The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (TPB,1967 reprint of 1892, $3)
My first question when I saw this book was the obvious one- was the author the same person as the famous painter? (Yes.)
Whistler always went his own way. He was supposed to go into the ministry, but flunked out. He then went to West Point, and flunked out there. (He would be expelled by Col. Robert E. Lee!) Next on his list of jobs was military draftsman, but he preferred to add mermaids and whales to his maps, so they fired him, but did send him to work for the US Coastal Survey. They must not have liked his mermaids either, because he lasted only two months. Finally he set out on his own for Paris where he could lead the wild life he wanted to. First realistic, his painting style soon became unique, neither realistic nor impressionistic. He saw art as being important only for its own sake with the subject matter as unimportant. He painted his mother only because a model failed to show up, He always called the work, "Arrangement in Grey and Black #1", never "Whistler's Mother". His style would later influence abstract painters.
Art critics hated his work- it was not ornamental enough for Victorian taste. Nor did they like him. He had the reputation of being arrogant, eccentric, and frivolous. When you read this book you will know why. (Biographers now see him as misunderstood and lonely.)
When the critic Ruskin criticized his painting, Whistler sued him for libel. Whistler won the case, and a farthing, but had to pay court costs. As usual he was heavily in debt, and now so controversial no one would buy his paintings.
This book is a compilation of his letters to newspaper editors regarding his court case. Six years after the trial he was still trying to get the public to realize that artists shouldn't have to imitate nature. He took his letters, reworked them so he came out looking even better than he had at the time, and published them, but only after a first pirated edition was issued by someone else. (Who owned what when seems to be a matter of debate, but Whistler won the lawsuit.)
Thus the book was published, both to spite Ruskin, and the man Whistler had originally hired to write his book. His personal symbol, a butterfly with a stinger, is prominently shown through out. Hmmmm....
Never a dull moment around Whistler! Look for this book on the new non-fiction table.
