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Whistler accusing Wilde from plagiarism

Ellmann comments how the perception of Whistler by Wilde changed during his journalistic career in January 1889. Wilde became more offensive:

“A sense of his role as arbiter in English letters made him reconsider old admirations. When he turned to Whistler now, it was in quite different tone that which he had adopted in the days of discipleship. Then, on 28 February 1885, he had praised the artist as an orator who combined ‘the mirth and malice of Puck with the style of minor prophets.’ On 26 January 1889 he found the combination infelicitous:

Mr Whistler, for some reason or other, always adopted the phraseology of the minor prophets … The idea was clever enough at the beginning, but ultimatelly the manner became monotonous. The spirit of the Hebrews is excellent but their mode of writing is not to be imitated, and no amount of American jokes will give it that modernity which is essential to good literary style. Admirable as are Mr Whistler’s fireworks on canvas, his fireworks in prose are abrupt, violent and exaggerated. ” (Ellmann 287)⁶⁸

As commented by Anderson this stayed without Whistler’s immediate reaction. James saw in the currently published “The Decay of Lying” (in the periodical The Nineteenth Century) good opportunity to begin again with the attack related to the plagiarism. Expression of mutual hatred were a bit postponed by the award for Whistler from Paris for his paintings.⁶⁹ But soon on the end of 1889 he was again ready and willing to continue in disputes, accusing Wilde from plagiarism. (Anderson 315-6)

Whistler’s reply - ‘one of the most vitriolic letters he had ever written’ (Anderson 316) - was published on 2 January 1890 in the Truth:

“ “Dear Truth, Among your ruthless exposures of the shams of today, nothing, I confess, have I enjoyed with keener relish than your late tilt at that arch-impostor and pest of the period - the all pervading plagiarist! I learn by the way that, in America, he may, under the "law of 48," ... be criminally prosecuted, incarcerated, and made to pick oakum, as he has hitherto picked brains - and pockets!

How was it, that in your list of culprits, you omitted the fattest of offenders - our own Oscar?! -

… [In] Mr Herbert Vivian's Reminicences" ... among other entertaining annecdotes is told at length, the story of Oscar's simulating the becoming pride of author, upon a certain evening, in the Club of the Academy Students [Wilde’s lecture at the Royal Academy in 1883], and arrogating to himself the responsibility of the lecture, with which, at his earnest prayer, I had in good fellowship crammed him, that he might not add deplorable failure to foolish appearance, in his anomalous position as art expounder, before this clear-headed audience.

He went forth on that occasion as my St John - but forgetting that humility should be his first characteristic, and unable to withstand the unaccustomed respect with which his utterances were received, he not only trifled with my shoe, but bolted with the latchet!

Mr Vivian in his book, tells us, further on, that lately, in an article [in the Nineteenth Century on the ‘Decay of Lying.”] ⁷⁰ Mr Wilde has deliberately and incautiously incorporated, "without a word of comment", a portion of well remembered letter in which, after admitting his rare appreciation and amazing memory, I acknowledge that: "Oscar has the courage of the opinions...of others!" I send him, in the following little note, which I fancy you may think à propos to publish … “ (Anderson 316) ⁷¹

Whistler’s letter was followed the following week by Wilde’s defence, which differs from his earlier reactions:

“I can hardly imagine that the public are in the very smallest degree interested in the shrill shrieks of "Plagiarism" that proceed from time to time out of the lips of silly vanity or incompetent mediocrity.

However, as Mr. James Whistler has had the impertinence to attack me with both venom and vulgarity in your columns, I hope you will allow me to state that the assertions contained in his letters are as deliberately untrue as they are deliberately offensive.

The definition of a disciple as one who has the courage of the opinions of his master is really too old even for Mr. Whistler to be allowed to claim it, and as for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have ever heard him express have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters greater than himself.

