sombre greys in this great can- vas which seem to suggest and by 38 HIS CAREER emotional sympathy of tone to tell of the philosophic brooding and the grim old age of one of the greatest masters of the English tongue. In 1877, at forty-three, Butter- fly was to arouse the petulant ill- will of a far greater man than Hamerton. At the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery, Whistler showed his "Irving as Philip the Second of Spain," and a number of " Nocturnes" and other pieces. Ruskin was now the despot of the art world. In art, Ruskin was clouding the national in- tellect ; and his high literary genius was enabling him to pass base coin, when, in an evil mo- ment for himself, he turned peevish unseeing eyes upon the master-work of Whistler, and uttered the now notorious drivel that he wrote down in pompous, 39 WHISTLER solemn fashion enough in Fors 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 im- pudence before now ; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for fling- ing a pot of paint in the public's face." The injustice and the sin of this thing were insane, almost crim- inal. A weaker man than Whist- ler must have been utterly de- stroyed by it — ruined, body and soul. But Ruskin had delivered himself, naked, into the hands of the spoiler. He never spoke 40 THE FUR JACKET HIS CAREER again with the same author- ity. . . . Whistler sued him for libel ; and the doings of those two dark November days when the case came before Baron Huddles- ton and a special jury, became the laughter of the whole country. It was a duel between him and the Attorney-General, with Whist- ler's brilliant wit and passionate belief in his art for seconds on the one side, and the pompous play- fulness and self-satisfaction of the legal luminary screening his ig- norance and trying to make a case out of what he did not understand on the other. The Attorney- General walloped the air with a sandbag, hitting his own nose, perspiring and inanely jocund, slowly realising at last that the keen rapier play of his enemy was shedding his blood and brains all about the cockpit. 4 4.1 WHISTLER It was at this trial that, stupidly badgered by the Attorney-Gen- eral as to whether he asked two hundred guineas for the labour of two days, Whistler made his now famous reply : "No — I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime. 55 And later on, when asked by the Attorney-General : " Do you think that you could make me see the beauty of that picture ? 55 Whistler paused, examined the Attorney-General's face, looked at the picture, and, after much thought, the Court waiting in silence for his answer, said: "No. I fear it would be as hopeless as for the musician to pour his notes into the ears of a deaf man. 55 . . . His farthing damages made him the best talked-about man in the country for many a day, and his pictures advanced in the favour of many who, whilst they could 42 HIS CAREER not fully appreciate his art, ad- mired his courage and his wit. Whistler, when he wore that farthing on his watch-chain for trophy, knew full well the value of that trial to him — realised full well the blow it dealt to Ruskin, which a public subscription to pay that gentleman's costs was unable to mitigate. . . . Out of this devilry, emerged the first of those brown-paper pam- phlets, Whistler v. Ruskin — Art and Art Critics^ in which his caustic wit was to find a quaint means of utterance in marginal notes and "reflections," such as the delicious personality concern- ing Frith,who had givenevidence against him at the Ruskin trial : "It was just a toss up whether I became an artist or an auction- eer," says W. P. Frith, R. A. To which Whistler tacks the re- 43 WHISTLER flection, "He must have tossed up." . . . Thefollowingyear(i 879), which saw his paintings of " Rosa Cor- der" and "Connie Gilchrist Dan- cing/ 5 at the Grosvenor Gallery, he went to Venice, and for nearly two years wrought upon the now famous and exquisite Venetian series of etchings. He showed at the Grosvenor Gallery numer- ous paintings — nocturnes and marines — in 1882 the "Lady Meux," in 1 8 84 the "Lady Colin Campbell." The year 1884 was a memor- able one for Whistler. He was elected, at the age of fifty, a mem- ber of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street: an event that was to lead to another of those storms which helped, far more than his pic- tures, to build up his reputation 44 HIS CAREER in the country. There was threat of whirlwind in Suffolk Street from the beginning. . . . The next year he delivered to crowded houses in London, Ox- ford, and Cambridge his lecture Ten o Clocks in which he gave expression to his theories on art, and discovered himself a poetic and exquisite writer of English prose. It caused a profound sen- sation. This was the year he showed his "Sarasate"in Suffolk Street. The last day