The Performance of Art

The first book devoted to Whistler’s sensational “Ten O’Clock” lecture, The Performance of Art examines how and why the artist took to the podium in1885 to declare an end to the public’s participation in art, and reveals the role played by Oscar Wilde in this intriguing episode of Whistler’s life. James McNeill Whistler’s “Ten O’Clock” is typically referred to as a lecture, though Whistler himself rejected that term as too dour and pedantic – and certainly too pedestrian – to convey the spritely elegance of his monologue. An aestheticist manifesto, the “Ten O’Clock” takes issue with everything the artist regards as adverse to the independent production and proper appreciation of art. Its tenets illuminate Whistler’s own paintings, prints, and artistic philosophy, while presaging the twentieth-century rupture between fine art and popular appreciation. Initially presented in February 1885 at the late-night hour named in the title, the performance took place in a fashionable London auditorium just opposite the Royal Academy and was attended by all the leading lights of London’s social scene – including Oscar Wilde, whose own lectures in Britain and North America had motivated the artist to take the stage. By most accounts, the “Ten O’Clock” was a triumph for Whistler, who repeated it (at a more conventional hour) in Cambridge, Oxford, and several other venues. For nearly two years he planned to tour the major cities of the United States, complementing his talk with an exhibition of works that would consolidate his American reputation, but in the end decided against it. Instead, he prepared the lecture text for publication, working with the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé on an eloquent French translation. The Performance of Art investigates Whistler’s rationale for declaring an end to the public’s participation in art, offers the first rhetorical analysis of the “Ten O’Clock,” long neglected as a work of art in its own right, and reveals the role of Oscar Wilde in this intriguing episode of Whistler’s biography.