Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

artistic achievement is considerable, but the underlying
assumption is in both irstances the supremacy of individual
vision and impression*
The debate conducted in the art periodicals, books and
public exhibitions of the eighteen-eighties followed two
major lines of argument, which frequently converge. Broadly
speaking tliey are the question as to what place literary
inspiration and allusion should occupy in the artist's list
of priorities, and the relationship between "i; eal" and "realistic"
painting. Behind the discussion lay the larger question
of the degree of freedom which an artist might allv-vv his eye
and temperament, and the maintenance of common laws of
perception*
i. Looking "through" pictures*
In the course of his libel suit against John Buskin, witnesses
were expected to testify as to whether Vhistler wrs too lazy
to finish paintings properly, or did, in fact, see nature as
he depicted it. The issue was further confused by the fact
that Ruskin had championed Turner, some decades before, on the
grounds that Mature was as the painter had shown it, and that
his genius could simply see and copy more than most men could."
The farce of 18?8 ended with the award of one farthing damages
and the bankruptcy of the painter. \Vhistler was hardly to be
subdued, and in February 1885 he delivered his "Ten o Clock"
in London, a lecture stage-managed by I-Irs. D'Oyly Carte and
containing the most concise and trenchant statement of his
views on art. The damage done to taste by Ruskin and his
fellow-upholders of literary content was, he claimed, patent:
nooole have acquired the habit of looking, as
who" would say, not at a dcture but through,
it, at come human fact, that shall, or shall not,
from a social point of view, better their mental
or moral state.
The result has been a harmful dichotomy in attitudes:
So v;e have come to hear of the painting
that elevates, and of the duty of the nsint