James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...
and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed
sentimentality
Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but in current usage the term commonly connotes a reliance on shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason.
Sentimentalism in philosophy is a view in ...
and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "
art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorce ...
". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and
"nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting, ''
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1
''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'', best known under its colloquial name ''Whistler's Mother'' or ''Portrait of Artist's Mother'', is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1871. T ...
'' (1871), commonly known as ''Whistler's Mother'', is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the
art world
The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alte ...
and the broader culture of his time with his
theories
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
and his friendships with other leading artists and writers.
Early life
New England
James Abbott Whistler was born in
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...
on July 10, 1834, the first child of
Anna McNeill Whistler
Anna Matilda (née McNeill) Whistler (September 27, 1804 – January 31, 1881) was the mother of American-born, British-based painter James McNeill Whistler, who made her the subject of his famous painting ''Arrangement in Grey and Black No ...
and
George Washington Whistler
George Washington Whistler (May 19, 1800 – April 7, 1849) was a prominent American civil engineer best known for building steam locomotives and railroads. He is credited with introducing the steam whistle to American locomotives.
In 1842, Tsa ...
, and the elder brother of Confederate surgeon
William McNeill Whistler
William McNeill Whistler (July 22, 1836 – February 27, 1900) was an American physician and a medical army officer for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. He was the younger brother of artist James McNeill Whistler.
Early life
W ...
. His father was a railroad engineer, and Anna was his second wife. James lived the first three years of his life in a modest house at 243 Worthen Street in Lowell.
The house is now the
Whistler House Museum of Art
The Whistler House Museum of Art is the birthplace of painter and etcher James McNeill Whistler. It is located at 243 Worthen Street, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, and is open as a museum displaying works from the museum collection and shows by ar ...
, a museum dedicated to him. He claimed
St. Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
as his birthplace during the Ruskin trial: "I shall be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in Lowell."
The family moved from Lowell to
Stonington, Connecticut
The town of Stonington is located in New London County, Connecticut in the state's southeastern corner. It includes the borough of Stonington (borough), Connecticut, Stonington, the villages of Pawcatuck, Connecticut, Pawcatuck, Lords Point, and W ...
in 1837, where his father worked for the Stonington Railroad. Three of the couple's children died in infancy during this period.
Their fortunes improved considerably in 1839 when his father became chief engineer for the
Boston & Albany Railroad
The Boston and Albany Railroad was a railroad connecting Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York, later becoming part of the New York Central Railroad system, Conrail, and CSX Transportation. The line is currently used by CSX for freight. Pa ...
, and the family built a mansion in
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
, where the
Wood Museum of History
The Quadrangle is the common name for a cluster of museums and cultural institutions in Metro Center, Springfield, Massachusetts, on Chestnut Street between State and Edwards Streets.
The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden, in the cen ...
now stands. They lived in Springfield until they left the United States in late 1842.
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , group=pron ( – ) was List of Russian rulers, Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He was the third son of Paul I of Russia, Paul I and younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I ...
learned of George Whistler's ingenuity in engineering the Boston & Albany Railroad, and he offered him a position in 1842 engineering a railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and the family moved to St. Petersburg in the winter of 1842/43.
Whistler was a moody child prone to fits of temper and insolence, and he often drifted into periods of laziness after bouts of illness. His parents discovered that drawing often settled him down and helped focus his attention. In later years, he played up his mother's connection to the American South and its roots, and he presented himself as an impoverished Southern aristocrat, although it remains unclear to what extent he truly sympathized with the Southern cause during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. He adopted his mother's maiden name after she died, using it as an additional middle name.
Russia and England
![James McNeil Whistler by Kilburn, 1847-49](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/James_McNeil_Whistler_by_Kilburn%2C_1847-49.png)
Beginning in 1842, his father was employed to work on a railroad in Russia. After moving to St. Petersburg to join his father a year later, the young Whistler took private art lessons, then enrolled in the
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the Thre ...
at age eleven. The young artist followed the traditional curriculum of drawing from plaster casts and occasional live models, revelled in the atmosphere of art talk with older peers, and pleased his parents with a first-class mark in anatomy. In 1844, he met the noted artist
Sir William Allan
Sir William Allan (178223 February 1850) was a distinguished Scottish historical painter known for his scenes of Russian life. He became president of the Royal Scottish Academy and was made a Royal Academician.
Life and work
Allan was born ...
, who came to Russia with a commission to paint a history of the life of
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
. Whistler's mother noted in her diary, "the great artist remarked to me 'Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination.'"
In 1847–1848, his family spent some time in London with relatives, while his father stayed in Russia. Whistler's brother-in-law
Francis Haden, a physician who was also an artist, spurred his interest in art and photography. Haden took Whistler to visit collectors and to lectures, and gave him a watercolour set with instruction. Whistler already was imagining an art career. He began to collect books on art and he studied other artists' techniques. When his portrait was painted by
Sir William Boxall in 1848, the young Whistler exclaimed that the portrait was "very much like me and a very fine picture. Mr. Boxall is a beautiful colourist... It is a beautiful creamy surface, and looks so rich." In his blossoming enthusiasm for art, at fifteen, he informed his father by letter of his future direction, "I hope, dear father, you will not object to my choice." His father, however, died from
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
at the age of 49, and the Whistler family moved back to his mother's home town of
Pomfret, Connecticut
Pomfret is a New England town, town in Windham County, Connecticut, Windham County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 4,266 in 2020 according to the 2020 United States Census. The land was purchased from Native Americans in 1686 (the ...
. His art plans remained vague and his future uncertain. The family lived frugally and managed to get by on a limited income. His cousin reported that Whistler at that time was "slight, with a pensive, delicate face, shaded by soft brown curls... he had a somewhat foreign appearance and manner, which, aided by natural abilities, made him very charming, even at that age."
West Point
Whistler was sent to Christ Church Hall School with his mother's hopes that he would become a minister. Whistler was seldom without his sketchbook and was popular with his classmates for his caricatures. However, it became clear that a career in religion did not suit him, so he applied to the
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
at West Point, where his father had taught drawing and other relatives had attended. He was admitted to the highly selective institution in July 1851 on the strength of his family name, despite his extreme nearsightedness and poor health history. However, during his three years there, his grades were barely satisfactory, and he was a sorry sight at drill and dress, known as "Curly" for his hair length which exceeded regulations. Whistler bucked authority, spouted sarcastic comments, and racked up demerits. Colonel
Robert E Lee
Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of North ...
was the West Point Superintendent and, after considerable indulgence toward Whistler, he had no choice but to dismiss the young cadet. Whistler's major accomplishment at West Point was learning drawing and map making from American artist
Robert W. Weir
Robert Walter Weir (June 18, 1803 – May 1, 1889) was an American artist and educator and is considered a painter of the Hudson River School. Weir was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1829 and was an instructor at the United States M ...
.
His departure from West Point seems to have been precipitated by a failure in a chemistry exam where he was asked to describe
silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...
and began by saying, "Silicon is a
gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
." As he himself put it later: "If silicon were a gas, I would have been a general one day". However, a separate anecdote suggests misconduct in drawing class as the reason for Whistler's departure.
First job
After West Point, Whistler worked as draftsman mapping the entire U.S. coast for military and maritime purposes. He found the work boring and he was frequently late or absent. He spent much of his free time playing billiards and idling about, was always broke, and although a charmer, had little acquaintance with women. After it was discovered that he was drawing sea serpents, mermaids, and whales on the margins of the maps, he was transferred to the etching division of the U.S. Coast Survey. He lasted there only two months, but he learned the etching technique which later proved valuable to his career.
![Whistler James Portrait of Whistler with Hat (1858)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Whistler_James_Portrait_of_Whistler_with_Hat_%281858%29.jpg)
At this point, Whistler firmly decided that art would be his future. For a few months he lived in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
with a wealthy friend, Tom Winans, who even furnished Whistler with a studio and some spending cash. The young artist made some valuable contacts in the art community and also sold some early paintings to Winans. Whistler turned down his mother's suggestions for other more practical careers and informed her that with money from Winans, he was setting out to further his art training in Paris. Whistler never returned to the United States.