It is a trouble for any gentleman to have to notice the lucubrations of so ill-bred and ignorant a person as Mr. Whistler, but your publication of his insolent letter left me no option in the matter.” (Pearce 192)⁷²

Anderson claims: “This was Wilde’s final rebutal. He never mentioned James’s name again in public. Murdered in The Picture of Dorian Gray, he no longer existed, nor was his memory of any importance. … James, as always, had to have the last word on the matter and sent another letter to Truth a week or so later presenting witnesses to substantiate his allegations against Wilde. Wilde’s answer was his silence.” (Anderson 317) From what Anderson writes seems that Whistler might have been the murdered painter in The Picture of Dorian Gray, because the crisis between the two artists realy culminates in the time when the novel was being written. ⁷³

Whistler last published reaction appeared in The Truth on 16 January 1890:

„Cowed and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true colours - as his own "gentleman."

How shall I stand against his just anger, and his damning allegations! for it must be clear to your readers, that, beside his clean polish, as prettily set forth in his epistle, I, alas! am but the "ill-bred and ignorant person," whose "lucubrations" "it is a trouble" for him "to notice."

Still will I, desperate as is my condition, point out that though "impertinent," "venomous," and "vulgar," he claims me as his "master" - and, in the dock, bases his innocence upon such relation between us.

In all humility, therefore, I admit that the outcome of my "silly vanity and incompetent mediocrity," must be the incarnation: "Oscar Wilde." Mea culpa! the Gods may perhaps forgive and forget.

To you, Truth - champion of the truth - I leave the brave task of proclaiming again that the story of the lecture to the students of the Royal Academy was, as I told you, no fiction.

In the presence of Mr. Waldo Story did Oscar make his prayer for preparation; and at his table was he entrusted with the materials for his crime.

You also shall again unearth, in the Nineteenth Century Review of Jan. 1889, page 37, the other appropriated property, slily stowed away, in an article on “The Decay of Lying” - though why Decay!

To shirk this matter thus is craven, doubtless; but I am awe-stricken and tremble, for truly, "the rage of the sheep is terrible!" (Wilde v Whistler 18-9)⁷⁴

If Wilde spoke later out against Whistler, it was only indirectly, without mentioning his name as Pearce claims. “Later in the year Wilde took one last sideswipe in Whistler’s direction in his essay ‘The critic as Artist’, where he wrote that accusations of plagiarism ‘proceed either from the thin colourless lips of impotence, or from grotesque mouths of those who, possessing nothing of their own, fancy that they can gain a reputation for wealth by crying out that they have been robbed’. Thus, in an acrid and acrimonious atmosphere, the friendly rivalry between Wilde and Whistler was finally vanquished by bitter enmity.” (Pearce 192-3)

When Anderson speaks about Wilde’s and Whistler’s connection to Mallarmé he again touches the possibility that Whistler was the murdered painter Basil Hallward in The Picture of Dorian Gray. When Whistler thought of visiting Paris in 1890 “he was anxious to renew his friendship with Mallarmé and other friends, particularly after hearing of Oscar Wilde’s visit earlier in the winter. The fact that Wilde had had, in James’s eyes, the audacity to introduce himself to Mallarmé as a Symbolist poet, and had presented him with a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, was almost unbearable. The irony of Wilde’s gesture in presenting one of James’s closest friends with the story of his death was in all likelihood unsuspected by Mallarmé.” (Andreson 330) When finally get to Mallarmé “James tactfully brought up the subject of Wilde, ‘The decadent Man’ as he had now taken to describing him to Beatrice. Mallarmé, it seems, was not as dismissive of Wilde‘s appearance in Paris as James had expected although, as he reported to Beatrice, Mallarmé was ’greatly upset and said he would write at once and say that his own position in the matter is a disagreeable one – and that no more tardiness should be possible’.⁷⁵ Mallarmé, it seems, did not write to Wilde.” (Anderson 334) Mallarmé seems to be more on Whistler’s side. (Ellmann 335 -8, 361) When Whistler writes in 1890 to Mallarmé he is mentioning that he is busy with the battle against Oscar.⁷⁶

