New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-01-17
make the Royal Academy byword on the CONT

make the Royal Academy a byword on the Coh'
nent
1t is probable that the Philistinc of France
understands Mr. Whistler and his art little oeltei
than the Philistine of England. Mr.. whistler
stands in relation to art not far from where Shele'
once stood in relation 10 literature Each OF 'heu
is too human TO he quite faultless There are
stains upon Shelley's name, and like all poets he
has left some verse he had better have blotted'
There is a point also where Mr. Whisters lndi-
viduality leads him astray where his fancy oc
comes fantastic. where his Judgment is not sober
nor his hand either cunning strenuous Leu
US admit 50 much and more, Of both.
1t none the less remains true that the note OF
both is personal, poetic; wholly alien from 'he
prose Of common life and from the aims of the
multitude. Neither of them ever expected, Or /
imagine. ever desired, the kind of recognition
which the populace accords TO it's favorites Shelley
never in his lifetime came anywhere near That
fortieth edition of which the author OF The
Light Of Asia may boast. nor has Whistler's work
ever been reproduced by those tens of thousands
of mechanical copies in photogravure which set
the seal OF popular approval upon the President
and sundry members of the Royal Academy
Shelley strove as Mr.. Whistler has striven to en-
press the secret of absolute beauty III beautiful
things: that beauty (which meets the sense like
q breeze They were absorbed in the pleasures
of the soul, and what Plato calls the collective
opinion of the many disturbed neither the one
the other.
find myself speaking of Whistler as if he al
ready belonged TO the past. which, happily, he
does not: it is the attempt to include him and
Shelley in the same sentence which brings upon
him this premature Immortality. Shelley. as al
most all lovers of poetry agree holds
place apart he has distinction which is en-
tirely his own; he sang the birds sing, from an
impulse stronger than any external influence. The
comparison occurs in Mrs Shelleys Preface TO the
Poems, and | have unconsciOusly borrowed this
obvious illustration from her She says OF the
Odes to the SIylark and the Cloud that " they
were written as his mind prompted. listening TO
the carolling of the bird aloft in the azure sky
of Italy, or marking the cloud as IL sped
the heavens while he foated in his boat on the
Thames" The poet and the artist had some of
the same associations, too, in common: each in
his own way has so written his own name OH that
flowing stream that II is not effaced. nor can it
be forgotten"
or each it is to be said that he had genius.
and the courage of his genius and that he
never conformed to the criticism which
beset him, lost heart from neglect or obloquy.
| have seen Mr. Whistler. if ! may say so. when
his fame in art and his worldly fortunes were at
their lowest ebb. / never saw him in either
crisis other than cheerful and perfectly confident
that his own way the right one because it
was his own. There was and is q whole philos-
Ophy in that view: in the conviction that what is
most vital TO n man in this world is TO do his
work in his own way, and not in the way
which somebody else would like to prescribe 10
him. u. w. ;