Art study in France
Whistler arrived in Paris in 1855, rented a studio in the Latin Quarter, and quickly adopted the life of a bohemian artist. Soon he had a French girlfriend, a dressmaker named Héloise. He studied traditional art methods for a short time at the Ecole Impériale and at the atelier of
Marc Charles Gabriel Gleyre
Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (2 May 1806 – 5 May 1874), was a Swiss artist who was a resident in France from an early age. He took over the studio of Paul Delaroche in 1843 and taught a number of younger artists who became prominent, including He ...
. The latter was a great advocate of the work of
Ingres, and impressed Whistler with two principles that he used for the rest of his career: that line is more important than color and that black is the fundamental color of tonal harmony. Twenty years later, the
Impressionists
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
would largely overthrow this philosophy, banning black and brown as "forbidden colors" and emphasizing color over form. Whistler preferred self-study and enjoying the café life.
While letters from home reported his mother's efforts at economy, Whistler spent freely, sold little or nothing in his first year in Paris, and was in steady debt. To relieve the situation, he took to painting and selling copies from works at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
and finally moved to cheaper quarters. As luck would have it, the arrival in Paris of George Lucas, another rich friend, helped stabilize Whistler's finances for a while. In spite of a financial respite, the winter of 1857 was a difficult one for Whistler. His poor health, made worse by excessive smoking and drinking, laid him low.
Conditions improved during the summer of 1858. Whistler recovered and traveled with fellow artist Ernest Delannoy through France and the Rhineland. He later produced a group of etchings known as "The French Set", with the help of French master printer Auguste Delâtre. During that year, he painted his first self-portrait, ''Portrait of Whistler with Hat'', a dark and thickly rendered work reminiscent of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
. But the event of greatest consequence that year was his friendship with
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithography, lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
Biography
He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodo ...
, whom he met at the Louvre. Through him, Whistler was introduced to the circle of
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
, which included
Carolus-Duran
Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor.
He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France.
Biograph ...
(later the teacher of
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
),
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros (8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist. He moved to London in 1863 and later took British citizenship. He was important as a teacher in the British etching rev ...
, and
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
.
Also in this group was
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
, whose ideas and theories of "modern" art influenced Whistler. Baudelaire challenged artists to scrutinize the brutality of life and nature and to portray it faithfully, avoiding the old themes of mythology and allegory.
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic.
While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...
, one of the first to explore translation qualities among art and music, may have inspired Whistler to view art in musical terms.
London
Reflecting the banner of realism of his adopted circle, Whistler painted his first exhibited work, ''La Mère Gérard'' in 1858. He followed it by painting ''At the Piano'' in 1859 in London, which he adopted as his home, while also regularly visiting friends in France. ''At the Piano'' is a portrait composed of his niece and her mother in their London music room, an effort which clearly displayed his talent and promise. A critic wrote, "
espite
Espite is a Freguesia (Portugal), civil parish in the municipality of Ourém, Portugal. The population in 2011 was 1,104, a recklessly bold manner and sketchiness of the wildest and roughest kind,
t has
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is deri ...
a genuine feeling for colour and a splendid power of composition and design, which evince a just appreciation of nature very rare amongst artists." The work is unsentimental and effectively contrasts the mother in black and the daughter in white, with other colors kept restrained in the manner advised by his teacher Gleyre. It was displayed at the Royal Academy the following year, and in many exhibits to come.
In a second painting executed in the same room, Whistler demonstrated his natural inclination toward innovation and novelty by fashioning a genre scene with unusual composition and foreshortening. It later was re-titled ''Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room''. This painting also demonstrated Whistler's ongoing work pattern, especially with portraits: a quick start, major adjustments, a period of neglect, then a final flurry to the finish.
After a year in London, as counterpoint to his 1858 ''French set'', in 1860, he produced another set of etchings called ''Thames Set'', as well as some early impressionistic work, including ''The Thames in Ice''. At this stage, he was beginning to establish his technique of tonal harmony based on a limited, predetermined palette.
Early career
![James Abbott McNeill Whistler by Etienne Carjat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler_by_Etienne_Carjat.jpg)
In 1861, after returning to Paris for a time, Whistler painted his first famous work, ''
Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl''. The portrait of his mistress and business manager
Joanna Hiffernan
Joanna Hiffernan (1843 – 1886) or Joanna Heffernan was an Irish artists' model and muse who was romantically linked with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French painter Gustave Courbet. In addition to being an artists' ...
was created as a simple study in white; however, others saw it differently. The critic
Jules-Antoine Castagnary
Jules-Antoine Castagnary (11 April 1830 – 11 May 1888) was a French liberal politician, journalist and progressive and influential art critic, who embraced the new term "Impressionist" in his positive and perceptive review of the first Impression ...
thought the painting an allegory of a new bride's lost innocence. Others linked it to
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for ''The Moons ...
's ''
The Woman in White'', a popular novel of the time, or various other literary sources. In England, some considered it a painting in the
Pre-Raphaelite
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
manner. In the painting, Hiffernan holds a lily in her left hand and stands upon a wolf skin rug (interpreted by some to represent masculinity and lust) with the wolf's head staring menacingly at the viewer. The portrait was refused for exhibition at the conservative Royal Academy, but was shown in a private gallery under the title ''The Woman in White''. In 1863 it was shown at the
Salon des Refusés
The Salon des Refusés, French for "exhibition of rejects" (), is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.
Today, by ...
in Paris, an event sponsored by Emperor
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
for the exhibition of works rejected from the
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon (P ...
.
Whistler's painting was widely noticed, although upstaged by Manet's more shocking painting ''
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe''. Countering criticism by traditionalists, Whistler's supporters insisted that the painting was "an apparition with a spiritual content" and that it epitomized his theory that art should be concerned essentially with the arrangement of colors in harmony, not with a literal portrayal of the natural world.
Two years later, Whistler painted another portrait of Hiffernan in white, this time displaying his newfound interest in Asian motifs, which he entitled ''
The Little White Girl''. His ''Lady of the Land Lijsen'' and ''The Golden Screen'', both completed in 1864, again portray his mistress, in even more emphatic Asian dress and surroundings. During this period Whistler became close to
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
, the early leader of the French realist school, but when Hiffernan modeled in the nude for Courbet, Whistler became enraged and his relationship with Hiffernan began to fall apart. In January 1864, Whistler's very religious and very proper mother arrived in London, upsetting her son's bohemian existence and temporarily exacerbating family tensions. As he wrote to
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithography, lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
Biography
He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodo ...
, "General upheaval!! I had to empty my house and purify it from cellar to eaves." He also immediately moved Hiffernan to another location.
From 1866, Whistler made his home in
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an affluent area in west London, England, due south-west of Charing Cross by approximately 2.5 miles. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the south-western postal area.
Chelsea histori ...
, an area popular with artists, firstly in
Cheyne Walk
Cheyne Walk is an historic road in Chelsea, London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It runs parallel with the River Thames. Before the construction of Chelsea Embankment reduced the width of the Thames here, it fronted ...
, then an ill-fated move to
Tite Street
Tite Street is a street in Chelsea, London, England, within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, just north of the River Thames. It was laid out from 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, giving access to the Chelsea Embankment.
Hist ...
, and finally Upper Church Street.
Mature career
Nocturnes
![James Abbot McNeill Whistler 006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/James_Abbot_McNeill_Whistler_006.jpg)
In 1866, Whistler decided to visit
Valparaíso, Chile, a journey that has puzzled scholars, although Whistler stated that he did it for political reasons. Chile was at war with Spain and perhaps Whistler thought it a heroic struggle of a small nation against a larger one, but no evidence supports that theory. What the journey did produce was Whistler's first three nocturnal paintings—which he termed "moonlights" and later re-titled as "nocturnes"—night scenes of the harbor painted with a blue or light green palette. After he returned to London, he painted several more nocturnes over the next ten years, many of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
and of
Cremorne Gardens, a pleasure park famous for its frequent
fireworks
Fireworks are a class of Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a l ...
displays, which presented a novel challenge to paint. In his maritime nocturnes, Whistler used highly thinned paint as a ground with lightly flicked color to suggest ships, lights, and shore line. Some of the Thames paintings also show compositional and thematic similarities with the Japanese prints of
Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige (, also ; ja, 歌川 広重 ), born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition.
Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format l ...
.
In 1872, Whistler credited his patron
Frederick Leyland, an amateur musician devoted to
Chopin, for his musically inspired titles.
I say I can't thank you too much for the name 'Nocturne' as a title for my moonlights! You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics and consequent pleasure to me—besides it is really so charming and does so poetically say all that I want to say and ''no more'' than I wish!
At that point, Whistler painted another self-portrait and entitled it ''Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter'' (c. 1872), and he also began to re-title many of his earlier works using terms associated with music, such as a "nocturne", "symphony", "harmony", "study" or "arrangement", to emphasize the tonal qualities and the composition and to de-emphasize the narrative content. Whistler's nocturnes were among his most innovative works. Furthermore, his submission of several nocturnes to art dealer
Paul Durand-Ruel
Paul Durand-Ruel (31 October 1831, Paris – 5 February 1922, Paris) was a French art dealer associated with the Impressionists and the Barbizon School. Being the first to support artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste ...
after the
Franco-Prussian War gave Whistler the opportunity to explain his evolving "theory in art" to artists, buyers, and critics in France. His good friend Fantin-Latour, growing more reactionary in his opinions, especially in his negativity concerning the emerging Impressionist school, found Whistler's new works surprising and confounding. Fantin-Latour admitted, "I don't understand anything there; it's bizarre how one changes. I don't recognize him anymore." Their relationship was nearly at an end by then, but they continued to share opinions in occasional correspondence. When
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
invited Whistler to exhibit with the first show by the Impressionists in 1874, Whistler turned down the invitation, as did
Manet
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
, and some scholars attributed this in part to Fantin-Latour's influence on both men.
Portraits
The
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 fragmented the French art community. Many artists took refuge in England, joining Whistler, including
Camille Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...
and Monet, while Manet and Degas stayed in France. Like Whistler, Monet and Pissarro both focused their efforts on views of the city, and it is likely that Whistler was exposed to the evolution of
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
founded by these artists and that they had seen his nocturnes. Whistler was drifting away from Courbet's "damned realism" and their friendship had wilted, as had his liaison with Joanna Hiffernan.
''Whistler's Mother''
![Whistlers Mother high res](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Whistlers_Mother_high_res.jpg)
By 1871, Whistler returned to portraits and soon produced his most famous painting, the nearly monochromatic full-length figure entitled ''Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1'', but usually referred to as ''Whistler's Mother''. A model failed to appear one day, according to a letter from his mother, so Whistler turned to his mother and suggested that he do her portrait. He had her stand at first, in his typically slow and experimental way, but that proved too tiring so the seated pose was adopted. It took dozens of sittings to complete.
![Anna Matilda Whistler - circa 1850s](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Anna_Matilda_Whistler_-_circa_1850s.jpg)
The austere portrait in his normally constrained palette is another Whistler exercise in tonal harmony and composition. The deceptively simple design is in fact a balancing act of differing shapes, particularly the rectangles of curtain, picture on the wall, and floor which stabilize the curve of her face, dress, and chair. Whistler commented that the painting's narrative was of little importance, yet the painting was also paying homage to his pious mother. After the initial shock of her moving in with her son, she aided him considerably by stabilizing his behavior somewhat, tending to his domestic needs, and providing an aura of conservative respectability that helped win over patrons.
The public reacted negatively to the painting, mostly because of its anti-Victorian simplicity during a time in England when sentimentality and flamboyant decoration were in vogue. Critics thought the painting a failed "experiment" rather than art. The
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
rejected it, but then grudgingly accepted it after lobbying by Sir
William Boxall
Sir William Boxall (29 June 1800 – 6 December 1879) was an English painter and museum director.
Early life and education
He was born at Oxford on 29 June 1800, and baptised 29 July at St Michael's Church, Oxford, to Thomas Boxall (d. 1847) ...
—but they hung it in an unfavorable location at their exhibition.
From the start, ''Whistler's Mother'' sparked varying reactions, including parody, ridicule, and reverence, which have continued to today. Some saw it as "the dignified feeling of old ladyhood", "a grave sentiment of mourning", or a "perfect symbol of motherhood"; others employed it as a fitting vehicle for mockery. It has been satirized in endless variations in greeting cards and magazines, and by cartoon characters such as
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known fo ...
and
Bullwinkle the Moose. Whistler did his part in promoting the picture and popularizing the image. He frequently exhibited it and authorized the early reproductions that made their way into thousands of homes. The painting narrowly escaped being burned in a fire aboard a train during shipping. It was ultimately purchased by the French government, the first Whistler work in a public collection, and is now housed in the
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...
in Paris.
![Whistler's Mother 1934 Issue-3c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Whistler%27s_Mother_1934_Issue-3c.jpg)
During the Depression, the picture was billed as a "million dollar" painting and was a big hit at the Chicago World's Fair. It was accepted as a universal icon of motherhood by the worldwide public, which was not particularly aware of or concerned with Whistler's aesthetic theories. In recognition of its status and popularity, the United States issued a postage stamp in 1934 featuring an adaptation of the painting. In 2015, ''New Yorker'' critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote that it "remains the most important American work residing outside the United States."
Martha Tedeschi writes:
''Whistler's Mother'', Wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
's '' American Gothic'', Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
's ''Mona Lisa
The ''Mona Lisa'' ( ; it, Gioconda or ; french: Joconde ) is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known ...
'' and Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...
's ''The Scream
''The Scream'' is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images of art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including ...
'' have all achieved something that most paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value—have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer. These few works have successfully made the transition from the elite realm of the museum visitor to the enormous venue of popular culture.
Other portraits
![James Abbott McNeill Whistler - Whistler in his studio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler_-_Whistler_in_his_studio.jpg)
Other important portraits by Whistler include those of
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
(historian,1873),
Maud Franklin (his mistress, 1876), Cicely Alexander (daughter of a London banker, 1873),
Lady Meux (socialite, 1882), and
Théodore Duret
Théodore Duret (20 January 1838, Saintes – 16 January 1927, Paris) was a French journalist, author and art critic. He was one of the first advocates of Courbet, Manet, and the Impressionists. One of his best known works is ''Critique d'Ava ...
(critic, 1884). In the 1870s, Whistler painted full-length portraits of
Frederick Leyland and his wife Frances. Leyland subsequently commissioned the artist to decorate his dining room (see Peacock Room below).
Whistler had been disappointed over the irregular acceptance of his works for the Royal Academy exhibitions and the poor hanging and placement of his paintings. In response, Whistler staged his first
solo show in 1874. The show was notable and noticed, however, for Whistler's design and decoration of the hall, which harmonized well with the paintings, in keeping with his art theories. A reviewer wrote, "The visitor is struck, on entering the gallery, with a curious sense of harmony and fitness pervading it, and is more interested, perhaps, in the general effect than in any one work."
![James McNeill Whistler, Alice Butt, c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/James_McNeill_Whistler%2C_Alice_Butt%2C_c._1895%2C_NGA_35081.jpg)
Whistler was not so successful a portrait painter as the other famous expatriate American
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
. Whistler's spare technique and his disinclination to flatter his sitters, as well as his notoriety, may account for this. He also worked very slowly and demanded extraordinarily long sittings.
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...
complained of his sitting for a portrait by Whistler, "He proved to be a veritable tyrant, painting every day into the twilight, while my limbs ached with weariness and my head swam dizzily. 'Don't move! Don't move!' he would scream whenever I started to rest." By the time he gained widespread acceptance in the 1890s, Whistler was past his prime as a portrait painter.
