r's theory that that which all the world of
greatest artists (?) has mistaken for mere means has been in very
seriousness the end, then the aim of Art is immeasurably lowered!...

"If there be anything to the point, it is to implore us to take a
stone for bread, and the grammar of a language in place of its
literature.

"Mr. Whistler has assumed that it is only the painter who is occupied
with art.... Unless he is a very exceptional man.... If he is not of
the school of Fulham, he is of the school of Holland Park, or of the
Grove End Road.

"Has he, like Mr. Ruskin, devoted thirty years of a poet's life to the
Galleries of Europe?

"Has he, like Diderot, inquired curiously into the meaning and message
of this thing and that? And _appreciating Greuze_, been able to
_appreciate Chardin_?(!!)"

_Mr. Wedmore,
"Nineteenth Century."_

"Mr. Ruskin's whole body of doctrine, from the very young days, in
which he took the duty of teacher, on to his old age, was contradicted
by Mr. Whistler's pictures."--_Merrie England._

"In painting, his success is infrequent, and it is limited.

"In painting, Mr. Whistler is an impressionist. His best painting
betrays something of that almost modern sensitiveness to pleasurable
juxtapositions of delicate colour which we admire in Orchardson, in
Linton (_sic!_), and in Albert Moore; it betrays, sometimes, as in a
portrait of Miss Alexander, a deftness of brushwork in the wave of a
feather, in the curve of a hat ... and of high art qualities it
betrays not much besides.

"It is true that the originality of his painted work is somewhat apt
to be dependent on the innocent error that confuses the beginning with
the end, accepts the intention for the execution, and exalts an adroit
sketch into the rank of a permanent picture."

_F. Wedmore, "Four Masters of Etching."_

"I think Mr. Whistler had great powers at first, which he has not
since justified."

_Mr. Jones, R.A.
Evidence in Court, Nov. 16, 1878._

"The right time and the right place for the conspicuousness of an
Impressionist were undoubtedly England, and the moment when Mr.
Whistler rose up and astonished her.

"In Paris he was one of many, though he would be at peace in
France, that peace would not be unattended with a certain comparative
obscurity.

"Inconsp