of the year was enliv- ened with Whistler's letter to The World about the celebrated Peacock Room which Whistler had decorated for Mr Leyland, whose daughter Mr Val Prinsep, R.A., had married. When the beautiful " La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine " was set up in the Peacock Room as itskeynote, 45 WHISTLER the red of the valuable gilt Span- ish leather upon the walls was found to be out of tone with its colours. Whistler persuaded Mr Leyland to go to his country house ; and, with an assistant, set to work feverishly to paint out the valuable leather with pea- cock-blue and gold. The owner returned to his house to find that Whistler was painting out the whole thousand pounds' worth of leather. Leyland angrily told him that his thousand guineas fee should be reduced to pounds. Whistler insisted on finishing the room. Rid of Leyland, our Butterfly painted upon one of the walls two peacocks, one smoth- ered in a shower of shillings, the other prancing in triumph. The room finished, Whistler sent out invitations broadcast to a priv- ate view, and Leyland departed 4 6 HIS CAREER from his house until it was over ! • • . The quarrel became very bitter. But there were more stirring events abroad for Whistler. His personality and his reputation had brought distinction to the Royal Society of British Artists; the sleepy place had roused to the new ferment, to the footfall of crowds, to find itself famous, sought after — the Latest Thing. He was elected President. Whistler roused the younger bloods with his overwhelming energy. The place blossomed in- to newlife. The man's sharp eyes were everywhere — Whistler al- ways wrought his masterpieces as a whole. The very signboard, with its dreadful blue enamel ground and commonplace com- mercial white lettering, he made into a thing of beauty, with his 47 WHISTLER own restless hand painting over it a red ground with gold letter- ing, and placing upon it the now notorious golden lion and butter- fly. In the butterfly his enemies smelt frank tyranny — they would have back sleep and the blue enamel of commerce rather. There were mutterings. . . . In 1 887, Whistler published his first collection of lithographs, upon which he had been engaged since he was forty-four; the stone was in great favour with him. Then broke the storm in Suffolk Street; then wasf ought thebattle of the Signboard. Whistler had found the society a mere doormat for the Academy — it had become subservient to it by consequence. He tried to raise the society to independence. He stopped the plastering of its walls with medi- ocre work and the trash of the 48 4 HIS CAREER studios, whilst the members sent their best work to the Academy. Now, for some years its annual sales had gone up a thousand a year. At his election they stood at £8000. They began to come down with a run. The older mem- bers,irritated by Whistler's domi- neering ways, utterly baffled and bewildered by his art, and, above all, frightened at the decline of their sales, compelled his resigna- tion in 1888, settling into stolid jogtrot again under Sir Wyke Bayliss. The younger men of promise seceded with Whistler, or, as he wittily put it, " the Art- ists have come out and the Brit- ish remain." . . . There was some washing of dirty linen. Rid of Whistler, the triumphant oppos- ition cleansed the place of all stain of the tyrant — from the sign- board was blotted the baneful 49 WHISTLER butterfly, the golden lion was painted black. In this the year of his abdication, he published Ten d Clock ; and the last year of the 'eighties saw him elected to the Royal Aca- demy of Munich. The 'nineties opened with some- thing of a roar for Whistler. He had collected, and now, in his fifty-sixth year, published in book form, with his characteristic brown-paper boards and dainty gold lettering for cover, as The Gentle Art of Making Enemies , the more brilliant, caustic, and witty of the letters which he delighted to write to the press in answer to critics, setting amidst them the very fine prose work, " Ten o' Clock," together with a bitingly satirical and whimsically anno- tated edition of the Ruskin trial, making much comical use of the 5° HIS CAREER marginal comment. The book had a wide vogue — it tickled a large public to whom his high achievement in art was Greek or boredom — the human al- ways turns aside from the more serious business of life to watch a dog-fight. It did more — it estab- lished Whistler as a brilliant writer of prose; and it set up such nervous dread amongst the critics that from the day of its appear- ance he became immune from attack. Listen to this : " And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor build- ings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimney sbecome campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us — then 5 1 WHISTLER the wayfarer hastens home ; the working man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see ; and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master — her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her/' But the bulk of the book is the record of his quarrels ; and such things are best forgot at setting of the sun. Whistler played catch- as-catch-can with an open razor. For when all's said, and the face draws serious after the laugh, we become aware that he has set up as picture of himself an acrid- witted and somewhat unlovely figure which was scarce even the half-truth of the man, but which was straightway accepted as his 5 2 HIS CAREER whole confession. The charm and fascination of the man, his tenderness, as in the case of the broken artist Holloway as he lay dying in want andpenury — these things do not make the ghost of an appearance. Whistler himself felt this sense of blight. At that great May-Day banquet of his life, when England rendered him homage, there is something ter- ribly pathetic in the sight of this man of genius, at the topmost summit of his achievement, of worldwide repute, fifty-five years of his stormy life behind him and thebattle won, rising with friend- lyfacesgreeting him, and making his great public confession that he had had to "wrap himself in a species of misunderstanding, as the traveller of the fable drew closer about him the folds of his cloak the more bitterly the storm 53 WHISTLER assailed him on the way." Facing the sorry hours and the vanished disdains of his pilgrimage, he re- vealed the larger emotions of his manhood. Whistler had a soul that soared high above the froth of mere epigram. It is not in his book, but in his art that you shall find him. A year or two before he was sixty, he brought together the famous show of 1892 at Goupil's Gal- leries, "Nocturnes, Marines, and Chevalet pieces." His reputa- tion and his position were now secure, and the world of taste flocked to render homage. Such as could not feel the artistic emo- tion of his work kept silence — afraid to be thought dullards. His contempt had now the fur- nace - blast to wither reputa- tions. Insincerity in praise was become as widespread as afore- 54 HIS CAREER time was fatuity in blame. From this time to the very end, he produced good work, but the flame burns less hotly. He was a born fighter — mark the uptilt of the pugnacious nose ; but there was now nobody to fight — no giant to slay. Peace had settled upon his kingdom. He slowly died of it. Whistler went abroad and, roam- ing through Brittany, drifted to Paris, taking a studio in the Rue du Bac. His sixty-first year saw him back in England again. The winter gave London the chance of seeing his lithographs. The next year he was settled in London again ; and he published his masterly lithographs of the Thames — many done from the Savoy Hotel, where his wife lay ill. But the year held tragedy for 55 WHISTLER him. His wife, the widow of the architect Godwin, and a woman of considerable artistic talent her- self, died, and left Whistler a sad and lonely man. He had married late in life ; and the marriage had been a very happy one. In her death he lost his chiefest com- rade. He never wholly recov- ered from the blow. His intimate friends, the Pennells, William Heinemann, and others, came the closer to him ; and his admirers amongst the artists gathered to his standard. In 1898 Francis Howard conceived the plan of, and founded, the society which is the most vigorous artistic body in this country to-day — the In- ternational Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers — and at sixty-four Whistler was made its first President. But the great fight was done, 5 6 HIS CAREER Whistler brought honour to sev- eral foreign societies, by becom- ing a member; and they will point with pride in the years to come to their distinction. But the man himself was above all honours offered by academies — his high achievement is the patent of his nobility, his claim to immortality. In 1899 he tried to repeat his success of The Gentle Art with his pamphlet of The Baronet and the Butterfly ; but he broke the butterfly on a rather clumsy wheel. His quarrel with Sir William Eden about his wife's portrait was too parochial to stir the public pulse. It was the slayer of lions condescending to the rat-hunt. There was a sense of stooping. The old war-dog was growling at shadows — see- ing ghosts in the twilight of life. 5 57 WHISTLER His hand's skill never left him. He was working to the last. In the spring and early summer of 1903 he was slowly failing — but he died rather suddenly on the seventeenth day of July, in the beginning of his seventieth year. Without honour in his own country, Whistler didnothesitate to fling a jibe at the " British " of whosebloodhewas; and amongst whom he had honour when honour elsewhere he had none. But he was a Londoner