Technique
Whistler's approach to portraiture in his late maturity was described by one of his sitters, Arthur J. Eddy, who posed for the artist in 1894:
He worked with great rapidity and long hours, but he used his colours thin and covered the canvas with innumerable coats of paint. The colours increased in depth and intensity as the work progressed. At first the entire figure was painted in greyish-brown tones, with very little flesh colour, the whole blending perfectly with the greyish-brown of the prepared canvas; then the entire background would be intensified a little; then the figure made a little stronger; then the background, and so on from day to day and week to week, and often from month to month. ... And so the portrait would really grow, really develop as an entirety, very much as a negative under the action of the chemicals comes out gradually—light, shadows, and all from the very first faint indications to their full values. It was as if the portrait were hidden within the canvas and the master by passing his wands day after day over the surface evoked the image.
Printmaking
![Zaandam2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Zaandam2.jpg)
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
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
subjects—including a "nocturne" at Limehouse; while others depict the
Faubourg Saint-Germain
''Faubourg Saint-Germain'' () is a historic district of Paris, France. The ''Faubourg'' has long been known as the favourite home of the French nobility, French high nobility and hosts many aristocratic ''hôtels particuliers''. It is currently pa ...
in Paris, and Georgian churches in
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develop ...
and
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
in London.
![The Doorway MET DP811134](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/The_Doorway_MET_DP811134.jpg)
The etchings include portraits of family, mistresses, and intimate street scenes in London and
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. 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." He took great care over the 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
surface tone.
Butterfly signature and painting settings
Whistler's famous butterfly signature first developed in the 1860s out of his interest in Asian art. He studied the potter's marks on the china he had begun to collect and decided to design a monogram of his initials. Over time this evolved into the shape of an abstract butterfly. By around 1880, he added a stinger to the butterfly image to create a mark representing both his gentle, sensitive nature and his provocative, feisty spirit. He took great care in the appropriate placement of the image on both his paintings and his custom-made frames. His focus on the importance of balance and harmony extended beyond the frame to the placement of his paintings to their settings, and further to the design of an entire architectural element, as in the Peacock Room.
''The Peacock Room''
![The Peacock Room - The Princess from the Land of Porcelain](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/The_Peacock_Room_-_The_Princess_from_the_Land_of_Porcelain.png)
''Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room'' is Whistler's masterpiece of interior decorative mural art. He painted over the original paneled room designed by
Thomas Jeckyll
Thomas Jeckyll (1827 Wymondham, Norfolk – 1881 Norwich) (baptised on 20 June 1827) was an English architect who excelled in the creation of metalwork and furniture strongly influenced by Japanese design, and is best known for his planning i ...
(1827–1881), in a unified palette of brilliant blue-greens with over-glazing and metallic gold leaf. Painted in 1876–1877, it is now considered a high example of the
Anglo-Japanese style
The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian period and early Edwardian period from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese design and culture influenced how designers and craftspe ...
. Frederick Leyland left the room in Whistler's care to make minor changes, "to harmonize" the room whose primary purpose was to display Leyland's china collection. Whistler let his imagination run wild, however: "Well, you know, I just painted on. I went on—without design or sketch—putting in every touch with such freedom ... And the harmony in blue and gold developing, you know, I forgot everything in my joy of it." He completely painted over 16th-century Cordoba leather wall coverings first brought to Britain by Catherine of Aragon that Leyland had paid £1,000 for.
Having acquired the centerpiece of the room, Whistler's painting of ''
The Princess from the Land of Porcelain
''Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain'' (better known as ''The Princess from the Land of Porcelain''; also known by the French title ''La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine'') is a painting by American-born artist James Abbo ...
'', American industrialist and aesthete
Charles Lang Freer
Charles Lang Freer (February 25, 1854 – September 25, 1919) was an American industrialist, art collector, and patron. He is known for his large collection of East Asian, American, and Middle Eastern Art. In 1906, Freer donated his extensive col ...
purchased the entire room in 1904 from Leyland's heirs, including Leyland's daughter and her husband, the British artist
Val Prinsep. Freer then had the contents of the ''Peacock Room'' installed in
his Detroit mansion. After Freer's death in 1919, ''The Peacock Room'' was permanently installed in the
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer Gallery of Art is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. focusing on Asian art. The Freer and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. The Freer and Sac ...
at the
Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The gallery opened to the public in 1923. A large painted caricature by Whistler of Leyland portraying him as an anthropomorphic peacock playing a piano, and entitled ''The Gold Scab: Eruption in Frilthy Lucre'' – a pun on Leyland's fondness for frilly shirt fronts – is now in the collection of the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...
.
Ruskin trial
In 1877 Whistler sued the critic
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...
for libel after the critic condemned his painting ''
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket''. Whistler exhibited the work in the
Grosvenor Gallery
The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provided ...
, an alternative to the Royal Academy exhibition, alongside works by
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
and other artists. Ruskin, who had been a champion of the
Pre-Raphaelites and
J. M. W. Turner, reviewed Whistler's work in his publication ''Fors Clavigera'' on July 2, 1877. Ruskin praised Burne-Jones, while he attacked Whistler:
For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay [founder of the Grosvenor Gallery
The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provided ...
] ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas
The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from t ...
for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.
Whistler, seeing the attack in the newspaper, replied to his friend
George Boughton, "It is the most debased style of criticism I have had thrown at me yet." He then went to his solicitor and drew up a writ for libel, which was served to Ruskin. Whistler hoped to recover £1,000 plus the costs of the action. The case came to trial the following year after delays caused by Ruskin's bouts of mental illness, while Whistler's financial condition continued to deteriorate. It was heard in the Exchequer Division of the
High Court on November 25 and 26, 1878 before
Baron Huddleston and a special jury. Counsel for John Ruskin, Attorney General Sir
John Holker
Sir John Holker (1828 – 24 May 1882) was a British lawyer, politician, and judge. He sat as a Member of Parliament for Preston from 1872 until his death ten years later. He was first Solicitor General and later Attorney General in the ...
, cross-examined Whistler:
![Whistler-Nocturne in black and gold](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Whistler-Nocturne_in_black_and_gold.jpg)
Whistler had counted on many artists to take his side as witnesses, but they refused, fearing damage to their reputations. The other witnesses for him were unconvincing and the jury's own reaction to the work was derisive. With Ruskin's witnesses more impressive, including
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
, and with Ruskin absent for medical reasons, Whistler's counterattack was ineffective. Nonetheless, the jury reached a verdict in favor of Whistler, but awarded a mere farthing in nominal damages, and the court costs were split. The cost of the case, together with huge debts from building his residence ("The White House" in
Tite Street
Tite Street is a street in Chelsea, London, England, within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, just north of the River Thames. It was laid out from 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, giving access to the Chelsea Embankment.
Hist ...
,
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
, designed with
E. W. Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
, 1877–8), bankrupted him by May 1879, resulting in an auction of his work, collections, and house. Stansky notes the irony that the
Fine Art Society of London, which had organized a collection to pay for Ruskin's legal costs, supported him in etching
"The Stones of Venice" (and in exhibiting the series in 1883), which helped recoup Whistler's costs.
Whistler published his account of the trial in the
pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...
''Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics'', included in his later ''
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
''The Gentle Art of Making Enemies'' is a book by the painter James McNeill Whistler, published in London in 1890 by William Heinemann, who also published a second, enlarged edition in 1892. The book was in part a response to, in part a trans ...
'' (1890), in December 1878, soon after the trial. Whistler's grand hope that the publicity of the trial would rescue his career was dashed as he lost rather than gained popularity among patrons because of it. Among his creditors was Leyland, who oversaw the sale of Whistler's possessions. Whistler made various caricatures of his former patron, including a biting satirical painting called ''The Gold Scab'', just after Whistler declared bankruptcy. Whistler always blamed Leyland for his financial downfall.
