“It is Mr. Ruskin’s opinion that an artist ought to expend the utmost labour on his work, bringing it as close as he can to a finished and perfect state of completion. Does a blackened smear approach that ideal? My learned colleague has stated that Mr. Ruskin has ridiculed Mr. Whistler’s paintings. Why then did Mr. Whistler place the work in question in a public exhibition where he knew it would be open to criticism? If he seeks his reputation in ‘symphonies’, ‘arrangements’, ‘nocturnes’, and such nonsense, he is nothing more than the coxcomb Mr. Ruskin has already proclaimed him to be.”
The attorney general stared at the gentlemen in the jury stand, and his words slowed. “No one has ever before attempted to control Mr. Ruskin’s pen through the device of a trial and jury. He has devoted his long life to instructing and criticising what he finds beautiful in art. Will you stay his hand now?”
Holker returned to his seat.
During this address the court had been rapt in their attention and wholehearted in their laughter at Holker’s disparaging burlesque. Yet when Sir John had ended in such seriousness, faces fell and eyes widened to mirror his gravitas. Rose felt the jury to be right in the palm of the man’s hand and was forced to grudging admiration.
Before he could shoot a look to Parry, Lord Huddleston leaned forward and addressed both tables. “It is now four o’clock, and the conditions of this court room might very well be termed ‘nocturne’. The court will adjourn until half past ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
The following morning saw the continuation of Ruskin’s defence. As the judgement was expected today, certain of the newspapers had sent multiple representatives, and reporters taking short-hand in rapid bursts in narrow notebooks were joined by sketch artists capturing the personages of the proceedings on soft pads of paper. Once again the fire of the coal heat was merciless. Lord Huddleston ordered the opening of a window, which, being defective, allowed the sight of only a few inches of smudged city sky above the blackened pane.
In this inhospitable environment the defendant’s first witness, Edward Burne-Jones, was called to testify. He was a slight, pale haired, fair-bearded man with almost white skin which made the deeply ringed pale eyes more prominent beneath his domed forehead. The rigidity of his person as he approached the stand with his hands clenched at his sides made it abundantly clear that Burne-Jones was less than comfortable in the position he had found himself in. He stammered as he began speaking and Huddleston had twice to ask him to speak up. Rarely had Rose seen a witness less at ease, and he could tell by the glances and gestures from the defendant’s table that Ruskin’s legal team were attempting to reassure and calm the man.
After eliciting from Burne-Jones that he was an artist who had also exhibited in the Grosvenor show of the previous year, Sir John Holker eased into the deeper waters of his subject.
“Would you tell us what importance finish and completeness has in a work of art?” he asked.
Burne-Jones kept his eyes fixed on the attorney-general’s face. “I think complete finish ought to be the object of all artists, and without it no work can be considered finished.” It was clear to Rose the utterance had been rehearsed many times, and the witness exhaled visibly after getting through it without a stammer.
Holker nodded, and called for one of the exhibited paintings to be produced before the court. Two officers carried in a painting in a gilded frame from the judge’s chamber, and placed it upon the easel to the left of Lord Huddleston. It was ‘Nocturne in Blue and Silver’. Rose quickly turned and whispered into the ear of Serjeant Parry, and Parry stood to inform the court that the painting had been placed upside down. Amidst general laughter Rose glanced at Whistler at his right, and found that his friend was smiling with the rest of the court, but that his hands had fallen open in a gesture of helplessness upon the table top.
When order had been restored and the painting righted, Holker continued on with Burne-Jones.
“Now this is another painting named by Mr. Whistler ‘Nocturne in Blue and Silver’. Would you kindly tell the court if you consider this picture to be a work of art?”
Burne-Jones scarcely glanced at the easel. He had been more discomfited by the painting being placed wrong way round than had its creator, and Rose imagined he was a man who did not think art should ever be laughed at. “It is art––but very incomplete. It is a beginning. A sketch, really.”
“Does it show the finish of a complete work of art?”