to the bone. When the coming generations go a pilgrimage to Whistler's shrine, it is to England, to Lon- don, that they will come. In London he made his home ; in London he won to honour and to fame ; in London he fought the splendid battle of his life like some 58 HIS CAREER strutting dandy of an antique day ; London he wove into his splendid dreams ; and it was to London that he came to die. He was of the British blood ; and he won home to the home of his people. All the world may claim him ; but his heart was in London — and lies buried in London. And, in the drizzle of that July day, as the silent body of that once so vital spirit, covered now in its purple pall, passed along the dingy highway of his beloved Chelsea, with scent of many flowers, to its last resting-place, it seemed but right that he should sleep in London town. THAT WHICH HE SPOKE The crest of the Whistlers is a harp of gold, stringed with black strings. All that this man's pen wrote was uttered with a sense of style that was golden, but its music was sombre with the black asperities of one who has drained the lees of misunderstanding. Whistler's fame at large was due to his personality and his pen as much as to his superb achieve- ment in art ; yet his instinct in art never faltered, his pen was often at fault. But his faults were due to his con- fusion of Art with Craft. The artist fortunately follows his in- 6q THAT WHICH HE SPOKE stincts, not his reason. If what Whistler said of Art be spoken of Craft, then we come nearer to the verities. All these quarrels of the schools, these "movements," are quarrels of craftsmanship — not of art at all. What is the ultimate significance of art ? The most vastly interesting thing to man is Life. Whence it comes, whither it goes — these are a part of the eternal mystery. But we can and ought to know all of life 'twixt its coming and its going. We can only know of life in two ways — either by personal ex- perience or, at second hand, by the transference to us of the ex- perience of our fellows. Now, our personal adventures in 61 WHISTLER life, even though we bestride the world like a Napoleon, can at best be but a small and parochial affair, when all's said, as against the mul- titudinous experience of our gen- eration. Shut off from commun- ion with our fellows we walk but in a blind man's parish. Now we may know of life through our fellows by the transference of their sensations to us — for, just as by Speech we communicate our thoughts to others, so by Art may we communicate our emo- tions through our senses to their senses, whether by sound, as in music ; or the emotional use of words, as in the poetry of verse or prose or oratory ; or by the sight, as by colour in painting ; or by form, as in sculpture ; or by the union of these, as in the drama or architecture or the like. 62 THAT WHICH HE SPOKE Art is the Emotional Statement of Life. Speech is the intelligent utter- ance of Thought ; Art is the in- telligent utterance of Emotion. Craft is the grammar of Art — the means by which Art is uttered. Now, it is not enough to have uttered a Thought to account it Speech ; it is vital that the Thought shall be so uttered as to arouse the like thought in the hearer — otherwise are we but in a Babel of Strange Sounds. It is not enough to have uttered Emo- tion to account it Art ; it is vital that the Emotion shall be so uttered as to arouse the like emotion in the onlooker ; other- wise are we but in the tangled Whirl of Confusion. And just as Thought is the more perfectly understood as it is deftly ex- 63 WHISTLER pressed, so is Emotion the more powerfully transmitted as it is most perfectly uttered. Crafts- manship is the perfection or beauty of statement by and through which Art is uttered. A poker may be a beautiful thing — it is not art. A photograph may be beautiful—it is not art. A woman may be beautiful — she is not art. Art must create — it must transfer Sensation from the creator to us. The Greek genius set up Beauty as the ultimate goal of Life — it therefore set up Beauty as the ul- timate goal of Art. The Greeks did really mean that Beauty of Craftsmanship alone was not enough — that Art must create Beauty. This absolute aim to achieve Beauty was the cause of the triumph of Greece in Art — a greatly over- rated triumph 6 4 THAT WHICH HE SPOKE when stated against the meaning of life, and one of which the schoolmasters tell us much ; it was also the cause of her limita- tions and of her eventual failure to achieve the supreme mastery, of which we hear little. For, splendid as was the mighty a- chievement of Greece, she never reached to the majesty and the grandeur of that masterpiece of sculpture that stands upon the edge of Africa, head and shoulders above her achievement, in the wondrous thing that is called the Sphinx. The genius of Egypt spent itself upon the majesty