System Number: 04380
Date: [6 January 1887][1]
Author: Charles Morley[2]
Place: [London]
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler P19
Document Type: ALd
(p. 1) Mr. Whistler has been on the war path again, and He assures We are glad to hear that he has returned, - to his Chelsea wigwam uninjured - & safe and sound - with a [conceit ease in cop?] corpore sano[3]. His is a In his Chelsea Wigwam hangs he has hung up another scalp - the to dry in the [small?]. To drop the metaphor which Mr Whistler uses [labours] in we have borrowed from the correspondence given below as may may [we?] offer a and of, Mr. Whistler's (p. 2) has discovered that a certain critic of his works has works had writt has taken in view of his poor productions and personality in the New York Sun, and another in the Fortnightly Review[4]. In the first Mr. Whistler says he is held up as a charlatan and poseur, in the second he is treated as a serious and scientific matter. To us it seems Mr Whistler will forgi forgive for To us it appears that Mr. Theodore Child[5], the critic in question, pays a [why?] (p. 3) tribute to Mr. Whistler's powers of which any painter might a Michael Angelo[6] or a Titian[7] might be a might be proud. But Mr Whistler who is all he compares him some to Velasquez[8] of his work "As an etcher Mr Take two lines from the offending article: "as an etcher" says Mr Child, ["]Mr. Whistler has done work wh. bears comparison with the work of Rembrandt[9]; as a painter he has signed pictures wh. suggest the mysterious simplicity of Velasquez." (p. 4) But Mr. Whistler explains is very any It is true that later on he it banters [to?] Mr Whistler a about his famous [furthermore?] ten o'clock[10], twits him about his eccentricities and we consider cuts him up considers him dissects him he classifies him under the into in portion three heads: The artist; the social wit, the Sarah Bernhardt[11] of the lec the lecture room. That is enough. Here is the correspondence between the "master" and his critic, which is certainly ingenious and amusing:
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Notes:
1. [6 January 1887]
This draft was enclosed with a letter from Morley to JW dated 6 January 1887 (#04379). See also #04376, #11329, on the same subject, and #07485, which was written in a similar vein.
2. Charles Morley
Charles Morley (1853-1916), journalist at the Pall Mall Gazette [more].
3. corpore sano
Lat., healthy body; cf. 'mens sana in corpore sano' (a healthy mind in a healthy body), from the Roman poet Juvenal.
4. New York Sun, and another in the Fortnightly Review
See Getscher, Robert H., and Paul G. Marks, James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Two Annotated Bibliographies, New York and London, 1986, B.44.
5. Mr. Theodore Child
Theodore Child (1846-1892), journalist and art critic [more].
6. Michael Angelo
Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), sculptor and painter [more].
7. Titian
Tiziano ('Titian') Vecello or Vecellio (1485-1576), painter and engraver [more].
8. Velasquez
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660), painter [more].
9. Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn (1606-1669), painter and etcher [more].
10. ten o'clock
JW's 'Ten O'Clock' lecture was first given in February 1885.
11. Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), née Henrietta Rosine Bernard, actress [more].