Studio: international art (83.1922)

REVIEWS

ultra modern. It is on the mental side
that his work is most important, and there
his kinship is with the symbolism, almost
the hieroglyphic, of early eras. This work
would probably infuriate these who like
their art easy and playful, without any
meaning in particular. He is no painter
for “ the tired business man " ; indeed,
some of his work would be incompre-
hensible to the general without explana-
tion ; but it is a challenge to the idea that
art should be a thing apart from life, for
his brush is a pen wherewith he writes,
in a way no ordinary pen could write, of
the Sick Garden (which is, of course, the
sick soul) or the Red Paradise and the
difficult paths beset by poison-flowers
and temptations which we must tread to
reach it. Even when he descends to the
realm of portraiture he carries his dis-
secting knife with him with moral pur-
pose. In his studio there is an unforget-
table lady with her cold little soul laid
bare quite unpleasantly—for the lady.
On the whole his attitude towards life is
happy and joyous, sin and difficulties are
ogres to be overcome, and as for paint,
colour, technique—these are the warrior's
armour. After all, a suitable attitude for
a son of unbeaten Belgium. Belgium's
immolation has, however, sunk deep into
his soul and his feelings are shown in Le
Bucher des Gloires, where the Saints rise up
in judgment against the hated incendiaries
of the Library of Louvain, 000

Le Jardin Malade is now at the Salon
des Independants, Paris, where with a
portrait of Maeterlinck it has created a
sensation. 0 0 0 J. W. S.

REVIEWS

The Whistler Journal. By E. R. and J.
Pennell, authors of the Authorised Life
of James McN. Whistler. (Philadelphia
and London : J. B. Lippincott Co.) ** This
book needs no preface or apology or ex-
planation. It is the story of the life Whistler
lived with us during the three years after he
asked us to write it, and the story he told us
of the sixty-six previous years of his
troubled, triumphal career." After thus
introducing the Journal, which, in addition
to their personal experiences, contains many
interesting reminiscences gathered from

other sources since Whistler's death, the
authors assure us that “ Whistler's fame
has vastly increased," that “ Whistler’s
fame grows," and that " the name and
fame of Whistler will endure " ; but we
cannot help thinking that regard for the
man they believe to have been the most
distinguished artist of his time, ought to
have led them to withhold much of the
gossip about his private life to which they
have given publicity. We are told that he
was “ strictly and religiously brought up "
by his mother, who, though " Jimmie " was
her favourite, was never quite in sympathy
with him or his work, and that when she
lived with him in Chelsea it was a succes-
sion of shocks—“ once she came up to the
studio to find the parlourmaid standing to
him for the nude." There is a good deal
about his life in Paris in the early days, the
chief incident being a violent encounter
with Legros ; and the story of the quarrel
with the Leylands is recounted at length.
His long cherished grievance against the
Royal Academy is also made much of. 0

** During his life the Academicians spurned him.

. . Whistler’s name was put down at one time

for membership . . . but he was never elected.

. . We are positive that to the day of his death

he would have accepted membership, just as he
would have accepted the knighthood which he and
everybody else thought would be given him when
he was President of the Society of British Artists
and obtained for it the title of Royal. . . . Had

they made him their second American President, it
would have vastly increased the Academy's prestige
in Europe.” 00000

Strangely enough, the blame for his ex-
clusion is laid at the door of the American
members of the Academy—Leslie, Sargent,
Abbey, Mark Fisher (who did not join the
Royal Academy till some years after Whist-
ler’s death), and J. J, Shannon, who, it is
said, could easily have elected him; though
when we turn to the appendix dealing with
the legal documents in the Ruskin case
(which now form part of the Whistler col-
lection at Washington), we find it is the
natives who were at fault : 0 0 0

“ The fact that Whistler was an American may have
had something to do with the personal feeling shown
in the Ruskin brief. No American artist has gone to
England who has not had to fight, who has not had a
hard time of it. Even though West became President
of the Royal Academy, it was by no means always easy
for him, and members have often wished the others
who have followed him into the Academy out of the
way and their places filled by natives.” 0 0

It is a pity statements such as these should
have been allowed to appear in print. We

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