Product: Romantics & Realists: Whistler [VHS]
Rating: 4.0
A Lively, Fascinating Artist
The portrait of Whistler's mother does not come up until half of the documentary is complete. I learned that the work is not titled "Whistler's Mother" either. While that painting is staid and sedentary, the painter himself lived a dynamic life. If Hollywood has made bio-pics on Pollack, Kahlo, Van Gogh, and others, they sure do need to make one on Whistler. The painter took criticism poorly, was abusive to people, and had financial ups and downs.Like Gauguin and many others, Whistler embraced Japoniste styles. The work mentions that he visited at least five other nations. Like James Baldwin and Josephine Baker, here is an American who seems to have left the United States behind him. I am so used to art documentaries saying that those whose work was not accepted into the Academic Salons became Impressionists. Maybe that movement was after Whistler's time, but the work never suggests he ever ventured into that school.The work has a handful of scholars interviewed, an almost equal mix of men and women. There is no unknown actor portraying Whistler in cheesy reenactments here. This work follows the series in showing blurry stock footage of paintbrushes in water and hands handling a color palette.The work never suggests that Whistler got with married women, yet all of his paramours are referred to as "mistresses." Yes, "girlfriend" wouldn't become part of the lingo until the mid-1900s, but it was still weird to hear "mistress" in couplings that were not adulterous.Let Whistler be a lesson to all those folks who like to run to court. He sued an art critic who viewed his work poorly. He won less than a penny in the case, but his legal fees bankrupted him. NO!: The courts are not a cure for everything. Think hard before you go there! I bet you Oscar Wilde would have recommended the same thing to you!