Later years
![Mother of Pearl and Silver The Andalusian](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Mother_of_Pearl_and_Silver_The_Andalusian.jpg)
After the trial, Whistler received a commission to do twelve etchings in Venice. He eagerly accepted the assignment, and arrived in the city with girlfriend Maud, taking rooms in a dilapidated palazzo they shared with other artists, including
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
. Although homesick for London, he adapted to Venice and set about discovering its character. He did his best to distract himself from the gloom of his financial affairs and the pending sale of all his goods at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
. He was a regular guest at parties at the American consulate, and with his usual wit, enchanted the guests with verbal flourishes such as "the artist's only positive virtue is idleness—and there are so few who are gifted at it."
His new friends reported, on the contrary, that Whistler rose early and put in a full day of effort. He wrote to a friend, "I have learned to know a Venice in Venice that the others never seem to have perceived, and which, if I bring back with me as I propose, will far more than compensate for all annoyances delays & vexations of spirit." The three-month assignment stretched to fourteen months. During this exceptionally productive period, Whistler finished over fifty etchings, several nocturnes, some watercolors, and over 100 pastels—illustrating both the moods of Venice and its fine architectural details.
Furthermore, Whistler influenced the American art community in Venice, especially
Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck (né Decker; October 9, 1848 – January 3, 1919) was an American figure and portrait painter.
Early life
Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernhard Decker. Decker died in a cholera epidemic whe ...
(and Duveneck's 'boys') and
Robert Blum
Robert Blum (10 November 1807 – 9 November 1848) was a German democratic politician, publicist, poet, publisher, revolutionist and member of the National Assembly of 1848. In his fight for a strong, unified Germany he opposed ethnocentrism a ...
who emulated Whistler's vision of the city and later spread his methods and influence back to America.
Back in London, the pastels sold particularly well and he quipped, "They are not as good as I supposed. They are selling!" He was actively engaged in exhibiting his other work but with limited success. Though still struggling financially, he was heartened by the attention and admiration he received from the younger generation of English and American painters who made him their idol and eagerly adopted the title "pupil of Whistler". Many of them returned to America and spread tales of Whistler's provocative egotism, sharp wit, and aesthetic pronouncements—establishing the legend of Whistler, much to his satisfaction.
Whistler published his first book
''Ten O'Clock'' lecturein 1885, a major expression of his belief in "art for art's sake". At the time, the opposing Victorian notion reigned, namely, that art, and indeed much human activity, had a moral or social function. To Whistler, however, art was its own end and the artist's responsibility was not to society, but to himself, to interpret through art, and to neither reproduce nor moralize what he saw. Furthermore, he stated, "Nature is very rarely right", and must be improved upon by the artist, with his own vision.
Though differing with Whistler on several points, including his insistence that poetry was a higher form of art than painting,
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
was generous in his praise and hailed the lecture a masterpiece:
not merely for its clever satire and amusing jests ... but for the pure and perfect beauty of many of its passages ... for that he is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting, in my opinion. And I may add that in this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs.
Whistler, however, thought himself mocked by Oscar Wilde, and from then on, public sparring ensued leading to a total breakdown of their friendship, precipitated by a report written by
Herbert Vivian
Herbert Vivian (3 April 1865 – 18 April 1940) was an English journalist, author and newspaper owner, who befriended Lord Randolph Churchill, Charles Russell, Leopold Maxse and others in the 1880s. He campaigned for Irish Home Rule and was pr ...
. Later, Wilde "symbolically murdered Whistler", basing Basil Hallward, the murdered artist in his novel ''
The Picture of Dorian Gray
''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' is a philosophical fiction, philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine''.''Th ...
'' on Whistler.
In January 1881, Anna Whistler died. In his mother's honour, thereafter, he publicly adopted her maiden name McNeill as a middle name.
![Whistler - The Barrow, Brussels](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Whistler_-_The_Barrow%2C_Brussels.jpg)
Whistler joined the Society of British Artists in 1884, and on June 1, 1886, he was elected president. The following year, during
Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee
The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...
, Whistler presented to the Queen, on the Society's behalf, an elaborate album including a lengthy written address and illustrations that he made. Queen Victoria so admired "the beautiful and artistic illumination" that she decreed henceforth, "that the Society should be called Royal." This achievement was widely appreciated by the members, but soon it was overshadowed by the dispute that inevitably arose with the Royal Academy of Arts. Whistler proposed that members of the Royal Society should withdraw from the Royal Academy. This ignited a feud within the membership ranks that overshadowed all other society business. In May 1888, nine members wrote to Whistler to demand his resignation. At the annual meeting on June 4, he was defeated for re-election by a vote of 18–19, with nine abstentions. Whistler and 25 supporters resigned, while the anti-Whistler majority (in his view) was successful in purging him for his "eccentricities" and "non-English" background.
With his relationship with Maud unraveling, Whistler suddenly proposed to and married
Beatrice Godwin (also called 'Beatrix' or 'Trixie'), a former pupil and the widow of his architect
Edward William Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
. Through his friendship with Godwin, Whistler had become close to Beatrice, whom Whistler painted in the full-length portrait titled ''Harmony in Red: Lamplight'' (GLAHA 46315).
By the summer of 1888 Whistler and Beatrice appeared in public as a couple. At a dinner
Louise Jopling
Louise Jane Jopling (née Goode, previously Romer and later Rowe) (Manchester 16 November 1843 – 19 November 1933) was an English painter of the Victorian era, and one of the most prominent female artists of her generation.
Early life
Lou ...
and
Henry Labouchère
Henry Du Pré Labouchère (9 November 1831 – 15 January 1912) was an English politician, writer, publisher and theatre owner in the Victorian era, Victorian and Edwardian eras. He is now most remembered for the Labouchere Amendment, Labouchè ...
insisted that they should be married before the end of the week.
The marriage ceremony was arranged; as a member of Parliament, Labouchère arranged for
the Chaplain to the House of Commons to marry the couple. No publicity was given to the ceremony to avoid the possibility of a furious
Maud Franklin interrupting the marriage ceremony. The marriage took place on August 11, 1888, with the ceremony attended by a reporter from the ''
Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
'', so that the event received publicity. The couple left soon after for Paris, to avoid any risk of a scene with Maud.
Whistler's reputation in London and Paris was rising and he gained positive reviews from critics and new commissions. His book ''The Gentle Art of Making Enemies'' was published in 1890 to mixed success, but it afforded helpful publicity.
![Arrangement in Pink Red and Purple by James Abbott McNeill Whistler](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Arrangement_in_Pink_Red_and_Purple_by_James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler.jpeg)
In 1890, he met
Charles Lang Freer
Charles Lang Freer (February 25, 1854 – September 25, 1919) was an American industrialist, art collector, and patron. He is known for his large collection of East Asian, American, and Middle Eastern Art. In 1906, Freer donated his extensive col ...
, who became a valuable patron in America, and ultimately, his most important collector. Around this time, in addition to portraiture, Whistler experimented with early
colour photography
Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray- monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...
and with
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
, creating a series featuring London architecture and the human figure, mostly female nudes. He contributed the first three of his ''Songs of Stone'' lithographs to ''The Whirlwind'' a
Neo-Jacobite magazine published by his friend Herbert Vivian. Whistler had met Vivian in the late 1880s when both were members of the
Order of the White Rose
The Order of the White Rose of Finland ( fi, Suomen Valkoisen Ruusun ritarikunta; sv, Finlands Vita Ros’ orden) is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty, and the Order of the Lion of Finland. T ...
, the first of the Neo-Jacobite societies. In 1891, with help from his close friend Stéphane Mallarmé, ''Whistler's Mother'' was purchased by the French government for 4,000 francs. This was much less than what an American collector might have paid, but that would not have been so prestigious by Whistler's reckoning.
After an indifferent reception to his solo show in London, featuring mostly his nocturnes, Whistler abruptly decided he had had enough of London. He and Trixie moved to Paris in 1892 and resided at n° 110
Rue du Bac, Paris
Rue du Bac is a street in Paris situated in the 7th arrondissement. The street, which is 1150 m long, begins at the junction of the quais Voltaire and Anatole-France and ends at the rue de Sèvres.
