Wise words from an American artist

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (From “Alive to the fingertips” in TLS April 4, 2014)

·         At West Point military academy – to which he was sent, following in his father’s footsteps – he veered from one scrape to the next until finally failing a vital set of exams through “deficiency in chemistry”.  In later life he like to claim, “if Silicon had been a gas I should have been a major-general.”

·         Among his dicta was the assertion that “two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.”

·         Whistler was very self-promotional:  Degas, who admired Whistler’s work, said, “Really Whistler you behave as though you have no talent.”