Lesson Two

Art as Art Movement in American Higher Education

and

The Doctrine of Ethnic Origin of Cultural Meaning


JAMES A. McNEILL WHISTLER
THE RED RAG
The Rag which made the Victorian bull of taste see red was Whistler's practice of giving his pictures names that suggested their "abstract" qualities, instead of the usual storytelling titles. He was among the first to formulate openly and to defend the importance of what has now become a consciously accepted quality of art.
Cheyenne Walk, London, May, 1878
Why should not I call my works "symphonies," "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric?" Yes, "eccentric" is the adjective they find for me.

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture a picture, apart from any story which may be supposed to tell.

My picture of a Harmony in Grey and Gold is an illustration of my meaning--a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture. Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.

They say, "Why not call it Trotty Veck, and sell it for a round harmony of golden guineas?"--naively acknowledging that, without baptism, there is no . . . market!

But even commercially this stocking of your shop with the goods of another would be indecent--custom alone has made it dignified. Not even the popularity of Dickens should be invoked to lend an adventitious aid to art of another kind from his. I should hold it a vulgar and meretricious trick to excite people about Trotty Veck when, if they really could care for pictorial art at all, they would know that the picture should have its own merit, and not depend upon dramatic, or legendary, or local interest.

As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour.

The great musicians knew this. Beethoven and the rest wrote music--simply music; symphony in this key, concerto or sonata in that . . .

Art should be independent of all claptrap should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works "arrangements" and "harmonies."

Take the picture of my mother, exhibited at the Royal Academy as an Arrangement in Grey and Black. Now that is what it is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the portrait?

The imitator is a poor kind of creature. If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this; in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day; to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; arrangement of colours to treat a flower as his key, not his model.
WHISTLER VS. RUSKIN:
ART AND ART CRITICS
On July 2, 1877, John Ruskin wrote in Fors Clavigera: "I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." In November, 1878, Whistler sued Ruskin, onetime defender of the pre-Raphaelites, for damages for libel. The jury brought in a verdict for the plaintiff, and awarded him damages of one farthing! Here, written one month later, are extracts from Whistler's comments on the proceedings. Chelsea, December, 1818 Over and over again did the Attorney-General cry out loud, in the agony of his cause, "What is to become of painting if the critics withhold their leash?" As well might be asked what is to become of mathematics under similar circumstances, were they possible. I maintain that two and two the mathematician would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five. We are told that Mr. Ruskin has devoted his long life to art, and as a result--is "Slade Professor" at Oxford. In the same sentence, we have thus his position and its worth. It suffices not, Messieurs! A life passed among pictures makes not a painter--else the policeman in the National Gallery might assert himself. As well allege that he who lives in a library must needs die a poet. Let not Mr. Ruskin flatter himself that more education makes the difference between himself and the policeman when both stand gazing in the Gallery. . .The Attorney-General said, "There are some people who would do away with critics altogether." I agree with him, and am of the irrationals he points at--but let me be clearly understood--the art critic alone would I extinguish. That writers should destroy writings to the benefit of writing is reasonable. Who but they shall insist upon beauties of literature, and discard the demerits of their brother literateurs? In their turn they will be destroyed by other writers, and the merry game goes on till truth prevail. Shall the painter then--I foresee the question--decide upon painting? Shall he be the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this supposition, I fear that, in the length of time, his assertion alone has established what even the gentlemen of the quill accept as the canons of art, and recognize as the masterpieces of work.
THE TEN O'CLOCK
One day Whistler decided to gather together his friends and above all his enemies and lay down the law. He invited them to a lecture at ten o'clock. With false modesty he began: "It is with great hesitation and much misgiving that I appear before you in the character of The Preacher." He then proceeded to reassert the artist's absolute independence of society, of the public, of the critics, and of his audience. The Ten O'clock had such a succes de scandale that Whistler repeated it in March at Oxford and in April at Cambridge. Contrast this with Camille Pissarro's ideas on the artist and his contemporary world. Wouldn't it be better to soak yourself in nature? I don't hold the view that we have been fooling ourselves and rightly should worship the steam engine, with the great majority. No, a thousand times no! We are here to show the way! According to you, salvation lies with the primitives, the Italians. According to me this incorrect. Salvation lies in nature, now more than ever.  London, February 20, 1885 Listen! There never was an artistic period! There never was an art-loving nation.

