Reviews
by Oscar Wilde
He is a factor in the heroic
and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by,
Philosophy will take note of him.
November Boughs. By Walt Whitman. (Alexander Gardner.)
THE NEW PRESIDENT
(Pall Mall Gazette, January 26, 1889.)
In a little book that he calls The Enchanted Island Mr. Wyke Bayliss, the
new President of the Royal Society of British Artists, has given his
gospel of art to the world. His predecessor in office had also a gospel
of art but it usually took the form of an autobiography. Mr. Whistler
always spelt art, and we believe still spells it, with a capital 'I.'
However, he was never dull. His brilliant wit, his caustic satire, and
his amusing epigrams, or, perhaps, we should say epitaphs, on his
contemporaries, made his views on art as delightful as they were
misleading and as fascinating as they were unsound. Besides, he
introduced American humour into art criticism, and for this, if for no
other reason, he deserves to be affectionately remembered. Mr. Wyke
Bayliss, upon the other hand, is rather tedious. The last President
never said much that was true, but the present President never says
anything that is new; and, if art be a fairy-haunted wood or an enchanted
island, we must say that we prefer the old Puck to the fresh Prospero.
Water is an admirable thing--at least, the Greeks said it was--and Mr.
Ruskin is an admirable writer; but a combination of both is a little
depressing.
Still, it is only right to add that Mr. Wyke Bayliss, at his best, writes
very good English. Mr. Whistler, for some reason or other, always
adopted the phraseology of the minor prophets. Possibly it was in order
to emphasise his well-known claims to verbal inspiration, or perhaps he
thought with Voltaire that Habakkuk etait capable de tout, and wished to
shelter himself under the shield of a definitely irresponsible writer
none of whose prophecies, according to the French philosopher, has ever
been fulfilled. The idea was clever enough at the beginning, but
ultimately 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 a
good literary style. Admirable as are Mr. Whistler's fireworks on
canvas, his fireworks in prose are abrupt, violent and exaggerated.
However, oracles, since the days of the Pythia, have never been
remarkable for style, and the modest Mr. Wyke Bayliss is as much Mr.
Whistler's superior as a writer as he is his inferior as a painter and an
artist. Indeed, some of the passages in this book are so charmingly
written and with such felicity of phrase that we cannot help feeling that
the President of the British Artists, like a still more famous President
of our day, can express himself far better through the medium of
literature than he can through the medium of line and colour. This,
however, applies only to Mr. Wyke Bayliss's prose. His poetry is very
bad, and the sonnets at the end of the book are almost as mediocre as the
drawings that accompany them.