System Number: 12748
Date: December 1899
Author: JW
Place: [Paris]
Recipient: Francis Herbert Hayward[1]
Place: [Paris]
Repository: Private collection
Document Type: ADcS[2]
Proposition -
'Given to F H Hayward by James McNeil [sic] Whistler
Dec 1899[3].'
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 for view. -
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.
The completed task of perseverance only, has never been begun, and will remain unfinished to eternity - a monument of goodwill and foolishness. -
"There is one that laboureth, and taketh pains, and maketh haste, and is so much the more behind."
The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter - perfect in its bud as in its bloom - with no reason to explain its presence - no mission to fulfill - a joy to the artist - a delusion to the philanthropist - a puzzle to the botanist - an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man. -
[butterfly signature]
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Notes:
1. Francis Herbert Hayward
Dr Francis ('Frank') Herbert Hayward (1872-after 1935), poet, philosopher and writer on education [more].
2. ADcS
This is one of JW's Propositions. The original text was presumably written shortly before it was first published, under the heading 'L'Envoie' [sic], as a prologue to the catalogue for 'Notes' - 'Harmonies' - 'Nocturnes', Messrs Dowdeswell, London, 1884, which opened on 17 May (see #13163). It was reprinted in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, London and New York, 1890, pp. 115-16. JW had lithographic copies printed in 1899, which vary only in minor details of punctuation from the original. This is one of several such copies that have survived (see also #09542). They were intended to be put up on the walls of the Académie Carmen in Paris, as basic precepts for JW's students.
3. Dec 1899
This note is written in an unknown hand.