Title: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies: As Pleasingly Exemplified in Many Instances, Wherein the Serious Ones of This Earth, Carefully Exasperated, Have Been Prettily Spurred On to Unseemliness and Indiscretion, While Overcome by an Undue Sense of Right
Author: James McNeill Whistler - James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects of his personalityÑhis art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler titled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting is "Whistler's Mother" (1871), the revered and oft parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers.

Whistler produced numerous etchings, lithographs, and dry-points. His lithographs, some drawn on stone, others drawn directly on "lithographie" paper, are perhaps half as numerous as his etchings. Some of the lithographs are of figures slightly draped; two or three of the very finest are of Thames subjectsÑincluding a "nocturne" at Limehouse; while others depict the Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris, and Georgian churches in Soho and Bloomsbury in London. The etchings include portraits of family, mistresses, and intimate street scenes in London and Venice. Whistler gained an enormous reputation as an etcher. Martin Hardie wrote "there are some who set him beside Rembrandt, perhaps above Rembrandt, as the greatest master of all time. Personally, I prefer to regard them as the Jupiter and Venus, largest and brightest among the planets in the etcher's heaven."

Whistler took great care the over printing of his etchings and the choice of paper. At the beginning and end of his career, he placed great emphasis on cleanness of line, though in a middle period he experimented more with inking and the use of plate-tone.

Publisher: William Heinemann
City: London
Year: 1890
Binding Style: Hardcover
Pagination: 292 pages
Width: 6.5" Height: 8.25"
Book Details: This antique volume is bound in decorative three-quarter leather with cloth covered boards, likely later. This is a second edition volume, with an explanation of problem with piracy in the first edition.

The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies is a book by the painter James McNeill Whistler, published in 1890. The book was in part a response to, in part a transcript of, Whistler's famous libel suit against critic John Ruskin. Ruskin, in a review of the inaugural showing at the Grosvenor Gallery, had referred to Whistler's painting Nocturne in Black and Gold Ð The Falling Rocket as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face". The book contains Whistler's letters to newspapers chronicling his many petty grievances against various acquaintances and friends. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
Condition / Notes: This antique volume shows well with some occasional rubbing to the boards. The interior pages show light age toning.

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by National Book Auctions
January 6, 2018 11:00 AM EST
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$3,000 $9,999 $250
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