The Critic “Catching on”
Mr. Whistler is again, in a sense, the mainstay of the Society Pall Mall Gaz. Dec. 8, 1885. (British Artists), partly through his own individuality and partly through the innovations he has introduced.... He has several oil and pastel pictures, very slight in themselves, of the female nude, dignified and graceful in line and charmingly chaste, entitled “Harmony,” “Caprice,” and “Note.” Beneath the latter Mr. Whistler has written, “Horsley soit qui mal y pense.”
“This is not,” said the artist, “what people are sure to call it, REFLECTION:
Meant “friendly.” ‘Whistler’s little joke.’ On the contrary, it is an indignant protest against the idea that there is any immorality in the nude.”