Burne-Jones turned to the painting. It was a scene of the Thames at bluest twilight, that heure bleue in which water and fading sky merge. The foreground was almost completely of the waters of the great and still river. In the distant background arose the shadowy grey-blue forms of what Rose knew to be a steeple and some industrial smoke stacks; yet the indistinctness of these forms gave the impression of perhaps minarets or other exotic structures. The immediate foreground bore the suggestion of a few bare leaves nearest to the beholder, painted almost as if they were Japanese bamboo leaves. It was to Rose a stunningly beautiful painting.
“It is not a complete work of art.” Burne-Jones kept on looking at the painting. “It––it is masterly in some respects; in many respects––especially the colour is exceptional and excellent. It is––a very beautiful sketch.” As if suddenly aware he was over-praising a work he was meant to be damning, he corrected himself. “It is a beautiful sketch, but that is not sufficient to make it a work of art. It is deficient in form, which ought to be as important as colour.”
Holker gestured to the waiting officers hovering in the doorway to Huddleston’s chamber. “May we now have the Cremorne Gardens picture––the ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold’?”
The embattled ‘Nocturne’ was brought out, and as it passed over the head of the jury actually bumped one of the jurymen in the forehead. The crowd guffawed and Huddleston brought his gavel down on the block. Whistler still smiled at Rose’s side, but had risen a little in his chair to see his painting so manhandled.
“And what is your judgement of this ‘Nocturne’?”
Burne-Jones hesitated just a moment. “It would be impossible to call it a serious work of art.”
“Could you tell us why?
“The subject, for one. It is not possible to paint night, and this is only one of a thousand failures artists have made in trying.”
Holker allowed the term “failures” to hang in the air a moment.
“Is this painting worth 200 guineas?”
Burne-Jones spluttered a little. “Two hundred guineas? No, I will not say it is, seeing how much more careful work other men do for so much less.”
Holker addressed Huddleston directly. “I should like to ask the court’s indulgence and introduce an additional painting to the court, one painted by Titian and now owned by Mr. Ruskin, which may prove useful in settling questions of finish.”
Parry immediately rose to object, but Huddleston did it for him. “I think this is going too far,” the judge told Holker. “Counsel will have to prove the painting to be a genuine Titian, for one, and not counterfeit. I do not mean to conjure a laugh in my own court-room, but we all recall the recent situation in which a Titian was obtained and rubbed down to try and ascertain the secrets of the master’s hand. On being rubbed down, red began to show itself, and the explorers grew excited that they had the secret in their grasp, when upon further rubbing the red was found to be none other than George III in military uniform!”
The courtroom erupted in laughter, but Huddleston, to Rose’s dismay, waved the painting in. Both easels being filled, it was hoisted in the arms of two police officers who had taken their position to one side of the defendant’s table. It revealed itself to be a half-length portrait of a man in golden robes, capped with the peaked cornu ducale worn by all Venetian doges, and set in a deeply carved golden frame.
To compare an Old Master such as Titian to a modern artist working in their midst was so patently absurd that the initial gasp from the onloo
kers was followed by a ripple of murmured disbelief.
For the first time Rose felt disappointment in the tactics, if not the strategy, of Walker Martineau. Would we next be comparing the Temple of Athena in Athens to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, or the Coliseum to the West End’s Lyceum? The insertion of such a painting––one owned by Ruskin, no less––into a trial already laden with sensationalism struck him as no more than cheap theatricality.
Holker returned to his witness. “Would you care to comment upon the painting now before you?”
Burne-Jones was eager to do so. “It is a beautiful example of Titian, a portrait of one of the doges; Andrea Gritti, I think. It is a most perfect specimen of highly finished work. The drawing is clear and fine, the modelling good, the flesh and gown beautifully rendered, the colour excellent withal. It is an arrangement in flesh and blood.”
Rose felt Burne-Jones must be a little proud of this last allusion to “arrangements” and wondered if it too had been rehearsed.