and the mystery of life — and it moved thereby to a higher a- chievement. When a school arose, but a little while ago, that had for its battle- cry the still smaller aim of Art for Art's sake, it really meant that 65 WHISTLER Art was for Craft's sake — that the aim of Art lay solely in the beauty of its Craftsmanship, They would have the play of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. In the deeps of their confusion, what they said was this : that if a master-hand paint- ed a wall white, by his mastery of trick of thumb he created Art! Whistler would have us believe that it is the province of Art to say Nothing very Beautifully ; his instincts and his genius made no such mistake. He is the master of emotional statement. He said that Art was the Science of the Beautiful — which were no mean definition of Craft, and had been no bad definition of Art, but that Art is not Science and is not Beauty. It is of the wisdom of the wiseacres who defined a Crab 66 THAT WHICH HE SPOKE as a scarlet reptile that walks backwards — which were not so bad, had it been a reptile, had it been scarlet, and had it walked backwards. Art concerns itself with tears and pathos and tragedy and ugliness and greyness and the agonies of life as much as with laughter and comedy and beauty. Neither Whistler nor another has the right to narrow the acreage of the garden of life. What con- cern has Shakespeare with Beau- ty? In the Book that Shake- speare wrote, Beauty is not his god — Beauty is not his ultimate aim. Is jealousy beautiful ? Yet Othello is great art. Is man's in- effectual struggle against destiny beautiful ? Yet Hamlet is rightly accounted the masterpiece of the ages. Are hate and despair and fear beautiful ? It has been writ- 6 7 WHISTLER ten that Millet's "Killing of a Hog" is beautiful. It is wholly unbeautiful. Had Millet made it beautiful he had uttered the stu- pidest of lies. Nevertheless, the statement of it may be Art. In- deed, Millet's aim in art, a large part of his significance in art, is a protest against the pettiness of mere beauty. He took the earth, this great-souled man, and he wrought with a master's state- ment the pathos and the tragedy and the might and the majesty of the earth and of them that toil upon the earth. The " Man with the Hoe " is far more than beauti- ful — it holds the vast emotions of man's destiny to labour, and of man's acceptance of that destiny ; it utters the ugliness as loudly as it states the beauty of the earth and of toil ; and it most rightly utters these things, so that they 68 THAT WHICH HE SPOKE take equal rank, and thereby add to our knowledge of the emotions of life through the master's pow- er and the beauty of craftsman- ship whereby he so solemnly ut- tered the truth. Art is not an oil-painting on can- vas in a gilt frame. Art is not the exclusive toy of a few prigs — nor the password of a cult. Art is universal, eternal — not pa- rochial. Every man is an artist in his degree — every man is moved by art in his degree. For one act of our day to which we are moved by reason, we are moved to a score by the emotions — by instinct. It was exactly in his confusion of Art with Beauty that Whistler fell short of the vastnesses. There are far greater emotions than mere beauty ; and it was just in> these very majestic qualities, in the 6 9 I WHISTLER sense of the sublime and of the immensities, before which his exquisite and subtle genius stood mute. But at least one of the greater senses was given to him in abundance — the sense of mys- tery. He never "sucked ideas dry." His splendid instinct told him that suggestion was the soul of craftsmanship, and he never overstated the details of life. Out of the mystic twilight he caught the haunting sense of its half- revelation and its elusiveness with an exquisite emotional use of colour ; and in the seeing he caught a glimpse of the hem of the garment of God. For when all's said, and the last eager craving denied, it is all a mystery, this splendid wayfar- ing that we call Life ; and it is well so, lest the reason reel. That which is set down in clear 70 THAT WHICH HE SPOKE fulness ; that of which the know- ledge is completely exhausted, shall not satisfy the hunger of the imagination — for the imagina- tion leapsbeyond it. That which is completely stated, stands out clear and precise ; we know the whole tale ; it is finished. But that which stands amidst the shadows, with one foot with- drawn, that which is half hid in the mysteries of the unknown, holds the imagination and com- pels it. If man once peeped within the half-open door and saw his God, where He sits in His Majesty, though the vision blinded him, his imagination would create a greater. . . . # THE WORLD OF ART SERIES I. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLD JAPAN. ®r STEWART DICK. CONTAINING 30 FULL-PAGE AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. SM. QUARTO, 3/6 Net. 100 Copies on Hand- made Paper y 10/6 net. " A prettily illustrated and instructive little monograph. ... It discourses appreciatively and with a knowledge only too rare in the less luxurious books on these sub- jects. It would be hard to find a better or more attrac- tive introduction to the intimate study of artistic Jap- anesery." — Scotsman. " Mr Dick's wide knowledge, his enthusiasm too, is great, .... imparts a very distinct charm to his treatment. . . . Neatly and substantially got up, and very beautifully illustrated." — Glasgow Herald. "An interesting and well-decorated volume." — Westminster Gazette. "A very attractive little volume." — Graphic. " It is very well done." — York- shirePost. "A charming and instructive book. Weknow of no book that within such modest limits contrives to convey so much trustworthy information on Japanese art. . . . The illustrations are capital." — Literary THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE BEING ARRANGED FOR — II. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT. III. THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND. IV. CELTIC ART PRESS OPINIONS World. T. N. 3 FREDERICK STREET EDINBURGH 35 LEICESTER SQUARE, LONDON "THE 'BUTTERFLY AS WASP" A PORTRAIT CARICATURE OF WHISTLER BT JOSEPH SIMPSON Mr FOULIS will issue this unique cari- cature of THE MASTER in an edition strictly limited to 100 artist's proofs on Japanese paper. Price 3/6 net. NOW READY. THE LIFE OF OMAR AL - KHAYYAmI. By J. K. M. Shirazi. With Persian decora- tions throughout in colours and gold, 7/6 net. 250 copies on hand-made paper and with hand-illuminated covers from Persia, 21/- net. "This is the most important contribution we have yet received on Omar criticism." — Glasgow Herald. LITTLE PROSE MASTERPIECES: a series printed on hand-made paper, with initials in red, at 6d., i/-, and 2/6 net. I. Rab and his Friends. II. Wandering Willie's Tale. III. Our Ladies of Sorrow. IV. Hand and Soul. ESSAYS OF ELIA. 2/6 net. "This edition de luxe of Lamb's Essays is with- out doubt the most astonishing half-crown's worth ever offered to the public The title- page and initial letters are beautiful specimens of the designer's art." — East Anglian Times. Catalogue sent on receipt of postcard T. N. FOULIS 3 FREDERICK STREET EDINBURGH 35 LEICESTER SQUARE, LONDON A FEW PRESS OPINIONS "THE MASTERFOLK" " A virile, arresting piece of fiction." — Pall Mall Gazette. " The book holds us, grips us from the start, and makes us loth to put it down till we have finished it. ... A great underlying insight into human nature. . . . Mr Macfall has the gift of characterisation in a very high degree ; he can produce the impression he desires in a few quick strokes, and among the very large number of persons to whom he introduces us there is not one forgotten." — Daily Tele- graph. "The most interesting book we have read for a long time past. . . . An epic of modern life. ... In every way, in matter as well as in manner, in its breadth and in- dividuality of view as well as in literary execution, this is a remarkable book." — Morning Advertiser. " Mr Macfall attains to the grand manner : he has an air. There is a passage ... to which Thackeray would not have been ashamed to put his name. . . . Mr Macfall has something of the magnificence of the old masters." — Pall Mall Gazette. 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I should have felt inclined to hail him as -a Thackeray in the making. Perchance he may be." — Court Circular. THE MASTERFOLK" Sr HAUDADiE MACFALL CROWN 8VO, CLOTH 6/- WM. HEINEMANN, LONDON SOME APHORISMS FROM "THE MASTERFOLK" Sr HAUDASHE MACFALL "LIFE IS A GREAT THOU SHALT— NOT AN ENFEEBLING INCUBUS OF BELITTLING THOU SHALT NOTS." THE MASTERFOLK. "THE GREATEST POET CAN AT BEST BUT WRITE A POEM; IT IS THE BIRTHRIGHT OF EVERY MAN TO LIVE ONE." THE MASTER- FOLK. "LIVE THY LIFE FULL; DO NOT RUSH THY MERE THREADING WAY THROL'GH A CROWD TO MEAN GOALS." THE MASTERFOLK. "RELIGION IS NOT IN OUR SOLEMN GOINGS TO CHURCH, BUT IN THE SWEET THINGS THAT WE DO BETWEEN — IN THESE OUR LITTLE WANDERINGS TO AND FRO." THE MASTERFOLK. "THERE IS NO VIRTUE IN A DOLEFUL COUNTENANCE FOR JOY IS SERIOUS AS SORROW— COMEDY AS SERIOUS AS TRAGEDY. LIFE IS SERIOUS AS DEATH." THE MASTER- FOLK. "THEY THAT GRUB FOR WEALTH AS AN END, ARE LIKE MAD SWINE THAT BURY THEIR EYES IN NOISOME SWILL, UNSUSPECT- ING THAT LIFE IS A GLORIOUS PAGEANT— AND GOES BY." THE MASTERFOLK. * "DOMINION GOES TO THE RACE— IT IS MIGHTIER TO BE OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE MASTERFOLK THAN TO HOLD THE KING'S BAUBLES OVER WEAKLINGS." THE MASTERFOLK. "THE MASTERFOLK" Sr HAUDASiE MACFALL CROWN 8VO, CLOTH 6/- WM. HEINEMANN, LONDON PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, LIMITED EDINBURGH t T, H. FOU EDINBURGH <5t LONDON ■ 4