1909





ART AND LITERATURE



A LECTURE ON THE ART OF G. F. WATTS


After the publication of The Gentle Art of Making Enemies the writer
who ventures to speak of art and literature in the same breath needs
some courage. Since the death of Whistler, his opinions about the
independence of art from the moral ideas with which literature is
preoccupied have been generally accepted in the studios. The artist
who is praised by a literary man would hardly be human if he was
not pleased; but he listens with impatience to any criticism or
suggestion about the substance of his art or the form it should take.
I had a friend, an artist of genius, and when we were both young
we argued together about art on equal terms. It had not then
occurred to him that any intelligence I might have displayed in
writing verse did not entitle me to an opinion about modeling; but
one day I found him reading Mr. Whistler's Ten O'clock. The revolt
of art against literature had reached Ireland. After that, while
we were still good friends, he made me feel that I was an outsider,
and when I ventured to plead for a national character in sculpture,
his righteous anger--I might say his ferocity--forced me to talk