And the people questioned not, and had nothing to say in the matter. So Greece was in its splendour and Art reigned supreme--by force of fact, not by election--and there was no meddling from the outsider . . . Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all picture; as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful--as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano.

That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as tin-true, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong; that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all.

For Art and Joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand--fearing nought, and dreading no exposure. Know, then, all beautiful women, that we are with you. Pay no heed, we pray you, to this outcry of the unbecoming-this last plea for the plain.
 

 
ART AND EFFORT [1885?]

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared. To say of a picture, as is often said in its praise, that it shows great and earnest labour, is to say that it is incomplete and unfit. Industry in art is a necessity--not a virtue--and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone will efface the footsteps of work. The work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow--suggests no effort--and is finished from its beginning.
 
 

ART AND NATIONALITY [Paris, August 21, 1886]

Learn then, . . . that there is no such thing as English Art. You might as well talk of English Mathematics. Art is Art, and Mathematics is Mathematics. What you call English Art, is not Art at all, but produce, of which there is, and always has been, and always will be, a plenty, whether the men producing it are dead and called--, (I refer you to your own selection, far be it from me to choose), or alive and called--, whosoever you like as you turn over the Academy catalogue.

 

THE ROMANTIC POSITION

 The particular things you are asked to read may at times defy your idea of what is relevant to the course. The discussion will bring certain threads of thought together and relate them to the whole. This lesson will explore certain ideas prevalent in the nineteenth century and the attitudes of many white intellectuals toward the American Indian at that time. Often, it is not that the larger society intended to treat the Indian badly, but it is rather that they hold a set of assumptions which lead to a regrettable conclusion. Read with care William Cullen Bryant's Inscription to The Entrance of a Wood.
          Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
        No school of long experience, that the world
        Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
        Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
        To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
        And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
        Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
        That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
        To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
        Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
        And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
        Fell, It is true, upon the unsinning earth,

        But not in vengeance: God hath yoked to guilt
        Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades
        Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
        Of green and stirring branches is alive
        And musical with birds, that sing and sport
        In wantonness of spirit; while below
        The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
        Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
        Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam
        That waked them into life. Even the green trees
        Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
        To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
        Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
        Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
        Existence, than the winged plunderer
        That sucks its sweets. The mossy rocks themselves,
        And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
        That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude
        Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
        With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
        Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet
        Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed
        Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks,
        Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
        In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
        Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
        That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
        That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
        Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass
        Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.

 The artist Asher B. Durand painted a picture called Kindred Spirits. In this he shows his friend Bryant with the artist Thomas Cole. The idea of kindred spirit is both between the two men and the men and nature. Now examine a series of paintings by Cole called the Course of the Empire #1 (#1 in detail), #2, #3, #4, or #5. Here we see five scenes of the same setting in which we see the rise and fall of the civilization. Look especially closely at the first one where in a detail we see Cole's concept of the American Indian. What are the assumptions Cole is making about the development of mankind and where in that development does he put American Indians, Stonehenge, the ancient Romans etc.?

Write an essay on one of the following discussion questions:

1. If Whistler is right that "art is art" then what can be meant by Indian Art? Explore as fully as you can.

2. If Cole is right in the underlying implication of the Course of the Empire series, does it explain the thinking of the Nineteenth Century Americans on the place of Indians in the social order? Could they see the art in the same way they saw their own art or was it simply the product of "child-like" people? Or, was it that art itself was not taken seriously as one might scientific truth?