Rue du Bac is also the name of a station on ...
, with his studio at the top of 86 Rue Notre Dame des Champs in
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
. He felt welcomed by
Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the ...
, and by
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...
, and he set himself up a large studio. He was at the top of his career when it was discovered that Trixie had cancer. They returned to London in February 1896, taking rooms at the
Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August 188 ...
while they sought medical treatment. He made drawings on lithographic transfer paper of the view of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...
, from the hotel window or balcony, as he sat with her. She died a few months later.
In 1899, Charles Freer introduced Whistler to his friend and fellow businessman
Richard Albert Canfield Richard Albert Canfield (June 17, 1855 (birth record) or June 28, 1855 (grave) – December 11, 1914) was a prominent American businessman and art collector involved in illegal gambling throughout the northeastern United States during the late 1 ...
, who became a personal friend and patron of Whistler's. Canfield owned a number of fashionable gambling houses in New York, Rhode Island, Saratoga Springs and Newport, and was also a man of culture with refined tastes in art. He owned early American and Chippendale furniture, tapestries, Chinese porcelain and Barye bronzes, and possessed the second-largest and most important Whistler collection in the world prior to his death in 1914. In May 1901, Canfield commissioned a portrait from Whistler; he started to pose for ''Portrait of Richard A. Canfield'' (YMSM 547) in March 1902. According to Alexander Gardiner, Canfield returned to Europe to sit for Whistler at the New Year in 1903, and sat every day until May 16, 1903. Whistler was ill and frail at this time and the work was his last completed portrait. The deceptive air of respectability that the portrait gave Canfield caused Whistler to call it 'His Reverence'. The two men were in correspondence from 1901 until Whistler's death. A few months before his own death, Canfield sold his collection of etchings, lithographs, drawings and paintings by Whistler to the American art dealer Roland F. Knoedler for $300,000. Three of Canfield's Whistler paintings hang in the Frick Museum in New York City.
In the final seven years of his life, Whistler did some minimalist seascapes in watercolor and a final self-portrait in oil. He corresponded with his many friends and colleagues. Whistler founded an art school in 1898, but his poor health and infrequent appearances led to its closure in 1901. He died in London on July 17, 1903, six days after his 69th birthday. He is buried in Chiswick Old Cemetery in west London, adjoining
St Nicholas Church, Chiswick.
Whistler was the subject of a 1908 biography by his friends, the husband-and-wife team of
Joseph Pennell
Joseph Pennell (July 4, 1857 – April 23, 1926) was an American draftsman, etcher, lithographer and illustrator for books and magazines. A prolific artist, he spent most of his working life in Europe, and is known for his interest in landmarks, l ...
and
Elizabeth Robins Pennell
Elizabeth Robins Pennell (February 21, 1855 – February 7, 1936) was an American writer who, for most of her adult life, made her home in London. A recent researcher summed her up as "an adventurous, accomplished, self-assured, well-known colum ...
, printmaker and art critic respectively. The Pennells' vast collection of Whistler material was bequeathed to the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
. The artist's entire estate was left to his sister-in-law
Rosalind Birnie Philip. She spent the rest of her life defending his reputation and managing his art and effects, much of which eventually was donated to
Glasgow University
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
.
Personal relationships
![James McNeill Whistler - Arrangement in White and Black - Google Art Project](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/James_McNeill_Whistler_-_Arrangement_in_White_and_Black_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Whistler had a distinctive appearance, short and slight, with piercing eyes and a curling mustache, often sporting a monocle and the flashy attire of a dandy. He affected a posture of self-confidence and eccentricity. He often was arrogant and selfish toward friends and patrons. A constant self-promoter and egoist, he relished shocking friends and enemies. Though he could be droll and flippant about social and political matters, he always was serious about art and often invited public controversy and debate to argue for his strongly held theories.
Whistler had a high-pitched, drawling voice and a unique manner of speech, full of calculated pauses. A friend said, "In a second you discover that he is not conversing—he is sketching in words, giving impressions in sound and sense to be interpreted by the hearer."
Whistler was well known for his biting wit, especially in exchanges with his friend and rival
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
. Both were figures in the
Café society
Café society was the description of the "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafés and restaurants in New York, Paris and London beginning in the late 19th century. Maury Henry Biddle Paul is credited with ...
of Paris, and they were often the "talk of the town". They frequently appeared as caricatures in ''
Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
'', to their mutual amusement. On one occasion, young Oscar Wilde attended one of Whistler's dinners, and hearing his host make some brilliant remark, apparently said, "I wish I'd said that", to which Whistler riposted, "You will, Oscar, you will!" In fact, Wilde did repeat in public many witticisms created by Whistler. Their relationship soured by the mid-1880s, as Whistler turned against Wilde and the Aesthetic Movement. When Wilde was publicly acknowledged to be a homosexual in 1895, Whistler openly mocked him. Whistler reveled in preparing and managing his social gatherings. As a guest observed:
One met all the best in Society there—the people with brains, and those who had enough to appreciate them. Whistler was an inimitable host. He loved to be the Sun round whom we lesser lights revolved ... All came under his influence, and in consequence no one was bored, no one dull.
In Paris Whistler was friends with members of the
Symbolist
Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...
circle of artists, writers and poets that included
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...
and
Marcel Schwob
Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob (23 August 1867 – 26 February 1905), was a French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, Roberto Bol ...
. Schwob had met Whistler in the mid-1890s through Stéphane Mallarmé they had other mutual friends including Oscar Wilde (until they argued) and Whistler's brother-in-law,
Charles Whibley
Charles Whibley (9 December 1859 – 4 March 1930) was an English literary journalist and author. In literature and the arts, his views were progressive. He supported James Abbott McNeill Whistler (they had married sisters). He also recommended ...
.
Whistler was friendly with many French artists, including Henri Fantin-Latour, Alphonse Legros, and Courbet. He illustrated the book ''Les Chauves-Souris'' with
Antonio de La Gandara
Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular mal ...
. He also knew
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born ...
and the
Impressionists
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
, notably
Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
, and
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is es ...
. As a young artist, he was a close friend of
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...
, a member of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...
. His close friendships with Monet and poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who translated the ''Ten O'Clock'' lecture into French, helped strengthen respect for Whistler by the French public. Whistler was friendly with his fellow students at Gleyre's studio, including
Ignace Schott
Ignace Schott de Dabo (July 28, 1818 – March 3, 1883) generally known by the name Ignace Schott, he was a French born artist, etcher and teacher. Born in Dabo, located in the Lorraine region of France, he was a successful ecclesiastic decorato ...
, whose son
Leon Dabo
Leon Dabo (July 9, 1864 – November 7, 1960) was an American tonalist landscape artist best known for his paintings of New York, particularly the Hudson Valley. His paintings were known for their feeling of spaciousness, with large areas of the ...
Whistler later would mentor.
Whistler's lover and model for ''The White Girl'',
Joanna Hiffernan
Joanna Hiffernan (1843 – 1886) or Joanna Heffernan was an Irish artists' model and muse who was romantically linked with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French painter Gustave Courbet. In addition to being an artists' ...
, also posed for
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...
. Historians speculate that Courbet used her as the model for his erotic paintings ''
Le Sommeil
''Le Sommeil'' (translated in English variously as ''The Sleepers'' and ''Sleep'') is an eroticDorothy M. KosinskiGustave Courbet's ''The Sleepers.'' The Lesbian Image in Nineteenth Century French Art and Literature Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 9, N ...
'' and ''
L'Origine du monde
("The Origin of the World") is a picture painted in oil on canvas by the French artist Gustave Courbet in 1866. It is a close-up view of the vulva and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed with legs spread.
History Identity of the model
Ar ...
'', possibly leading to the breakup of the friendship between Whistler and Courbet. During the 1870s and much of the 1880s, he lived with his model and mistress Maud Franklin. Her ability to endure long, repetitive sittings helped Whistler develop his portrait skills. He not only made several excellent portraits of her, but she was also a helpful stand-in for other sitters. Whistler had several illegitimate children, of whom Charles James Whistler Hanson (1870–1935) is the best documented. After Whistler parted from his mistress Joanna Hiffernan, she helped to raise Hanson, even though his mother was the parlour maid, Louisa Fanny Hanson.
