The Painter Henry James Might Have Been

Abstract

Henry James considered writing and painting partner arts, for as he said in his famous treatise Art of Fiction, one type of artist paints a pic ture and other writes a novel.1 In fact, James spoke of them using similar language, often conflating two arts through metaphor or anal ogy, and even used same criteria to evaluate their merits. Indeed, only artistic reference more frequent in James' fiction than writing is trope of painting.2 His highest compliment to a writer came frequently in way of such comparisons. In an early review, James describes Carlyle's merits of expression as striking tones in picture,3 and in his critical study of Hawthorne he claims that The Scarlet Letter has hung an ineffaceable image in gallery, reserved inner cabinet, of literature.4 In both cases, central metaphor of painting is crucial for expressing excellence in writing. In an 1899 letter, James attempts to de scribe elusive quality in common with great writers, saying that they are big painters.5 Continuing in vein of painterly terms, James admires the picture of American life on Mr. Howells's canvas and claims that Howells' talent is based on fact that his work is so exclusively a matter of painting what he sees6?yet again conflating pen and brush. About his own novel The Bostonians, he speaks of having drawn and painted a portrait from life.7 He believed, in final analysis, that sister arts of writing and paint ing grew out of same source and same creative process. As he con tends in Art of Fiction, the analogy between art of painter and art of novelist is, so far as I am able to see, complete. Their inspiration is same, their process (allowing for different quality of