Critics

Whistler’s pictures were often criticised because they challenged people’s ideas about what made a work of art. Critics had a problem with The White Girl because it had no story to tell. The lack of perspective in paintings like Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea troubled some. Others took offence at Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother because it appeared disrespectful, reducing Anna Whistler [link – Key figures] to a mere arrangement of colours.

Photograph ©1988 Detroit Institute of the Arts.

Most famously, John Ruskin [link – Key figures] criticised Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket because in his eyes it was unfinished. His description of the painting as “a pot of paint” thrown “in the public’s face”, resulted in the notorious Whistler v. Ruskin libel trial in November 1878.

Whistler enjoyed baiting the critics. He began his Ten O’Clock Lecture, which was a public manifesto of his artistic ideas, given at the Prince’s Hall in London in February 1885, with a sarcastic dig at Ruskin, who was regarded as a contemporary sage or preacher on art. Whistler declared, “Ladies and Gentlemen: It is with great hesitation and much misgiving that I appear before you, in the character of the Preacher”.

Whistler frequently wrote letters to daily newspapers ridiculing art critics. He believed that only artists had a right to criticise other artists’ work. In his 1883 exhibition Mr Whistler's Etchings at the Fine Art Society in London, he accompanied each catalogue entry with a quotation from his critics that was intended to ridicule them. In 1890 he published The Gentle Art of Making Enemies [link – Design/Exhibition/GLAHA 46144], a collection of writings that included statements by art critics and of Whistler’s own witty letters to the press. It was intended to elevate Whistler’s artistic position and quietly mock his rivals.