(Pall Mall Gazette, February 28, 1885.) ‘How can you possibly paint these ugly three-cornered hats?’ asked a reckless art critic once of Sir Joshua Reynolds. ‘I see light and shade in them,’ answered the artist. ‘Les grands coloristes,’ says Baudelaire, in a charming article on the artistic value of frock coats, ‘les grands coloristes savent […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 21, 1885.) Last night, at Prince’s Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvellous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind. Mr. Whistler began his lecture with a very pretty aria on […]

(Century Guild Hobby Horse, July 1886.) During my tour in America I happened one evening to find myself in Louisville, Kentucky. The subject I had selected to speak on was the Mission of Art in the Nineteenth Century, and in the course of my lecture I had occasion to quote Keats’s Sonnet on Blue as […]

(Court and Society Review, March 23, 1887.) A terrible danger is hanging over the Americans in London. Their future and their reputation this season depend entirely on the success of Buffalo Bill and Mrs. Brown-Potter. The former is certain to draw; for English people are far more interested in American barbarism than they are in […]

(Sunday Times, December 25, 1887.) Accepting a suggestion made by a friendly critic last week, Mr. Selwyn Image began his second lecture by explaining more fully what he meant by literary art, and pointed out the difference between an ordinary illustration to a book and such creative and original works as Michael Angelo’s fresco of […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, December 12, 1887.) Last Saturday afternoon, at Willis’s Rooms, Mr. Selwyn Image delivered the first of a series of four lectures on Modern Art before a select and distinguished audience. The chief point on which he dwelt was the absolute unity of all the arts and, in order to convey this idea, […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 9, 1888.) The most satisfactory thing in Mr. Simonds’ lecture last night was the peroration, in which he told the audience that ‘an artist cannot be made.’ But for this well-timed warning some deluded people might have gone away under the impression that sculpture was a sort of mechanical process within […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 2, 1888.) Yesterday evening Mr. William Morris delivered a most interesting and fascinating lecture on Carpet and Tapestry Weaving at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition now held at the New Gallery. Mr. Morris had small practical models of the two looms used, the carpet loom where the weaver sits in front […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 23, 1888.) ‘The beginning of art,’ said Mr. Cobden-Sanderson last night in his charming lecture on Bookbinding, ‘is man thinking about the universe.’ He desires to give expression to the joy and wonder that he feels at the marvels that surround him, and invents a form of beauty through which he […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 16, 1888.) Nothing could have been better than Mr. Emery Walker’s lecture on Letterpress Printing and Illustration, delivered last night at the Arts and Crafts. A series of most interesting specimens of old printed books and manuscripts was displayed on the screen by means of the magic-lantern, and Mr. Walker’s explanations […]

(Pall Mall Gazette, November 30, 1888.) Mr. Walter Crane, the President of the Society of Arts and Crafts, was greeted last night by such an enormous audience that at one time the honorary secretary became alarmed for the safety of the cartoons, and many people were unable to gain admission at all. However, order was […]

(Queen, December 8, 1888.) England has given to the world one great poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. By her side Mr. Swinburne would place Miss Christina Rossetti, whose New Year hymn he describes as so much the noblest of sacred poems in our language, that there is none which comes near it enough to stand second. […]

Written to Mr. Joaquin Miller in reply to a letter, dated February 9, 1882, in reference to the behaviour of a section of the audience at Wilde’s lecture on the English Renaissance at the Grand Opera House, Rochester, New York State, on February 7. It was first published in a volume called Decorative Art in […]

I. MR. WILDE’S BAD CASE (St. James’s Gazette, June 26, 1890.) To the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette. SIR,–I have read your criticism of my story, The Picture of Dorian Gray; and I need hardly say that I do not propose to discuss its merits or demerits, its personalities or its lack of personality. […]

(Times, September 26, 1891.) To the Editor of the Times. SIR,–The writer of a letter signed ‘An Indian Civilian’ that appears in your issue of today makes a statement about me which I beg you to allow me to correct at once. He says I have described the Anglo-Indians as being vulgar. This is not […]

(Daily Telegraph, February 20, 1892.) To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph. SIR,–I have just been sent an article that seems to have appeared in your paper some days ago, {1} in which it is stated that, in the course of some remarks addressed to the Playgoers’ Club on the occasion of my taking the […]

I. (Speaker, December 5, 1891.) SIR.–I have just purchased, at a price that for any other English sixpenny paper I would have considered exorbitant, a copy of the Speaker at one of the charming kiosks that decorate Paris; institutions, by the way, that I think we should at once introduce into London. The kiosk is […]

I. (Pall Mall Gazette, September 20, 1894.) To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. SIR,–Will you allow me to draw your attention to a very interesting example of the ethics of modern journalism, a quality of which we have all heard so much and seen so little? About a month ago Mr. T. P. […]

An Introduction to Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf by Rennell Rodd, published by J. M. Stoddart and Co., Philadelphia, 1882. Amongst the many young men in England who are seeking along with me to continue and to perfect the English Renaissance–jeunes guerriers du drapeau romantique, as Gautier would have called us–there is none whose love […]

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all […]