Portrait painting

As mentioned by Anderson and Koval the

“fashion of turning the old Masters for solutions in portraiture reached its apex with the American artist, John Singer Sargent, who in the eighties and nineties offered his English patrons a whole repertoire of styles to choose from. Sargent’s skill in painting in the manner of previous masters such as Van Dyke made him especially popular amongst the aristocracy and nouveau riche. This practice of recalling the work of Old Masters can be seen as an attempt to re-establish portrait painting as an art and not simply a means of reproduction. The liberation of the medium from its task of mere reproduction is interesting when examined against the advent of photography. With the popularity of the small carte de visite photographic portrait as well as increasing number of photographic portrait studios, the genre of portrait-painting was to shift to higher aesthetic ground. ⁷⁷ James [Whistler] was well aware of this challenge and his aim was to subject the sitter to the decorative whole, rather than attain a photographic likeness.” (Anderson 199)

Also Sherard writes that the ‘new’ portrait painting was not purely realistic. He mentions that Sargent’s portraits on the beginning “did not enchant, but horrified the public”. (Sherard 204) ⁷⁸

According James Whistler portrait painter is not a pure imitator and there must always be something beyond the model. “Oscar Wilde would later encapsulate the problem in The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel likely to have been inspired by the hours the writer spent in Whistler’s studio.” (Anderson 199) Wilde was surrounded by artists and his interest in painting was only growing during eighties. All this must have influenced his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. “Interestingly, James’s obsessional method of continually rubbing down a canvas was reversed in Oscar Wilde’s haunting novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the painting takes on a life of its own and literally ’grows’ its own ‘skin’. Such inversions were commonplace for a writer like Wilde, and it is conceivable that in his observations of James in the studio, the seeds of his story were already being sown.” (Anderson 201)

Frankel also emphasizes the influence of the contemporary portraiture on Wilde’s novel:

“An understanding of Wilde's enduring artistic concerns is as important to a larger appreciation of Dorian Gray as some knowledge of his biography and the circumstances in which his novel was published. No reader perhaps can fail to appreciate that Dorian Gray is a novel that abounds in commentary on painting and portraiture (Chapter 1 is an extended conversation between Lord Henry and Basil Hallward about the painter's portrait of Dorian). Wilde was greatly influenced in his writing of the novel by the cult of aesthetic portraiture that then dominated the transatlantic arts scene and that stands at the imaginative center of his novel (the novel takes its title not from its central character but from the picture or portrait of him). Artistic portraiture was undergoing a major renaissance in the late Victorian era: it reached its apogee in the early 1890s in the celebrated portraits of John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, and G.F.Watts. These artists were early members of the Society of Portrait painters (now the Royal Society of Portrait Painters) established in 1891. They were less interested in a strictly faithful depiction of their subjects than in a more repetitive rendition and they often exaggerated their sitter's beauty or the lavishness of their dress and surroundings. They were greatly influenced by the portrait painter Dante Gabriel Rosseti, who, in the 1860s and 1870s, strove to capture a transcendent unearthy ideal in his portraits of his lovers Fanny Cornforth, Alexa Wilding, and Jane Morris, Rosseti's paintings - and those of his fellows Pre-Raphaelites – emphasized an aesthetic of beauty for its own sake, and for that reason Rosseti and the Pre-Raphaelites are often said to be precursors to the Aesthetic movement and an important influence of the thought and writings of Wilde." (Frankel 22-23)

In addition to already mentioned Frankel adds regarding the portraiture of Wilde’s time: “When Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, artistic portraiture was undergoing a renaissance in Britain, and many Victorians understood it as “a sacramental act’, involving a mysterious and complex transaction between artist and sitter.”(Frankel 125)⁷⁹

The Portrait of Mr. W. H.

The novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as an evidence against Wilde in the trial before his imprisonment. During the cross-examination in the First Trial Wilde mentions that the idea of love of artist towards a young man was taken from Shakespeare. “The whole idea was borrowed from Shakespeare, I regret to say – yes, from Shakespeare’s sonnets.” “ (“Art versus morality” 386)⁸⁰ And he refers to The Portrait of Mr. W. H.. (386)⁸¹

The portrait as the only evidence motive connects The Picture of Dorian Gray novel with The Portrait of Mr. W. H. ⁸²

Whole Mr. W. H. is a dialogue between two main characters – the narrator and Erskine. Erskine tells the story of his friend Cyril Graham “who had a strange theory about a certain work of art, believed in his theory, and commited a forgery in order to prove it.“ (Wilde The Portrait 6). Graham’s theory is the theory of the dedication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to a young man, a boy actor, Mr. W. H.

