The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 36

If an aesthete, the Bard is no collector!

[Ill.u.s.tration]]

It is a cruel but an inevitable Nemesis which reduces even a man of real genius, keen-witted and sharp-sighted, to the level of the critic Jobson, to the level of the _dotard and the dunce_, when paradox is discoloured by personality and merriment is distorted by malevolence.(!) No man who really knows the qualities of Mr. Whistler's best work will imagine that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer, of j.a.panese womanhood as represented in its professional types of beauty; but to all appearance he would fain persuade us that he does.

In the latter of the two portraits to which I have already referred there is an expression of living character.... This, however, is an exception to the general rule of Mr. Whistler's way of work: an exception, it may be alleged, which proves the rule. A single infraction of the moral code, a single breach of artistic law, suffices to vitiate the position of the preacher. And this is no slight escapade, or casual aberration; it is a full and frank defiance, a deliberate and elaborate denial, hurled right in the face of j.a.panese jocosity, flung straight in the teeth of the theory which condemns high art, under penalty of being considered intelligent, to remain eternally on the grin.

[Sidenote: _REFLECTION:_

A keen commercial summing up--excused by the "Great Emperor!"

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If it be objected that to treat this theorem gravely is "to consider too curiously" the tropes and the phrases of _a jester_ of genius, I have only to answer that it very probably may be so, but that the excuse for such error must be sought in the existence of the genius. A man of genius is scarcely at liberty to choose whether he shall or shall not be considered as a serious figure--one to be acknowledged and respected as an equal or a superior, not applauded and dismissed as _a tumbler or a clown_. And if the better part of Mr. Whistler's work as an artist is to be accepted as the work of a serious and intelligent creature, it would seem incongruous and preposterous to dismiss the more characteristic points of his theory as a lecturer with the chuckle or the shrug of mere amus.e.m.e.nt or amazement.

Moreover, if considered as a joke, a mere joke, and nothing but a joke, this gospel of the grin has hardly matter or meaning enough in it to support so elaborate a structure of paradoxical rhetoric. It must be taken, therefore, as something serious in the main; and if so taken, and read by the light reflected from Mr. Whistler's more characteristically brilliant canvases, it may not improbably recall a certain phrase of Moliere's which at once pa.s.sed into a proverb--"Vous etes orfevre, M. Josse." That worthy tradesman, it will be remembered, was of opinion that nothing could be so well calculated to restore a drooping young lady to mental and physical health as the present of a handsome set of jewels. _Mr. Whistler's opinion that there is nothing like leather--of a jovial and j.a.panese design--savours somewhat of the Oriental cordwainer._

"_Et tu, Brute!_"

Why, O brother! did you not consult with me before printing, in the face of a ribald world, _that you also misunderstand_, and are capable of saying so, with vehemence and repet.i.tion.

Have I then left no man on his legs?--and have I shot down the singer in the far off, when I thought him safe at my side?

Cannot the man who wrote _Atalanta_--and the _Ballads_ beautiful,--can he not be content to spend his life with _his_ work, which should be his love,--and has for him no misleading doubt and darkness--that he should so stray about blindly in his brother's flowerbeds and bruise himself!

Is life then so long with him, and _his_ art so short, that he shall dawdle by the way and wander from his path, reducing his giant intellect--garrulous upon matters to him unknown, that the scoffer may rejoice and the Philistine be appeased while he takes up the parable of the mob and proclaims himself their spokesman and fellow-sufferer? O Brother! where is thy sting! O Poet! where is thy victory!

How have I offended! and how shall you in the midst of your poisoned page hurl with impunity the boomerang rebuke? "Paradox is discoloured by personality, and merriment is distorted by malevolence."

Who are you, deserting your Muse, that you should insult my G.o.ddess with familiarity, and the manners of approach common to the reasoners in the marketplace. "Hearken to me," you cry, "and I will point out how this man, who has pa.s.sed his life in her wors.h.i.+p, is a tumbler and a clown of the booths--how he who has produced that which I fain must acknowledge--is a jester in the ring!"

Do we not speak the same language? Are we strangers, then, or, in our Father's house are there so many mansions that you lose your way, my brother, and cannot recognize your kin?

Shall I be brought to the bar by my own blood, and be borne false witness against before the plebeian people? Shall I be made to stultify myself by what I never said--and shall the strength of your testimony turn upon me? "If"--"If j.a.panese Art is right in confining itself to what can be broidered upon the fan" ... and again ...

"that he really believes the highest expression of his art to be realized in reproduction of the grin and glare, the smirk and leer"

... and further ... "the theory which condemns high art, under the penalty of being considered intelligent, to remain eternally on the grin" ... and much more!

"Amateur writer!" Well should I deserve the reproach, had I ventured ever beyond the precincts of my own science--and fatal would have been the exposure, as you, with heedless boldness, have unwittingly proven.

Art tainted with philanthropy--that better Art result!--Poet and Peabody!

You have been misled--you have mistaken the pale demeanour and joined hands for an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual earnestness. For you, these are the serious ones, and, for them, you others are the serious matter. Their joke is their work. For me--why should I refuse myself the grim joy of this grotesque tragedy--and, with them now, you all are my joke!

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_Freeing a Last Friend_

Bravo! Bard! and exquisitely written, I suppose, as becomes your state.

[Sidenote: _The World_, June 3, 1888. Letter to Mr.

Swinburne.]

The scientific irrelevancies and solemn popularities, less elaborately embodied, I seem to have met with before--in papers signed by more than one serious and unqualified sage, whose mind also was not narrowed by knowledge.

I have been "personal," you say; and, faith! you prove it!

Thank you, my dear! I have lost a _confrere_; but, then, I have gained an acquaintance--one Algernon Swinburne--"outsider"--Putney.

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_An Editor's Anxiety_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 26, 1889.]

It is reported that Mr. Whistler, having received word that a drawing of his had been rejected by the Committee of the Universal Exhibition, arrived yesterday in Paris and withdrew all his remaining works, including an oil painting and six drawings. The French consider that he has been guilty of a breach of good manners. The _Paris_, for instance, points out that, after sending his works to the jury, he should have accepted their judgment, and appealed to the public by other methods.

_Ra.s.surez vous!_

_TO THE EDITOR:_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 27, 1889.]

Sir--You are badly informed--a risk you constantly run in your haste for pleasing news.

I have not "withdrawn" my works "from the forthcoming Paris Exhibition."

I transported my pictures from the American department to the British section of the "Exposition Internationale," where I prefer to be represented.

"The French" have nothing, so far, to do with English or American exhibits.

A little paragraph is a dangerous thing.

And I am, Sir,