“And returning to Mr. Whistler’s work, what do you see there?” continued Holker.
Burne-Jones seemed not to anticipate this question at this hour. “I see signs of great labour”––surely Holker would regret him saying that, thought Rose––“and great skill. His colours are most beautiful––his moonlit pieces especially. But––I think he evades the greatest difficult of painting by not proceeding further with his work. He does not carry his pictures far enough. Difficulties in painting only increase as the work progresses; that is why so many of us fail.”
Burne-Jones was whipsawing from one point of view to its opposite. He seemed not to be able to criticise Whistler without praising him, diluting all of his testimony with qualifications. Rose felt Burne-Jones had said enough about the excellence of Whistler’s work to make Ruskin’s published comments even more egregious. Holker and the rest of Ruskin’s team could not be entirely happy with their witness.
Indeed, Holker passed over what was said and returned to the Titian.
“What is the value of the painting by Titian?” he asked his witness.
“That is a mere accident of the sales-room,” answered Burne-Jones, the most sensible thing Rose had heard him say yet.
Serjeant Parry now examined Burne-Jones for the plaintiff. Burne-Jones tensed visibly as Parry approached him; unlike his questioning by Holker he could have no intimation of what he might be asked.
“If I am not mistaken, Mr. Burne-Jones,” began Parry, “Mr. Ruskin praised your work rather extravagantly in the very same issue of his publication as he libelled Mr. Whistler.”
“Libel has not been proved,” objected Holker. Parry conceded, but Burne-Jones’ pale cheeks flushed pink.
“Let me ask another question,” Parry posed. “You are also a friend, I believe, of Mr. Whistler’s?”
Burne-Jones’ discomfiture was now so great that his stammering began anew.
“I was; I don’t––don’t imagine he will ever speak to me again, after today.”
Parry made a little bow to indicate he was through with the witness.
William Powell Frith was now called, and after identifying himself as a member of the Royal Academy and the originator of such paintings as ‘The Railway Station’, ‘Derby-Day’, and ‘The Road to Ruin’ was asked by Holker to consider the merits of Mr. Whistler’s paintings present in court.
Frith considered. “There is beautiful tone of colour in the blue one, but not more than you could get from a scrap of wall-paper or silk.”
Someone in the crowd actually hooted, and Huddleston ordered silence.
It was now Parry’s turn to examine the witness.
“Have you read Mr. Ruskin’s work?”
When Frith assented that he had, Parry tried a new and bold tack. “We know that Turner is an idol of Mr. Ruskin,” he offered.
Firth was quick to answer. “I think Turner should be an idol of all painters.”
“And do you know the painting of Turner’s, in the collection of Marlborough House, called ‘Snow Storm’?”
“I do.”
“Are you aware that it was once described by a critic as a mass of soap-suds and whitewash?”
Parry ignored the laughter from the crowd.
“I am not.”
“Would you call it soap-suds and whitewash?”
It was Frith who now laughed. “I should think it very likely I should. When I said all artists ought to revere Turner, I meant before he went mad and produced works as crazy as those who admire them!”
“And yet Mr. Ruskin, on whose behalf you appear, is one of those who finds ‘Snow Storm’ very beautiful, and a great work of art.”
Here Huddleston interjected, much to the chagrin of both Parry and Rose. “Someone described one of Turner’s landscapes as lobster salad,” he announced from the bench.
Eliciting more laughter from either jury or crowd was not his goal. Parry conceded the point and brought his questioning to a close.
Rose felt an upwelling of dissatisfaction, of near frustration, rising in his breast. He wished Parry could have better driven home the point that Ruskin had once defended an artist––the great but controversial Turner, no less––whose later paintings seemed similarly unformed, incomplete, and incomprehensible to certain viewers as Whistler’s did now to Ruskin. It was not the legal point––that devolved upon whether Ruskin truly had wished to de-fame Whistler’s character, and if he sincerely held the beliefs he had stated about his work would he have been in dereliction of his “duty” as a critic to refrain from saying so. And perhaps it was not precisely a moral point, yet Ruskin’s impassioned defence of Turner’s “soap-suds” was at least a point of historical fact, and Rose would have rather that Parry had made it.