Whistler had two daughters by Maud Franklin: Ione (born circa 1877) and Maud McNeill Whistler Franklin (born 1879).
[Spencer, p. 88.] She sometimes referred to herself as 'Mrs. Whistler', and in the census of 1881 gave her name as 'Mary M. Whistler'.
In 1888, Whistler married
Beatrice Godwin, (who was called 'Beatrix' or 'Trixie' by Whistler). She was the widow of the architect
E. W. Godwin
Edward William Godwin (26 May 1833, Bristol – 6 October 1886, London) was a progressive English architect-designer, who began his career working in the strongly polychromatic " Ruskinian Gothic" style of mid-Victorian Britain, inspired by ...
, who had designed Whistler's ''White House'', and the daughter of the sculptor
John Birnie Philip
John Birnie Philip (23 November 1824 – 2 March 1875) was a nineteenth-century English sculptor. Much of his work was carried out for the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott.
Life
Philip was born in London, the son of William and Elizabeth Ph ...
and his wife Frances Black. Beatrix and her sisters
Rosalind Birnie Philip and
Ethel Whibley posed for many of Whistler's paintings and drawings; with Ethel Whibley modeling for ''Mother of pearl and silver: The Andalusian'' (1888–1900).
The first five years of their marriage were very happy, but her later life was a time of misery for the couple, due to her illness and eventual death from cancer. Near the end, she lay comatose much of the time, completely subdued by morphine, given for pain relief. Her death was a strong blow Whistler never quite overcame.
Legacy
![Chase William Merritt James Abbott McNeill Whistler 1885](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Chase_William_Merritt_James_Abbott_McNeill_Whistler_1885.jpg)
Whistler was inspired by and incorporated many sources in his art, including the work of
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
,
Velázquez, and ancient Greek sculpture to develop his own highly influential and individual style. He was adept in many media, with over 500 paintings, as well as etchings, pastels, watercolors, drawings, and lithographs. Whistler was a leader in the
Aesthetic Movement
Aestheticism (also the Aesthetic movement) was an art movement in the late 19th century which privileged the aesthetic value of literature, music and the arts over their socio-political functions. According to Aestheticism, art should be prod ...
, promoting, writing, and lecturing on the "art for art's sake" philosophy. With his pupils, he advocated simple design, economy of means, the avoidance of over-labored technique, and the tonal harmony of the final result. Whistler has been the subject of many major museum exhibitions, studies, and publications. Like the Impressionists, he employed nature as an artistic resource. Whistler insisted that it was the artist's obligation to interpret what he saw, not be a slave to reality, and to "bring forth from chaos glorious harmony".
During his life, he influenced two generations of artists, in Europe and in the United States. Whistler had significant contact and exchanged ideas and ideals with Realist, Impressionist, and Symbolist painters. The artist
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...
was his pupil, and the writer
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
was his friend. His
Tonalism
Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often domina ...
had a profound effect on many American artists, including
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...
,
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...
,
Henry Salem Hubbell and
Willis Seaver Adams
Willis Seaver Adams (1844–1921) was a landscape painter who studied under James Abbott McNeill Whistler. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium and was part of the Tonalism movement, which took place in the late 19t ...
(whom he befriended in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
). Another significant influence was upon
Arthur Frank Mathews
Arthur F. Mathews (October 1, 1860 – February 19, 1945) was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a s ...
, whom Whistler met in Paris in the late 1890s. Mathews took Whistler's Tonalism to San Francisco, spawning a broad use of that technique among turn-of-the-century California artists. As American critic Charles Caffin wrote in 1907:
He did better than attract a few followers and imitators; he influenced the whole world of art. Consciously or unconsciously, his presence is felt in countless studios; his genius permeates modern artistic thought.
During a fourteen-month stay in Venice in 1879 and 1880, Whistler created a series of etchings and pastels that not only reinvigorated his finances (this was after he'd declared bankruptcy following the Ruskin trial), but also re-energized the way in which artists and photographers interpreted the city—focusing on the back alleys, side canals, entrance ways, and architectural patterns—and capturing the city's unique atmospherics.
![James A M Whistler 1940 Issue-2c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/James_A_M_Whistler_1940_Issue-2c.jpg)
In 1940 Whistler was commemorated on a United States postage stamp when the U.S. Post Office issued a set of 35 stamps commemorating America's famous authors, poets, educators, scientists, composers, artists, and inventors: the
Famous Americans Series.
The
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
operetta ''
Patience
(or forbearance) is the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced ...
'' pokes fun at the
Aesthetic
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
movement, and the lead character of Reginald Bunthorne is often identified as a send-up of Oscar Wilde, though Bunthorne is more likely an amalgam of several prominent artists, writers, and Aesthetic figures. Bunthorne wears a monocle and has prominent white streaks in his dark hair, as did Whistler.
Novelist
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
"had become well enough acquainted with Whistler to base several fictional characters on the 'queer little Londonized Southerner,' most notably in ''
Roderick Hudson
''Roderick Hudson'' is a novel by Henry James. Originally published between January and December 1875 as a serial in ''The Atlantic Monthly'', it is a bildungsroman that traces the development of the title character, a sculptor.
Plot summary
Row ...
'' and ''
The Tragic Muse''". Whistler "also appeared as one of Henry James's most attractive minor characters, the sculptor Gloriani in ''
The Ambassadors
''The Ambassadors'' is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the ''North American Review'' (NAR). The novel is a dark comedy which follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe to bring the son o ...
'', whose personality, way of life, and even home are closely based on Whistler."
George du Maurier
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a Franco-British cartoonist and writer known for work in ''Punch'' and a Gothic novel ''Trilby'', featuring the character Svengali. His son was the actor Sir Gerald d ...
's 1894 novel ''
Trilby
A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is sometimes called the "brown trilby" in Britain Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. Barnes & Noble. and ...
'' has a character, Joe Sibley, "the idle apprentice," who was meant to depict Whistler. "Whistler threatened to sue, and in subsequent editions the character was replaced by another." Whistler was also the model for a character in
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
's novel, ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
'' — the painter Elstir.
Whistler was the favorite artist of singer and actress Doris Day. She owned and displayed an original etching of Whistler's ''Rotherhithe'' and two of his original lithographs, ''The Steps, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris'' and ''
The Pantheon, from the Terrace of the Luxembourg Gardens''.
The house in which Whistler was born is now preserved as the
Whistler House Museum of Art
The Whistler House Museum of Art is the birthplace of painter and etcher James McNeill Whistler. It is located at 243 Worthen Street, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, and is open as a museum displaying works from the museum collection and shows by ar ...
. He is buried at
St Nicholas Church, Chiswick.
Honors
Whistler achieved worldwide recognition during his lifetime:
*1884: elected an honorary member of the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
*1892: made an officer of the
Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
in France.
*1898: became a charter member and first president,
International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers
The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers was a union of professional artists that existed from 1898 to 1925, "To promote the study, practice, and knowledge of sculpture, painting, etching, lithographing, engraving, and kindred ...
.
A statue of James McNeill Whistler by Nicholas Dimbleby was erected in 2005 at the north end of
Battersea Bridge
Battersea Bridge is a five-span arch bridge with cast-iron girders and granite piers crossing the River Thames in London, England. It is situated on a sharp bend in the river, and links Battersea south of the river with Chelsea to the north. Th ...
on the River Thames in the United Kingdom.
Gallery
Auction records
On October 27, 2010,
Swann Galleries set a record price for a Whistler print at auction, when ''Nocturne'', an etching and drypoint printed in black on warm, cream Japan paper, 1879–80 sold for $282,000.
See also
*
John Wharlton Bunney
John Wharlton Bunney (20 June 1828 – 23 September 1882) was an English topographical and landscape artist of the nineteenth century.
His father was a merchant captain whom Bunney, as a boy, accompanied on several voyages around the world. ...
*
Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity until the present time. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
* Also published New York: Todtri Productions Limited. .
*Snodin, Michael and John Styles. ''Design & The Decorative Arts, Britain 1500–1900''. V&A Publications: 2001.
*Spencer, Robin (1994). ''Whistler''. London: Studio Editions.
*
* Reissued by Da Capo Press in 2001 with a new introduction by the author.
Primary sources
*
*Whistler, James Abbott McNeill
''The Gentle Art of Making Enemies''3rd ed., G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1904
890
__NOTOC__
Year 890 ( DCCCXC) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* The Frankish nobles, who have ruled Provence in anarchy (since 887), declare L ...
*Thorp, Nigel, ed. ''Whistler on Art: Selected Letters and Writings of James McNeill Whistler''. Manchester: Carcanet Press; Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994. Includes "Ten O'Clock", pp. 79-95, and extracts from press reviews of it, pp. 95-102.
Further reading
*Bendix, Deanna Marohn (1995). ''Diabolical Designs: Paintings, Interiors, and Exhibitions of James McNeill Whistler''. Washington D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press. .
*Berman, Avis (1993). ''James McNeill Whistler: First Impressions.'' New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. .
*Corbacho, Henri-Pierre (2018). ''A Short Biography of James Abbott McNeill Whistler''. Carlisle, Massachusetts: Benna Books. .
*
*Curry, David Park (1984). ''James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art''. New York: W. W. Norton and Freer Gallery of Art. .
*Denker, Eric (2003). ''Whistler and His Circle in Venice''. London: Merrell Publishers. .
*
Dorment, Richard, and MacDonald, Margaret F. (1994). ''James McNeill Whistler''. London: Tate Gallery. . With contributions by Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Ruth Fine,
Geneviève Lacambre
Geneviève Lacambre (born 1937) is a French honorary general curator of heritage, and has been the Chargée de mission at the Musée d'Orsay.
Career
Curator at the department of paintings of the Louvre Museum from 1965 to 1979, then at the ...
.
*.
*.
*Glazer, Lee, et al. (2008). ''James McNeill Whistler in Context''. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. .
*Glazer, Lee and Merrill, Linda, eds. (2013). ''Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism.'' Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. .
*
*Grieve, Alastair (1984). ''Whistler's Venice''. Yale University Press. .
*Heijbroek, J. E. and MacDonald, Margaret F. (1997). ''Whistler and Holland''. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. .
*
Honour, Hugh, and
Fleming, John (1991). ''The Venetian Hours of Henry James, Whistler, and Sargent''. Bulfinch Press/Little Brown.
*Levey, Mervyn (1975). ''Whistler Lithographs, Catalogue Raisonne''. London: Jupiter Books.
*Lochnan, Katherine A.(1984). ''The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler''. Yale University Press. .
*MacDonald Margaret F. (2001). ''Palaces in the Night: Whistler and Venice''. University of California Press. .
*MacDonald, Margaret F., ed. (2003). ''Whistler's Mother: An American Icon''. Aldershot: Lund Humphries. .
*MacDonald, Margaret F., Galassi, Susan Grace and Ribeiro, Aileen (2003). ''Whistler, Women, & Fashion''. Frick Collection/Yale University. .
*MacDonald, Margaret F., and de Montfort, Patricia (2013). ''An American in London: Whistler and the Thames''. London: Philip Wilson Publishers. .
*MacDonald, Margaret F., et al. (2020). ''The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler''. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art and London: Royal Academy of Arts/ Yale University Press. .
*McCann, Justin, ed. (2015). ''Whistler and the World: The Lunder Collection of James McNeill Whistler''. Waterville, Maine: Colby College Museum of Art. .
*Merrill, Linda (1992). ''A Pot of Paint: Aesthetics on Trial in Whistler v. Ruskin''. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. .
*Merrill, Linda (1998). ''The Peacock Room: A Cultural Biography''. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art / Yale University Press. .
*Merrill, Linda, and Ridley, Sarah (1993) ''The Princess and the Peacocks or, The Story of the
eacockRoom''. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, in association with the Freer Gallery of Art. .
*Merrill, Linda, et al. (2003) ''After Whistler: The Artist and his Influence on American Painting''. Yale University Press. .
*
Munhall, Edgar (1995). ''Whistler and
Montesquiou
Montesquiou (; Gascon: ''Montesquiu'') is a commune in the Gers department, Southwestern France. It is the historic seat of the Montesquiou family
The de Montesquiou family is an old French noble family from Montesquiou in Gascony whose doc ...
: The Butterfly and the Bat''. New York and Paris: The
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection (normally at the Henry Clay Frick House, currently at the 945 Madison Avenue#2021–present: Frick Madison, Frick Madison) features Old Master paintings and Europe ...
/
Flammarion Flammarion may refer to:
* Camille Flammarion (1842–1925), French astronomer and author
* Gabrielle Renaudot Flammarion (1877–1962), French astronomer, wife of Camille Flammarion
* Flammarion engraving by unknown artist; appeared in a book by C ...
. .
*
*Petri, Grischka (2011). ''Arrangement in Business: The Art Markets and the Career of James McNeill Whistler''. Hildesheim: G. Olms. .
*
Robins, Anna Gruetzner (2007). ''A Fragile Modernism Whistler and his Impressionist Followers''. Yale University Press. .
*Spaulding, Frances (2nd ed. 1994
979
Year 979 ( CMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Byzantine Empire
* March 24 – Second Battle of Pankaleia: An Ibero-Byzantine expeditionary ...
. ''Whistler''. London and New York: Phaidon Press.
*Spencer, Robin (1991). ''Whistler: A Retrospective''. New York: Wing Books. .
*Stubbs, Burns A. (1950). ''James McNeill Whistler: A Biographical Outline Illustrated from the Collections of the Freer Gallery of Art''. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
*
Sutherland, Daniel E. and Toutziari, Georgia (2018). ''Whistler's Mother: Portrait of an Extraordinary Life''. Yale University Press. .
*
Sutton, Denys (1966). ''James McNeil Whistler: Paintings, Etchings, Pastels & Watercolours''. London: Phaidon Press.
*Thompson, Jennifer A. (2017).
''Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks'' by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (cat. 1112)" In
The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works', edited by Christopher D. M. Atkins. A Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication. .
*Twohig, Edward (2018). Print REbels: Haden, Palmer, Whistler and the Origins of the RE (Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers). London: Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. .
*
*Walden, Sarah (2003). ''Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship: Secrets of an American Masterpiece''. London: Gibson Square; Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. .
*Walker, John (1987). ''James McNeill Whistler''. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with
The National Museum of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
. .
*Young, Andrew McLaren; MacDonald, Margaret; Spencer, Robin; with the assistance of Hamish Miles (1980). ''The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler''. Yale University Press. .
External links
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*
*
*
The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, Glasgow UniversityEdited by M.F. MacDonald, P.de Montfort, N. Thorp.
Catalogue raisonné of the etchings of James McNeill Whistlerby M.F. MacDonald, G. Petri, M. Hausberg, J. Meacock.
James McNeill Whistler: The Paintings, a Catalogue Raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2014by M.F. MacDonald, G. Petri.
James McNeill Whistler exhibition catalogswhich houses the premier collection of Whistler works including the Peacock Room.
Whistler House Museum of Art official web siteWorks by James Abbott McNeill Whistlerat
University of Michigan Museum of Art
The University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the United States. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall ori ...
Rudolf Wunderlich Collection of James McNeill Whistler Exhibition Catalogs at the Smithsonian's Archives of American ArtThe Whistler Society, London. Founded 2012.*Jennifer A. Thompson,
"Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (cat. 1112)"' in
The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works', a Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication.
''Whistler’s Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan'', Royal Academy of Arts, London, 26 February - 22 May 2022
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whistler, James Abbott Mcneill
1834 births
1903 deaths
19th-century American painters
19th-century male artists
American male painters
20th-century American painters
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