Erskine talks to the narrator:

“ “Cyril … left me only legacy I ever received in my life.”

‘What was that ?’ I exclaimed.

Erskine … came back to where I was sitting, holding in his hand a small panel picture set in an old and somewhat tarnished Elizabethan frame. It was a full-length portrait of a young man in late sixteenth century costume, standing by a table, with his right hand resting on an open book. He seemed about seventeen years of age⁸³, and was quite extraordinary personal beauty, though evidently somehow effeminate. Indeed had it not been for the dress and the closely cropped hair, one would have said that the face, with its dreamy wistful eyes, and its delicate scarlet lips, was the face of a girl. In manner, and especially in the treatment of the hands, the picture remainded one of Francois Clouet’s laterwork. The black velvet doublet with its fantastically gilded points, and the peacock blue background against which it showed up so pleasantly, and from which it gained such luminous value of colour, were quite in Clouets’s style; and the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy that hung somewhat formaly from the marble pedestal had that hard severity of touch - so different from the facile grace of the Italians – which even at the Court of France the great Flemish master never completely lost, and which in itself has always been a characteristic of the northern temper.

‘ It is a charming thing, ’ I cried; ‘ but who is this wonderful young man, whose beauty Art has so hapilly preserved for us?’

‘This is a protrait of Mr. W.H.’ said Erskine, with a sad smile.” (6-8)

Narrator and his friend Erskine further discuss who Mr.W. H. was and Erskine answers:

“ ‘look at the book on which his hand is resting.’ “ and with the help of magnifying glass reads: “ ‘I began to spell at the crabbed sixteenth – century handwrighting: ‘To the only begetter of these inspiring sonnets ...’

‘Good heavens!’ I cried, ‘ is this Shakespeare’s Mr.W.H?’

‘Cyril Graham used to say so’ muttered Erskine. ‘But it is not a bit like Lord Pembroke,’ I answered. ‘I know the Penshurst portrait very well. I was staying near there a few weeks ago.’

‘Do you really believe them that the Sonnets are addressed to Lord Pembroke?’ he asked. (8)

This portrait seems to prove the theory that Shakespeare’s Sonnets are probably dedicated to ‘a particular young man’ (22)

Erskine further describes that Cyril Graham seemed not to have any proof of existence of a boy actor with the name Willie Hughes and his identity with the Mr. W.H. of the Sonnets but later he came with the framed panel picture. It was discovered according Graham

”by the merest chance nailed to the side of an old chest⁸⁴, that he had bought at a farmhouse in Warwickshire. The chest itself, which was a very fine example of Elizabethan work, he had, of course, brought with him, and in the centre of the front panel the initials W.H. were undoublty carved. It was this monogram that had attracted his attention ... It was very dirty, and covered with mould⁸⁵ ... Here was an authentic portrait of Mr. W.H., with his hand resting on the dedicatory page of the Sonnets, and on the frame itself could be faintly seen the name of the young man written in black uncial letters on a faded gold ground: „Master Will. Hews“.” (30-32)

Erskine took it for granted that the portrait is the satisfactory evidence. They arranged “that the picture should be etched or facsimiled, and paced as the frontispiece to Cyril’s edition of the Sonnet” (32) but after three moths it turned out to be a forgery.

“One unlucky day I was in a print-shop in Holborn, when I saw upon the counter some extremely beautiful drawings in silver-point. I was so attracted by them that I bought them; and the proprietor of the place, a man called Rawlings, told me that they were done by a young painter of the name of Edward Merton⁸⁶, who was very clever, but as poor as a church mouse. I went to see Merton some days afterwards, having got his address from the printseller, and found a pale, interesting young man, with a rathercommon-looking wife – his model, as I subsequently learned. … As we were looking through his portfolio, full of really lovely things – for Merton had a most delicate and delightful touch - I suddenly caught sight of a drawing of the picture of Mr W. H. There was no doubt whatever about it. It was almost a faksimile – the only difference being that the two masks of Tragedy nad Comedy were not suspended from the marble table as they are in the picture, but were lying on the floor at the young man‘s feet.

“Where on earth did you get that?” I said.