By the noon hour nothing was left but the summations. A court porter stepped forward to the defendant’s table and whispered in the ear of Sir John Holker. After a small stir Holker rose to announce that he must excuse himself, having just been called away on Crown business. The final plea for Ruskin would instead be delivered by Holker’s younger assistant, Charles Bowen.
Rose and Parry exchanged looks. Bowen was competent, but conventional. Spared Holker’s masterful theatrics, not to mention comic antics, the jury might be sobered enough to punish Ruskin’s vituperative remarks.
Bowen was brief. He reminded the jury of Ruskin’s greatness as an art-critic. He stressed that Whistler had exhibited his pictures in a public gallery and thus subjected them to criticism, which any painter ought to welcome as a way of bettering his art. He ended with a warning about freedom of speech. “May it be long that an English jury, regardless of any particular sympathy they may find for any individual, add a link to a chain which may fetter free comment and criticism in this land of ours.”
Parry was left with the luxury of time. He moved slowly before the jury box and turned his solemn eyes upon each of the twelve men in turn, as if acknowledging their particular importance as individuals. He then addressed the court.
“I should like to begin with the observation that the tone that the attorney general has taken in this case has, if possible, added more injury to the original libel. He has attempted to ridicule Mr. Whistler’s productions, and certainly succeeded in his sneering report of an imaginary group of ladies before his paintings to belittle both the intelligence of woman-kind and perhaps even the artistic abilities of the very many fine female artists who are so worthy of our regard.”
There was spontaneous, if lady-like applause from several of the fairer sex in the gallery, and Parry allowed his comments to sink in as Huddleston hammered for order.
“Mr. Ruskin’s defence is solely this: ‘I shall say what I please and no one shall flinch at the touch of my lash.’ Mr. Ruskin has not seen it proper to make the effort to attend upon these proceedings in person, nor to be examined before a commission, but we can assume from the defence offered by my learned colleagues at the defendant’s table that he regrets and retracts
nothing of what was written.
“I will not state that Mr. Whistler’s career as an artist has been destroyed. But it has gone forth through the original judgement of Mr. Ruskin’s in his own journal, through re-publication in other art journals, and certainly throughout the civilized world as the after effect of this legal action, that the great Ruskin believes Mr. Whistler’s art–– art considered by many to be beautiful and well worth the originator’s asking price––to be worthless trash and an insult to the public.
“Mr. Ruskin may be great as a man, but as a writer, as a critic of the honest and creative labour of men, he has degraded himself. We contend his passage is personal and malicious, and was intended to harm Mr. Whistler and has harmed Mr. Whistler.
“It is up to you gentlemen to remind Mr. Ruskin that this is not the proper role of art-criticism, that he must make reparations for the damage done by him by defamatory and libellous statements, and to restore to Mr. Whistler the confidence of the art-buying public.”
Huddleston adjourned for lunch. When they reassembled he would give the jury their instructions, and then it would be in their hands. Rose sat with Whistler at their table as the jury filed out and the room emptied. All through the proceedings Rose could sense Whistler’s animal energy next him; the man was not nervous but his already high pitch had been turned up a key.
Several newspaper correspondents approached the table, shorthand tablets poised. Whistler had used the power of the newspapers to good effect over the years by granting interviews and inviting the press to his Sunday breakfasts. With his seeming willingness to live in the public’s eye and his surplus of self-confidence he had been a favourite on the society pages.
It was Rose who had seen the crippling periods of self-doubt, witnessed the scraping down of nearly-complete paintings in despair; the desperate driven urge to start again to reach perfection. The pieces “dashed off” in a day or two stood in frank contrast to those upon which he had gone to the pillory for. Now Rose raised his hand to fend off the reporters and send them on their way.
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