“Oh, that is nothing. I did not know it was in this portfolio. It is not a thing of any value.”

“It is what you did for Mr. Cyril Graham,” ecxlaimed his wife; “and if this gentleman wishes to buy it, let him have it.”

“For Mr. Cyril Graham?” I repeated. „Did you paint the picture of Mr. W. H.?”

“I don‘t understand what you mean.” he answered, growing very red.

Well the whole thing was very dreadful. This wife left it all out.” (33-34)

When Erskine told Cyril that he found out this forgery they had an argument and the following day was Cyril dead, “he shot himself with a revolver.” (34)

Erskine talks about the letter Cyril left for him “that he believed absolutely in Willie Hughes; that the forgery of the picture had been simply as a concession to me and did not in the slightest degree invalidate the truth of the theory ...” (34)

Soon after also Erskine dies and there are indications that he also commited sucide. But the doctor is telling the narrator that Erskine died of consumption:

“At that moment lady Erskine entered the room with the fatal picture of Willie Hughes in her hand. ’When George was dying he begged me to give you this,’ she said. … The picture hangs now in my library where is very much admired by by my artistic friends. They have decided that it is not Clouet, but an Oudry. I have never cred to tell them its true history. But sometimes, when I look at it, I think that there is really a great deal to be said for the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare Sonnets.” (76-8)

According Sammells Wilde’s Mr. W. H. understanding personality’s identification can help to understand it also in Dorian Gray. “Wilde's short story, 'The Portrait of Mr W. H.', written during 1887 and published the following year in Blackwood's is something of a dry-run for Dorian Gray insofar as it explores the erotic influence between men: ... The story is also a parody of what we might call the hermeneutics of authenticity.” (Sammels 56-7) Sammels notes that Dorian follows the fate of Erskine and Graham and finds only self-extintion instead of self-authentication. (Sammels 56-7)⁸⁷

Both in Mr W.H. and Dorian Gray there is a motive of the permanence in personality questioned. As Sammels sees in Mr. W.H.:

“When the narrator finally writes his theory down, with all the assembled evidence, he finds he no longer believes it. This moment of doubt embraces his sense of who he is. ‘Was there no permanence in personality?’ he asks, ‘Did things come and go through the brain, silently, swiftly, and without footprints, like shadows through mirror? Were we at the mercy of such impressions as Art of Life chose to give us? It seemed to me to be so.’⁸⁸ Identity is thus seen in terms of surface, fluctuation, dispersal, rather then depth, stability and integration. The mirror-image anticipates those which Wilde uses to affirm Dorian's growing recognition of is polymorphous self as it is multiplied through sensation. All this has great significance for the ways in which we 'read' Dorian. To go beneath the surface is to do so at one's peril. Dorian is Wilde's most thorough evocation of the elusive, multiform, inauthentic personality. A conventional reading of this character - and of Wilde's narrative - would see the portrait as registering the 'real', the authentic Dorian: the ugliness beneath the surface beauty, the index of his moral decline.⁸⁹ However Dorian is described consistently in terms which deny the existence of authentic 'depths' beneath illusory surface.” (Sammels 57)

This explanation can help while searching for the originals of all three main characters of The Picture of Dorian Gray. It is impossible to say there is one person behind each of them. All of them are evolving and their characteristic is a lack of personality permanence which is definitely most visible in Dorian’s character.

Ellmann adds interesting facts in relation to The Portrait of Mr.W.H.: “Wilde went to Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon whom he had not previously met, in May 1889. He read the story to them and asked Ricketts to illustrate it with painting of Willie Hughes in the manner of Clouet. On the frame he wanted the motto ‘ARS AMORIS, AMOR ARTIS’.’ in which he said there was an entire philosophy.” (Ellmann 298) It has interesting ending: “Ricketts fulfilled his commission for portrait of Willie Hughes. On receiving it Wilde wrote him ’It is not a forgery at all – it is an authentic Clouet of the highest artistic value. It is absurd of you and Shannon to try and to take me in-as if I did not know the masters’s touch, or was no judge of frames!’ He loved confusing still further the borders of life and art. Unfortunately, the ’Clouet’ disappeared at the time of his trials, when his effects were auctioned off.” (298) ⁹⁰

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray