James McNeill Whistler | American artist | Britannica.com James McNeill Whistler Alternative Title: James Abbott McNeill Whistler James McNeill Whistler Childe Hassam James McNeill Whistler, in full James Abbott McNeill Whistler (born July 11, 1834, Lowell , Massachusetts , U.S.—died July 17, 1903, London, England ), American-born artist noted for his paintings of nocturnal London, for his striking and stylistically advanced full-length portraits, and for his brilliant etchings and lithographs. An articulate theorist about art , he did much to introduce modern French painting into England. His most famous work is Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: The Artist’s Mother (1871–72; popularly called Whistler’s Mother. Early years James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born of Scottish-Irish ancestry. As a boy he spent some time in Russia at St. Petersburg , where his father was a civil engineer; after a short stay in England en route, he was back in the United States by 1849.

He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point , but he soon abandoned the army for art. Like many of his compatriots he was fascinated by Paris, where he arrived in 1855 to study painting and soon adopted a Bohemian lifestyle. He was drawn to the French modern movement, responding to the realism associated with the painters Gustave Courbet , Henri Fantin-Latour , and François Bonvin, all of whom he knew. The realistic streak in his art may be seen in such early works as Self-Portrait (c. 1857–58) and the Twelve Etchings from Nature (1858). During the 1860s Whistler moved between England and Paris; he also visited Brittany (1861) and the coast near Biarritz (1862), where he painted with Courbet and evinced that love of the sea that was to mark a number of his later small oil studies and watercolours.

In 1863 Whistler settled in London, where he found congenial themes on the River Thames , and the etchings that he did of such subjects garnered praise from the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire when they were exhibited in Paris. The move to London Whistler won considerable success in Paris when Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862) was shown at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. This famous painting shows that if he was an exponent of realism, he was also attracted by the Pre-Raphaelite movement, which had begun in England in 1848. Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, oil on canvas by James … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Harris Whittemore Collection, 1943.6.2 Weary, drypoint by James McNeill Whistler, 1863; in the National … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.8458 Britannica Stories Ringling Bros.

Folds Its Tent One of his chief claims to fame was his delight in the Japanese arts—then an avant-garde taste that, significantly, was to have many followers in his own country. Paintings such as Rose and Silver: La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine (1864) and Caprice in Purple and Gold, No. 2: The Golden Screen (1864) indicate his interest in the picturesque rather than the formal aspects of this style. Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean (1866–67), the result of a trip to Valparaíso , Chile, was, however, more Eastern in mood: the signature on this work is painted in an Eastern fashion. This style received its finest expression in Old Battersea Bridge: Nocturne—Blue and Gold (1872–75). His appreciation of East Asian art was complemented by one for earthenware Tanagra figurines from Hellenistic Greece, and their elegant forms influenced his figure painting and drawing; both the Asian and Hellenistic strains were blended in Six Projects, a series of highly coloured sketches.

The Artist in His Studio, oil on paper mounted on panel by James McNeill Whistler, 1865/66; … Friends of American Art Collection, 1912.141/Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago Art & Architecture: Fact or Fiction? The 1860s and ’70s were especially creative for Whistler. It was then that he began to give musical titles to his paintings, using words such as symphony and harmony. In doing so he revealed a dependence on the theory of art for art’s sake , which esteemed music as the most abstract of the arts, and on the belief in the “correspondences” between the arts associated with Baudelaire and the French poet Théophile Gautier . It should be emphasized, however, that Whistler was not a lover of music for its own sake. During this period he started to paint his nocturnes—scenes of London , especially of Chelsea, that have poetic intensity and a fin de siècle flavour. These were based on memory or on pencil sketches.

For them he evolved a special technique by which paint, in a very liquid state he called a sauce, was stroked onto the canvas in fast sweeps of the brush, somewhat in the manner of Japanese calligraphy. Speke Hall, etching and drypoint, intaglio print by James McNeill … Rare Book and Special Collections Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3g04662) Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies From the 1870s onward he was preoccupied by the problems of portrait painting, creating a number of masterpieces, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: The Artist’s Mother, Miss Cicely Alexander: Harmony in Grey and Green (1873), Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Thomas Carlyle (1873), and Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Mrs. Frederick R. Leyland, among others. These are paintings that underline his Aestheticism , his liking for simple forms and muted tones, and his attraction to the work of the 17th-century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez .

Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: The Artist’s Mother, oil on canvas by James … Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York Whistler touched the artistic life of his time at many points. He engaged in decorative work, as was shown by the stand he executed for the 1878 Paris exhibition (his collaborator was the architect Edward Godwin ) and later his frieze for the Grosvenor Gallery in London. Above all he painted the famous Peacock Room (begun 1876) for No. 49 Prince’s Gate, London, the house of F.R. Leyland, a Liverpool shipping magnate. The decoration failed to please his patron, who felt Whistler had exceeded his commission, particularly in painting over some antique leather. The room was moved in 1919 to the Freer Gallery of Art . Whistler was also a force in book design.

During these years in London he came to know many of the most interesting artists of the day—such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Albert Moore—and he was a high priest of bohemianism, living for long with Jo Hiffernan, an Irish woman who served as a model to Courbet as well as to Whistler. Although often short of money, he entertained considerably and was already becoming one of the most talked-of men in London. A change occurred in his life in 1877 when he brought a libel suit against John Ruskin , the celebrated writer on aesthetics , for the latter’s attack on Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1874). He won the case but received damages of only a farthing (the least valuable coin of the realm). The need to pay substantial costs occasioned his bankruptcy in 1879, and he was forced to move out of his charming home, the White House in Chelsea. He went to Venice with his mistress, Maud Franklin. He remained there for 14 months and soon became a centre of attraction among the many foreign artists who congregated in the city.

He seldom painted in oils there, however, and spent most of his time producing pastels and watercolours, exquisite in their colouring. He had arrived with a commission to execute a series of etchings for the Fine Art Society. In all he made just more than 50 etchings of Venetian subjects, which are among the most striking graphic works of the time. The White House, Chelsea, London, home of James McNeill Whistler in 1878–79. Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell Collection of Whistleriana/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id.cph cph 3a36767) Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest His etchings won him success in London when exhibited upon his return in 1880 and in 1883. He continued to paint portraits—those of Pablo de Sarasate , Lady Archibald Campbell, Théodore Duret, and Robert, Count de Montesquiou-Fezensac are among the finest—but with increasing difficulty, as he was obsessed by the problem of achieving perfection.

The Music Room, etching by James McNeill Whistler, c. 1885. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3b49331) The Kitchen, etching by James McNeill Whistler, 1885. Pennell Fund/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3b49330) The challenge of his final period Whistler faced many problems in later years. He may have felt that he was out of step with modern movements. For instance, by the 1890s Impressionism was a dominant style, but he himself, though keen on painting after nature, never used the radiant colours or technique of the Impressionists. He was happiest in painting small studies of townscape and seascape that reflect the influence of the 19th-century French painter Camille Corot . He made many etchings and lithographs, but—significantly at a time when colour lithographs were becoming popular—only three or four of his were in colour. His black-and-white lithographs, however, are delightful.

Trending Topics Opium Wars After his return from Venice, Whistler became a great figure in London life, seeking publicity and winning points against Oscar Wilde in controversy. In 1888 he married Beatrix Godwin, and he and his wife spent much time in Paris on the Left Bank. When Beatrix Whistler died in 1896, Whistler was deeply upset, and his final years were sad. Although he kept in touch with his contemporaries and ran an art school in Paris, his productive period was over. In the early 1900s many excellent judges of art considered Whistler to be one of the leading painters of the day. Within a relatively short time, however, the reputation of this versatile artist suffered a decline, and only in the last decades of the 20th century did his reputation begin to recover.

More about James McNeill Whistler 10 References found in Britannica Articles association with James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) See works of art Works of Art (10) Essay James McNeill Whistler participated in the artistic ferment of Paris and London in the late nineteenth century, crafted a distinctive style from diverse sources, and arrived at a version of Post-Impressionism in the mid-1860s, a time when most of his contemporaries in the avant-garde were still exploring Realism and Impressionism . Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Whistler spent part of his youth in Saint Petersburg , Russia, where his father, a civil engineer, advised on the construction of the railroad to Moscow and Whistler took drawing classes at the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Upon his return home, Whistler entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. He studied drawing with Robert W.

Weir but had less success in other subjects; his failure in chemistry led to his dismissal from the academy in 1854. After working in the drawings division of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he received his first training in etching , Whistler—already fluent in French from his childhood years in Russia—decided to pursue a career as an artist by going to Paris to study. Whistler arrived in the French capital late in 1855, at least a decade ahead of the great wave of his compatriots who would seek art instruction there. He enrolled in the école Imperial et Spéciale de Dessin (the “petite école”) and in Charles Gleyre’s independent teaching atelier, where Beaux-Arts principles prevailed (and where the future Impressionists, including Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir , would study a few years later). Then and thereafter, Whistler’s artistic development would owe less to his formal lessons than to influences outside the academic world.

He responded to paintings by Dutch and Spanish Baroque masters, especially Rembrandt , Johannes Vermeer , Pieter de Hooch, Gabriël Metsu, and Diego Velázquez , and by contemporary French painters who admired the same traditions, notably Gustave Courbet , Henri Fantin-Latour, and Alphonse Legros. In 1858, Fantin-Latour, Legros, and Whistler proclaimed their allied interests by organizing themselves as the Société des Trois. Whistler also became friendly with Carolus-Duran, Zacharie Astruc, and Félix Bracquemond and was attracted to the innovative art of Édouard Manet , two years his senior, whom he met in the summer of 1861. The writings of Charles Baudelaire and Théophile Thoré (pseudonym for Willem Bürger), which stressed the importance of harmonious picture surfaces, and French painters’ growing interest in Japanese aesthetics would also inform Whistler’s style and philosophy of art.

Whistler had established a connection with London in the late 1840s when he went to live for a year with his half-sister Deborah and her husband, the English physician and etcher Seymour Haden. In May 1859, he decided to settle in London and to work at a distance from his avant-garde French colleagues, although he remained a conduit of ideas between them and his English artist friends. The latter included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and other Pre-Raphaelites , whose paintings influenced Whistler’s and who shared his enthusiasm for Japanese prints and blue-and-white porcelain. Initially, Whistler merely included Asian costumes and accessories as props in his works but, by the mid-1860s, he adopted Japanese principles of composition and spatial organization. His landscapes of those years reveal that he had rejected his earlier commitment to transcribing nature in the manner of Courbet, and was responding instead to formalist imperatives, including flat, decorative surfaces, subtle tonal harmonies, and allusive, rather than literal, subjects.

Taking a cue from a critic who had referred to his early portrait of his mistress, The White Girl (1862; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), as a “symphony in white,” Whistler began to envision and entitle his works with the abstract language of music , calling them symphonies, compositions, harmonies, nocturnes, arrangements, and so forth. During the late 1860s, Whistler struggled to create harmonious multifigured arrangements that would recapitulate his successful experiments with landscapes . By 1871, he had decided to pull back from that ambitious initiative and to concentrate on single-figure subjects. His seminal canvas in this vein was Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1: The Artist’s Mother (1871; Musée d’Orsay, Paris).

In portraits that followed, including Harmony in Yellow and Gold: The Gold Girl—Connie Gilchrist ( 11.32 ) and Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Black: Portrait of Theodore Duret ( 13.20 ), Whistler continued to emphasize strong silhouettes, elegant contours, and beautiful surface patterns; calibrate the placement of the figure in relation to the edges of the canvas; investigate delicate variations on one subdued hue or a pair of neighboring or contrasting hues; and balance description of appearances with what he perceived to be pictorial necessities. Whistler invented a monogram signature—a stylized butterfly based on his initials—and always placed it deliberately as a compositional element, not just a maker’s mark. His devotion to overall harmony extended to interior decoration, furniture, and the design of frames and even entire exhibitions. He became a central figure in the Aesthetic movement, which was founded on the philosophy of “art for art’s sake” and emphasized artistic principles, elevated taste, and creative eclecticism in the conception and production of furniture, metalwork, ceramics and glass, textiles and wallpaper, and other objects. He was also an influential printmaker . Whistler’s innovative paintings and pronouncements invited controversy.

He famously filed and won a libel suit in 1878 against the aging English art critic John Ruskin, who had accused him of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face” when he showed an almost abstract city scene—Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875; Detroit Institute of Art)—in an exhibition at London’s Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. Whistler was instrumental in establishing the credo of modern art. In 1885—a year before George Seurat ‘s emblematic Post-Impressionist canvas, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–86; Art Institute of Chicago), appeared in the French Impressionists’ final group exhibition and announced the end of naturalistic transcription as an avant-garde goal—Whistler proclaimed in his famous “Ten O’Clock” lecture: Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music.

But the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he bring forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano. That Nature is always right, is an assertion, artistically, as untrue, as it is one whose truth is universally taken for granted. Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong: that is to say, the condition of things that shall bring about the perfection of harmony worthy a picture is rare, and not common at all. H. Barbara Weinberg The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art April 2010 Citation Weinberg, H. Barbara. “James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.

(April 2010) Further Reading A Survey of British Art and Literature of the Nineteenth Century A Survey of British Art and Literature of the Nineteenth Century by Rhea Vidrine In the novels Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen, Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens and The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891) by Oscar Wilde and the paintings by William Powell Frith (1818-1909), Ford Maddox Brown (1821-1893), and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), the modern viewer can gain a greater appreciation for the rich and diverse culture of nineteenth-century Britain. Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (1813) expresses the concern with social status and morality that prevailed early in the century. Through the trials of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, the reader learns that high social status does not always guarantee high moral character. In the novel, Mr. Darcy does not believe that Mr. Bingley is a proper suitor for Elizabeth because he is superior and therefore she is not of the appropriate social class.

Mr. Darcy believes that anyone belonging to a lower social class is unworthy to marry someone with greater social prominence. Eventually Darcy sees how foolish it is to be prejudiced and it is he and Jane who marry. The novel suggests that the wealthy do not always act admirably. Jane exhibits strong moral character. When Jane believes that Mr. Darcy stole money from Mr. Whikham, she refuses to associate with Mr. Darcy because she is disappointed by his lack of virtue. The characters portrayed in Pride and Prejudice give the reader a greater appreciation for the social and moral structure of life in towns such as Bath, the home of Austen. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1838) is a literary work that informs the reader of important social issues Londoners faced before mid-century. In his novel, Dickens brings to light the concerns of the working class. He reveals the worst conditions experienced by the urban poor. He especially criticizes the Poor Laws and depicts the deplorable conditions of the workhouses and the corruption of the government officials. Dickens graphically describes the horrendous conditions of the workhouse where Oliver is forced to work.

In a famous scene, Oliver is given an insufficient amount of food, and when he asks for more, is punished. The novel depicts the corruption in the city through the actions of Mr. Bumble, the Beadle of the parish. Mr. Bumble is easily influenced by money, power, and sex. Dickens also depicts the vast amount of crime in London through Oliver’s involvement with the criminals Fagin and Bill Sykes. Even though Oliver is forced into a life of crime to survive, the novel still conveys the traditional message of good triumphing over evil. Obviously, Dickens was greatly influenced by the reform efforts. Dickens describes the aspects of society that the more fortunate in society did not believe existed and gives the reader a more accurate depiction of the life of the lower classes in London. Queen Victoria (1837-1901) held many of the same beliefs as the middle class, therefore undercutting the privilege of the aristocracy. During the Victorian age, the era given her name, there was greater social mobility as men from the bourgeoisie were able to work for aristocratic titles and women were allowed to marry into wealthy aristocratic families (“Class,” 167).

The strict divisions between the upper and middle classes began to disappear. It was only the lives of those in the lower class that did not change significantly. Most workers faced dismal working conditions and had to overcome great poverty. The wages of the working class were so low that many laborers could not afford to feed their families or provide them with decent living conditions; many families were forced to live in the slums, where sanitation was poor. For those who could find work, the working conditions were often deplorable. Many workers were forced to perform strenuous labor that often led to injury. Workers were not provided with insurance or workers’ compensation; therefore, injured workers were often fired if they could not return immediately to work. Even women and children were forced to work in horrendous conditions. Within the mining industry, children were forced to work in the coal mines because of their small stature. These children were ordered to crawl into the small crevices of the mines and hold the lantern for the coal miners. The children often worked twelve hour days and were given minimal breaks for food and water. They were also in grave danger from collapsing mine shafts. Labor unions were formed for workers to improve working conditions.

While these labor unions benefited the skilled workers, the unskilled workers, known as the “sunken people”, were still exploited (“Child Labor”). The Poor Law Act of 1834 established workhouses for unskilled workers. In order to limit the numbers of those who received such aid, the workhouses provided little food and required participants to perform tedious tasks. Families were separated and the workers were separated by gender (Roberts, 176). The working class did see some change with the passage of the Reform Acts; however, the “sunken people” were never able to fully escape poverty and lived in a permanent state of despair. The Victorian era is often considered a time of great contradictions. While many people were preaching about the need to develop high morals, many of the citizens were involved in lurid activities, such as prostitution. Queen Victoria stressed morality and tried to make the Victorian era a period of reform. Men and women were not permitted to speak openly about sex or childbirth. Women were not allowed to travel alone; they had to travel with a chaperon. Homosexuality was thought of as sinful and was illegal. The concern with morality can be seen in the clothing of the Victorian era.

Proper women covered their entire body and were not even allowed to show their ankles. Even though Victorians spoke of the need to raise moral standards, the standards were not upheld by many (Nunn). Figure1. Typical dress for women during the Victorian Era (Available: Literature of the Victorian era was greatly influenced by the morality of the time. Novels often depicted righteous characters being rewarded and villainous characters being punished. At the end of the century one finds the beginning of the aesthetic movement. Artists of the Aesthetic Movement believed in “Art for art’s sake” (Buckley, 159). The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891) by Oscar Wilde reflects the values of the Aesthetic Movement. When the novel was first published, it was widely criticized because of its references to homosexuality (Buckley, 162). The novel was considered immoral by those used to the strict social and moral guidelines of the Victorians.

Wilde expressed the beliefs of the Aesthetic Movement in The Picture of Dorian Grey, stating, “All art is quite useless.” Wilde firmly believed in the principle that art should be able to stand alone; it should not force emotions upon the viewer (Buckley, 164). Even though The Picture of Dorian Grey was considered immoral and was widely criticized, it expresses the principles of the Aesthetic Movement. Art as well as literature reinforced the conventions of the British society, as can be seen in the oil paintings such as The Railway Station (1862) by William Powell Frith, Work (c 1852-65) by Ford Maddox Brown, and The Nocturne in Black and Gold (1875) by the American expatriate, James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Figure 2. Frith’s The Railway Station (Available Figure 3. Portrait of Frith’s family within the painting (Available: Figure 4.

Work by Ford Maddox Brown (Available: Both The Railway Station by William Powell Frith and Work by Ford Maddox Brown reflect the distinct social classes and document the rise of the middle class during the 1850s and 1860s. In The Railway Station, Frith depicts the different social classes interacting at Paddington Station. In the center of the painting a family sends their son to boarding school; it is believed that this represents Frith’s family. He also depicts the wealthy portraying women in white gowns and men in top hats. By showing the two classes together, Frith depicts the dissolving barriers between the two classes. Work by Ford Maddox Brown underscores the differences between the working class, the middle class, and the wealthy. Brown shows members of the lower class working diligently: the men in the center of the painting and the flower seller in the left foreground earn their money through hard work. In contrast to these workers, Brown shows the wealthy on horseback watching the workers suggesting that the upper class citizens unjustly have more money than the workers and waste it on luxuries.

Lastly, Brown depicts two scholarly gentlemen, Thomas Carlyle and Frederick Denison, to represent the highly educated, intellectual laborers (“Brown, Ford Maddox,”98) In Work, Brown successfully shows the disparity between the social classes: the lower class must work arduously for little money while the upper class does not perform manual labor and yet still receives greater compensation. Figure 5. Nocturne in Black and Gold by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (Available: James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold from 1875 reflects the values of the Aesthetic Movement addressed in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey. Whistler was a firm believer in “Art for art’s sake”. Whistler’s painting, Nocturne in Black and Gold, was greatly criticized by John Ruskin, who was a prominent art critic and a supporter of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group renowned for their highly detailed narrative paintings. Ruskin believed that Whistler’s painting was not true art; rather, it was paint splattered on a canvas (“Whistler, James Abbott McNeil”).

Whistler defended his art, and noted like Wilde, that art should not force any emotions on the viewer; it should simply have aesthetic beauty. During the nineteenth century, both art and literature represented social conventions and expressed different aesthetic philosophies. The work of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, William Powell Frith, Ford Maddox Brown, and James Whistler, the modern viewer is given a glimpse of the diversity of British culture as it was represented in literature and art. Works Cited Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. “The Aesthetic Eighties.” The Victorian Temper. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951: 159-165. Cody, David. “Child Labor.” Victorian Web. 31 Aug 2008. Cody David. “Social Class.” Victorian Web. 31 Aug 2008. Mitchell, Sally (Ed.). “Brown, Ford Maddox.” Victorian Britain. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988: 98. Mitchell, Sally (Ed.). “Class.” Victorian Britain. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988: 167-169.

“Nocturne in Black and Gold The Falling Rocket.” JSS Virtual Gallery. 31 Aug 2008 Nunn, Joan. “Fashion and Costume, 1850-1900: A Summary and Overview.” Victorian Web. 31 Aug 2008. Roberts, Adam C. “Poor Laws.” Victorian Culture and Society The Essential Glossary. London: Arnold Publishers, 2003: 176. “Whistler, James Abbott McNeil.” Webmuseum, Paris. 31 Aug 2008. Art Renewal Center Museum™ Artist Information for James Abbott McNeill Whistler Royal Society of British Artists Biographical Information WHISTLER, JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL (1834-1903), American artist, was born at Lowell, Massachusetts, on the 11th of July 1834. His father was Major G. W. Whistler, and his mother one of the Baltimore family of Winans. He was first heard of in Europe in 1857, when he had already been an art student, in Paris, in the studio of Gleyre .

His first etchings, those known as The French Set, were the means of bringing him under the notice of certain people interested in art, but the circulation of these first, like that of his later etchings, has always, of necessity, been more limited than their fame. The impressions from each plate are generally few. It was still in etching that Whistler continued his labours, and, coming to London in 1850, it appears, he almost at once addressed himself to the chronicle of the quaint riverside buildings and the craft of the great stream — the Thames "below Bridge." The French Set had included De Hooch - like or Nicholas Maes - like genre pieces, such as La Vieille aux loques, the Marchande de moutarde, and The Kitchen, this last incomparably improved and perfected by the retouching that was accomplished a quarter of a century after the first performance.

The Thames series of sixteen etchings, wrought chiefly in 1859, disclosed a new vision of the river, in which there was expressed, with perfect draughtsmanship, with a hitherto unparalleled command of vivacious line, the form of barge and clipper, of warehouse, wharf and waterside tavern. The Pool, Thames Police and Black Lion Wharf are perhaps the finest of this series. Before it was begun, Whistler, ere he left Paris, had proceeded far with a plate, existing only in the state of trial proof, and, in that, of extreme rarity. It is called Paris, lie de la Cite, and has distinct and curious manifestations of a style to be more generally adopted at a later period. For several years after the completion of the Sixteen Etchings, Whistler etched comparatively little; but about 1870 we find him entering what has been described as his "Leyland period," on account of his connexion with the wealthy shipowner and art patron, Mr Frederick R. Leyland, of Prince's Gate, whose house became famous for Whistler's Peacock Room, painted in 1877.

In that period he worked greatly in dry-point. The Model Resting, one of the most graceful of his figure pieces, and Fanny Leyland — an exquisite instance of girl portraiture — are notable performances of this time. To it also belong the largely conceived dry-points, so economical of means and endowed with so singular a unity of effect, the London Bridge and Price's Candle-works. A little later came the splendid visions of the then disappearing wooden bridges of Battersea and Putney, and the plate The Adam and Eve, which records the river-front of old Chelsea. This, however, is only seen in perfection in the most rare proofs taken before the publication by the firm of Hogarth . From these plates we pass almost imperceptibly to the period of the Venetian etchings, for in 1879, at the instance of the Fine Art Society, Whistler made a sojourn in Venice, and here he wrought, or, to speak accurately, commenced, not only the set of prints known as the Venice Set, but also the Twenty-six Etchings — likewise chiefly, though not wholly, of Venice — issued later by the firm of Dowdeswell.

One or two of the minor English subjects of the Twenty-six Etchings — those done after the artist's return from Venice — give indications of the phase reached more clearly in certain little prints executed a few years later, and, with perhaps one exception, never formally published. Fruit Shop, Old Clothes Shop, and Fish Shop, busy Chelsea, belong to this time. Later, and bent upon doing justice to quite different themes, which demand different methods, the ever flexible artist again changes his way, and — not to speak of the dainty little records of the places about the Loire, which in method have affinity with the pieces last named — we have Steps, Amsterdam, Nocturne, Dance House, with its magical suggestion of movement and light, and the admirable andscape Zaandam. With the mention of these things may fitly close a sketch of Whistler's periods in etching; but before proceeding to other branches of his work, the main characteristics of the whole series of etchings (of which, in Wedmore's Whistler's Etchings, nearly 300 examples are described) should be briefly ndicated.

These main characteristics are precision and vivacity; freedom, flexibility, infinite technical resource, at the service always of the most alert and comprehensive observation; an eye that no picturesqueness of light and shade, no interesting grouping of line, can ever escape — an eye, that is, that is emancipated from conventionality, and sees these things therefore with equal willingness in a cathedral and a mass of scaffolding, in a Chelsea shop and in a suave nude figure, in the facade of a Flemish palace and in a "great wheel" at West Kensington. Mr Whistler's pictures have as a chief source of their attractiveness those mental qualities of alertness and emancipation. Charm of colour and of handling enhance the hold which they obtain upon such people of taste as may be ready to receive them. There are but very few of them, however, at least very few oil pictures, when one considers the number of years since the artist began to labour; and one notable fact must be at once understood — the admitted masterpieces in painting belong almost entirely to the earlier time.

Sarasate is an exception, and Lady Archibald Campbell, and in its smaller, but still charming, way The Little Rose of Lyme Regis; but even these — save the Little Rose — are of 1885 or thereabouts. A few years earlier than they are the Connie Gilchrist, the Miss Alexander, and the Rosa Corder, and the Thames Nocturnes; but we go farther back to reach the Portrait of the Painter's Mother, which is now in the Luxembourg; the Portrait of Carlyle, now at Glasgow; the Cremorne Gardens, the Nocturne, Valparaiso Harbour, the Music Room, with little Miss Annie Haden standing by the piano while her mother plays, and the White Girl, or Little White Girl, in which Whistler shows the influence, but never the domination, of the Japanese. Of the slight but always exquisitely harmonious studies in water colour, undertaken by Whistler in his middle period, none call for special notice.

To the middle time, too, belong, not perhaps all of his slight but delicately modelled pastels of the figure, but at least his more universally accepted pastels of Venetian scenes, in which he caught the sleepy beauty of the Venetian by-way. In pastel, as in painting, in water colour and in etching, Whistler has never been unmindful of the particular qualities of the medium in which he has worked, nor of the applicability of a given medium to a given subject. The result, accordingly, is not now a victory and now a failure, now a "hit" and now a "miss," but rather a succession of triumphs great and small. One other medium taken up by Whistler must now be mentioned. His lithographs — his drawings on the stone in many instances, and in others his drawings on that "lithographie paper" which with some people is the easy substitute for the stone to-day — are perhaps half as numerous as his etchings. Mr T. R. Way has catalogued about a hundred.

Some of the lithographs are of figures slightly draped; two or three of the very finest are of Thames subjects — including a "nocturne" at Limehouse, of unimaginable and poetic mystery; others are bright and dainty indications of quaint prettiness in the old Faubourg St Germain, and of the sober lines of certain Georgian churches in Soho and Bloomsbury. An initiator in his own generation, and ever tastefully experimental, Whistler no doubt has found enjoyment in the variety of the mediums he has worked in, and in the variety of subjects he has brilliantly tackled. The absence of concentration in the Whistlerian temperament, the lack of great continuity of effort, may probably prove a drawback to his taking exactly the place as a painter of oil pictures, which, in other circumstances, his genius and his taste would most certainly have secured for him. In the future Whistler must be accounted, in oil painting, a master exquisite but rare.

But the number and the range of his etched subjects and the extraordinary variety of perception and of skill which he has brought to bear upon the execution of his nearly three hundred coppers, ensure, and have indeed already compassed, the acceptance of him as a master among masters in that art of etching. Rembrandt's , Van Dyck's , Meryon's , Claude's , are, in fact, the only names which there is full warranty for pronouncing beside his own. No account of Whistler's career would be complete without a reference to his supremely controversial personality. In 1878 he brought a libel action against Ruskin for his criticisms in Fors Clavigera (1877). Ruskin had denounced one of his nocturnes at the Grosvenor Gallery as "a pot of paint flung in the public face." After a long trial, Whistler was awarded a farthing damages.

His examination caused much interest, especially in artistic circles, on account of his attitude in vindication of the purely artistic side of art; and it was in the course of it that he answered the question as to how long a certain "impression" had taken him to execute by saying, "All my life." His eccentricity of pose and dress, combined with his artistic arrogance, sharp tongue, and bitter humour, made him one of the most talked-about men in London, and his mots were quoted everywhere. He followed up his quarrel with Ruskin by publishing a satirical pamphlet, Whistler v. Ruskin: Art v. Art Critics. In 1885 he gave his Ten o'clock Lecture in London, afterwards embodied in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890). The substance of this flippantly written and amusing outburst was an insistence on the liberty of the artist to do what was right in his artistic eyes, and the inability of the public or the critics to have any ideas about art worth considering at all.

In 1895 another quarrel, with Sir William Eden , whose wife's portrait Whistler had painted, but refused to hand over, came into the courts in Paris; and Whistler, though allowed to keep his picture, was condemned in damages. In later years he lived mainly in Paris, but he returned to live in London in 1902; and he died on the 17th of July 1903 at 74 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. In 1888 he had married Mrs Godwin, widow of E. W. Godwin , the architect, and daughter of J. B. Philip , the sculptor; she died in 1896, leaving no children. In 1886 he became president of the Royal Society of British Artists (a title at which afterwards he scoffed); and he took a leading part later in founding the International Art Society, of which he was the first president. His Nocturne in blue and silver was presented to the National Gallery after his death by the National Art Collection Fund. See also T. R. Way and G. R. Dennis, The Art of J. McN.

Whistler (1901); F. Wedmore, Mr Whistler's Etchings; Theodore Duret, Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et de son oeuvre (1904); Mortimer Menpes, Whistler as I knew him; W. G. Bowdoin, Whistler, the Man and his Work (1902); Catalogue of Memorial Exhibition (International Society, 1905); and E. R. and J. Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler (1908). (F. WE.) Source: Entry on the artist in the 1911 Edition Encyclopedia . Art Renewal Center Articles about James Abbott McNeill Whistler Art in 19th-century England | Micheline's Blog Art in 19th-century England ≈ 8 Comments Tags Boreas by John Willam Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org ) Prelude Britain’s Golden Age of illustration , the illustration of children’s literature in particular, was ushered in, at least in part, by Japonism.

Other factors contributed to the flourishing of children’s literature adorned with exquisite illustrations, but the beauty of the Japanese prints that flooded Europe after the Sakoku period elevated the status of illustrators whose art was engraved and printed. Moreover, the illustration of children’s literature allowed and sometimes required substantial creativity on the part of illustrators. For instance, as discussed in a previous post, Lewis Carroll ’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), featured literary nonsense . But there is more to tell. We will now introduce Britain’s following movements or style: the Aesthetic Movement (c. 1850) I will also refer to the curvilinear and very popular and influential Art Nouveau . British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898; aged 25) is a representative of the style, but Art Nouveau is usually associated with Czech artist Alfons Mucha . It is a characteristic of art produced in the last decade of the 19th century and in the years preceding World War I.

The Anglo-Japanese Style In Britain, Japonisme was applied to furniture making and was referred to as the Anglo-Japanese style. The Anglo-Japanese style was true to the idealism of the Pre-Raphaelites in that it rejected the depiction of “any thing [sic] or any person of a commonplace or conventional kind.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , Wikipedia.) For instance, the sideboard shown below, designed in the Anglo-Japanese style by Arthur William Godwin (26 May 1833 – 6 October 1886), cannot be considered “conventional”. It may reflect Japanese furniture, but it is also consistent with the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art , advocated by French poet Théophile Gautier (30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) and shared by certain members of the Aesthetic Movement , such as James Abbott McNeil Whistler . Yet, as noted above, the Anglo-Japanese style is partly rooted in the creed of members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . It is innovative, Charles Baudelaire ‘s “du nouveau,” newness.

Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe? Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau! Sideboard by Arthur William Godwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by British artists William Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910), John Everett Millais (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882). As noted below (see 3), it would not allow any thing [sic] or person “of a commonplace or conventional kind.” The movement was called brotherhood, which could suggest equality and fraternity, but members of the brotherhood were brothers in that they rejected Sir Joshua Reynolds , (16 July 1723 -23 February 1792), renamed Sir ‘Sloshua’, the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts .

Pre-Raphaelites also wished to return to the art preceding the High Renaissance paintings of Raphael (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520).

Pre-Raphaelites would not allow “anything lax or scamped in the process of painting … and hence … any thing [sic] or person of a commonplace or conventional kind.”[1] (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , Wikipedia.) But the group “continued to accept the concepts of history painting , mimesis , imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , Wikipedia.) The Pre-Raphaelites’ mentor was John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900), the most prominent art critic of the Victorian era who advocated “truth to nature.” It would be joined by other artists.[2] Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org ) The Aesthetic Movement roots in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood roots in the Gothic (William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones) roots in Japonism (Impressionism) The Aesthetic Movement promoted the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art. Consequently, there are affinities between the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Aesthetic Movement.

They may differ however in that the Pre-Raphaelites “continued to accept the concepts of history painting , mimesis , imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” This could explain why John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) praised the movement (see 5). He advocated “truth to nature”. For Ruskin “truth to nature” did not seem consistent with the allusive nature of McNeill’s Impressionism . John Ruskin therefore criticized American, but London-based artist James McNeill Whistler stating that Whistler was a “ coxcomb ” who “asked two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” (See James Abbott McNeil Whistler , Wikipedia.) Such was John Ruskin’s description of Whistler’s “ Nocture in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket ”. Whistler sued and won, but he had to declare bankruptcy and lost the “ White House ” designed for him by Arthur William Godwin , the cabinet-maker who created the “sideboard” shown above.

Yet if the Pre-Raphaelites are to be linked to another 19th-century British art movement, it would be the art for art’s sake Aesthetic Movement which paralleled, albeit to a lesser extent, the decadence of French poets and artists of the second half of 19th-century. French poets were drinking absinthe , which contained an hallucinogen , thujone . For his part, Dante Gabriel Rossetti took chloral . Although James McNeill Whistler introduced Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Japonism in 1860, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is not related to Japonism. It remains however that if the Aesthetic movement could accommodate “Ruskinian Gothic,” not to mention the medievalism of such devotees as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones , one wonders why it would reject Ruskinian “truth to nature”. The Gothic William Morris Edward Burne-Jones Arthur William Godwin ‘s “sideboard” is in the Anglo-Japanese style, which, as is the case with all the movements listed above, is a forerunner of Aestheticism.

As an architect-designer, Godwin, who designed the desk displayed above, also drew his inspiration from “ Ruskinian Gothic ”. Although exotic Japonism helped shape the art of 19th-century Britain, the stained-glass pieces of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898) reached into the Medieval era, as did Arthur William Godwin’s gothic Northampton Guildhall. Morris and Burne-Jones met as students at Oxford and both were attracted to the Middle Ages , or Gothic, praised by John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) who was not only the most prominent art historian and critic of the Victorian era , but also a fine artist. Northampton Guildhall, built 1861-64, displays Godwin’s “Ruskinian Gothic” Style (Photo credit: Flicker) John Ruskin: The Stones of Venice John Ruskin is the author of the Stones of Venice , published in three volumes between 1851 and 1853.

William Morris was so impressed by a chapter entitled “On the Nature of the Gothic”, that he had it printed separately by Kelmscott Press, the Arts and Crafts press, named after Kelmscott Manor , the Morris family’s country residence. (See Morris and the Kelmscott Press , the Victorian Web.) In 1861, William Morris founded a firm, the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co .

(See Peter Paul Marschall and Charles Joseph Faulkner , Wikipedia.) The Peacock room, The Princess from the Land of Porcelain by William McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Japonism and the Aesthetic Movement Whistler was one of the first to appreciate the true significance of the Japanese prints which had begun to appear in the West after Japan’s centuries of isolation ended in the 1850s, and to see that such works, whose subject matter was generally unknown or without much meaning even when it was ascertainable, forced people to think and to see entirely in terms of pictorial qualities, of line and pattern and color; to adapt them as demonstrations of the principle that Reality in painting is intrinsic, not a matter of copying anything outside itself.[3] Japonism, however, would characterize the art of American but London-based James McNeill Whistler and American impressionist William Merritt Chase (1 November 1849 – 25 October 1916). Their Japonism is one of subject matter mainly, but exotic subject matter depicted in the rather allusive manner of Impressionism .

Both showed blue and white porcelain, fans, screens and ladies wearing kimonos that displayed an oriental motif. “The Blue Kimono,” featured below, is one of the finest paintings created by William Merritt Chase . The Blue Kimono by William Merritt Chase, 1898 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org ) Cult of Beauty or Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl) by James McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Whistler and Chase: the Decorative Arts rooms copied studios copied Ironically, it could be said of both Whistler and Chase that their Japonism was of a decorative nature. The rooms they showed became fashionable and so did the clothes worn by the ladies they portrayed. Whistler’s “Peacock Room” is not altogether consistent with the domestication of the arts advocated by the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris. Whistler’s “ Peacock Room ” is a room, but it borders on art for art’s sake. It was designed in the Anglo-Japanese style and is housed in the Freer Gallery of Art , in Washington D.C..

The Tenth Street Studio by William Merritt Chase (Photo credit: WikiArt.org ) Conclusion the broadening of the arts the versatility of artists Anglo-Japanese Style was applied to cabinet-making. However, the 19th-century British art movement we tend to associate with interior design and the decorative arts is the Arts and Crafts Movement , founded by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896). The Arts and Crafts Movement will be discussed in a separate post, but we have already witnessed a certain domestication of the art and a broadening of the field of art. Henceforth, it will include applied arts and such artists as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones will be extremely versatile. Whistler, who designed the luxurious “Peacock Room” and sued revered Ruskin, was an interior designer, a painter, and a printmaker. RELATED ARTICLES The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. I) The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. II) The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol.

III) ____________________ [1] Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites (Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 46. [2] They would be joined by painters James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens , Rossetti’s brother, poet and critic William Michael Rossetti , and sculptor Thomas Woolner , Sir Edward Burne-Jones , and John William Waterhouse . [3] Alan Gowans , The Restless Art: a History of Painters and Painting 1760-1960 (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966), p. 237. Oscar Wilde on Whistler and vice-a-versa | Lewis Art Café Oscar Wilde on Whistler and vice-a-versa Posted on Speaking of his friend, the painter James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Oscar Wilde once said, “Mr. Whistler always spelt art, and I believe still spells it, with a capital ‘I,'” a legendary put-down applicable to far too many artists, writers, and other creative types.

Wilde, the author of The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, was one of the great wits of his age. His target was one of the first American modern artists, best known today for a portrait called by most “Whistler’s Mother,” seen less often in art books and more in sentimental greeting cards and even a postage stamp. This, rather than the above quote, would have horrified Whistler, who intended the painting to be a dispassionate revolutionary statement of art for art’s sake. He had titled it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. J.A.M. Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871. Louvre, Paris. Wilde and Whistler, notorious dandies in mid-19th century London, often traded bon-mots. Whistler, who was twenty years older, was already a celebrated wit by the time he first met Wilde.

(When asked why he had been born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Whistler replied that he wanted to be close to his mother.) Both could legitimately compete for the titles of preeminent wit and vainest man of their era (Whistler sometimes referred to himself as “the amazing one”). In time there was friction. Whistler began to feel that his young friend (whose reputation was eclipsing his) had borrowed his flamboyant and eccentric style of dress and speaking. It is reported after a particularly good witticism by Whistler at a party Wilde once said to him, “I wish I had said that.” Whistler answered, “You will, Oscar, you will.” In a battle of telegrams, Wilde wrote with pleasure, “When you and I are together we never talk about anything except ourselves.” Whistler responded, “No, no, Oscar, you forget. When you and I are together, we never talk about anything except me.” Despite their back and forth repartee and ultimate falling out, Wilde retained great respect and affection for his friend and mentor.

His sharp put-down at the top of this entry finishes with a testimonial to Whistler, Portrait of Whistler by William Merritt Chase However, he was never dull. His brilliant wit, his caustic satire, and his amusing epigrams, or perhaps we should say epitaphs on his contemporaries made his views on art as delightful as they were misleading, and as fascinating as they were unsound. Besides, he introduced humour into art criticism, and for this if no other reason he deserves to be affectionately remembered. Related WebMuseum: Whistler, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, James Abbott McNeill (1834-1903). American-born painter and graphic artist, active mainly in England. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in in 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the third son of West Point graduate and civil engineer Major George Washington Whistler, and his second wife Anna Matilda McNeill. After brief stays in Stonington, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, the Whistlers moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where the Major served as an civil engineer for the construction of a railroad line to Moscow.

James Abbott was aged nine when his family moved to Russia, and he spent several of his childhood years there, studying drawing at the Imperial Academy of Science. He soon became an inveterate traveller. In 1848 he went to live with his sister and her husband in London, and after his father's death the following year the family returned to the United States and settled in Pomfret, Connecticut. Whistler enrolled in the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1851, where he excelled in Robert W. Weir's drawing class. He was dismissed from the academy in 1854 for "deficiency in chemistry", and after brief periods working for the Winans Locomotive Works in Baltimore, and the drawings division of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (he learnt etching as a US navy cartographer), resolved to become an artist and moved to Europe permanently in 1855. Whistler settled in Paris first, where he studied at the Ecole Impï¿½riale et Spï¿½ciale de Dessin, before entering the Acadï¿½mie Gleyre.

He made copies in the Louvre, acquired a lasting admiration for Velï¿½zquez , and became a devotee of the cult of the Japanese print and oriental art and decoration in general. Through his friend Fantin-Latour he met Courbet , whose Realism inspired much of his early work. The circles in which he moved can be gauged from Fantin-Latour's Homage to Delacroix , in which Whistler is portrayed alongside Baudelaire, Manet , and others. He quickly associated himself with avant garde artists, and was influenced by Courbet's realism, as well as the seventeenth century Dutch and Spanish schools. With Henri Fantin-Latour and Alphonse Legros , he founded the Sociï¿½tï¿½ des Trois. After Whistler's At The Piano (Taft Museum, Cincinnati) was rejected at the Salon of 1859 he moved to London, but often returned to France. At the Piano was well received at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1860 and he soon made a name for himself, not just because of his talent, but also on account of his flamboyant personality.

He was famous for his wit and dandyism, and loved controversy. His life-style was lavish and he was often in debt. He began work on a series of etchings. There Whistler was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, and he befriended Dante Gabriel Rossetti . Oscar Wilde was also among his famous friends. At The Piano 1858-59; Oil on canvas, 67 x 91.6 cm; The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio Whistler greatly admired Dutch masters such as Jan Steen, Rembrandt and Ruysdael. In 1858 he visited Holland to view the Nightwatch. Indeed, he became a frequent traveller to the Netherlands, visiting The Hague, Dordrecht and Domburg and producing numerous etchings of one of his favorite cities: Amsterdam. He achieved international notoriety when Symphony No. 1, The White Girl was rejected at both the Royal Academy and the Salon, but was a major attraction at the famous Salon des Refusï¿½s in 1863.

Thereafter Courbet's influence waned, and Orientalism--and to a lesser extent classicism--became increasingly pronounced elements in his work. Whistler maintained close ties with France during the London years, and painted at Trouville with Courbet, Daubigny, and Monet in 1865. Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl 1862; Oil on canvas, 214.6 x 108 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington In 1866 he went to South America, where he painted seascapes in Valparaiso, Chile. After returning to Europe he commenced work on a series of monumental figure compositions for called the Six Projects (Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), that reflect the influence of the English artist Albert Moore. In 1869 Whistler began to sign his paintings with a butterfly monogram composed of his initials. In 1872 he painted his well-known Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother , that was later acquired by the French government.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother 1871; Oil on canvas, 144.3 x 162.5 cm; Musï¿½e d'Orsay, Paris During the early 1870s he painted his famous "Nocturne" series, views of the Thames. Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea 1871; Oil on wood, 50.2 x 60.8 cm; Tate Gallery, London Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights 1872; Oil on canvas, 50.2 x 74.3 cm; Tate Gallery, London Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge 1872-77; Oil on canvas, 68.3 x 51.2 cm; Tate Gallery, London Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge Detail Whistler's art is in many respects the opposite to his often aggressive personality, being discreet and subtle, but the creed that lay behind it was radical.

He believed that painting should exist for its own sake, not to convey literary or moral ideas, and he often gave his pictures musical titles to suggest an analogy with the abstract art of music: `Art should be independent of all claptrap-- should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it, and that is why I insist on calling my works "arrangements" and "harmonies".' He was a laborious and self-critical worker, but this is belied by the flawless harmonies of tone and color he created in his paintings, which are mainly portraits and landscapes, particularly scenes of the Thames. No less original was his work as a decorative artist, notably in the Peacock Room (1876-77) for the London home of the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland (now reconstructed in the Freer Gallery, Washington), where attenuated decorative patterning anticipated much in the Art Nouveau style of the 1890s.

Whistler's Peacock Room , or Harmony in Blue and Gold (1876-1877, Freer Gallery of Art), done for Leyland, exerted a strong influence on the Aesthetic movement's interior design. Peacock Room central shutter; 1876-77; 369.5 x 141 cm; Freer Gallery, Washington Fighting Peacocks South panel of Peacock Room; 180.3 x 472.5 cm; Freer Gallery, Washington Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket 1875; Oil on wood, 60.3 x 46.6 cm; Detroit Institute of Arts In 1877 the critic John Ruskin denounced Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1875; Detroit Institute of Arts), accusing him of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face", and Whistler sued him for libel the following year. He won the action, but the awarding of only a farthing's damages with no costs was in effect a justification for Ruskin.

Potential patrons were repelled by the negative publicity surrounding the case, and the expense of the trial led to Whistler's bankruptcy in 1879. His house was sold and he proceeded to Italy with a commission from the Fine Arts Society to make twelve etchings of Venice. He spent a year in Venice (1879-80), concentrating on the etchings-- among the masterpieces of 19th-century graphic art-- that helped to restore his fortunes when he returned to London. After returning to England in 1880 he painted a wide variety of subjects, continued with his interest in the graphic arts, and promulgated his aesthetic theories in print and in the Ten O'Clock lecture (1885); his polemical The Gentle Art of Making Enemies was published in 1890. In 1886 he was elected president of the Society of British Artists, but despite some successes his revolutionary ideas ran afoul of the conservative members, and he was voted out of office within two years. Arrangement in Grey and Black, No.

2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle 1872-73; Oil on canvas, 171.1 x 143.5 cm; Glasgow Museum and Art Gallery During the late 1880s and 1890s Whistler achieved recognition as an artist of international stature. His paintings were acquired by public collections, he received awards at exhibitions, and he was elected to such prestigious professional associations as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. His portrait of Thomas Carlyle was bought by the Corporation of Glasgow in 1891 for 1,000 guineas and soon afterwards his most famous work, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother (1871), was bought by the French state (it is now in the Musï¿½e d'Orsay, Paris) and he was made a member of the Lï¿½gion d'Honneur. In 1898 he was elected president of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. He made a happy marriage in 1888 to Beatrix Godwin, widow of the architect E.W.

Godwin, with whom Whistler had collaborated, but she died only eight years later. He withdrew from an active social life around the time his wife Beatrice Godwin died of cancer in 1896. In 1903, the year of his death, a memorial exhibition was held in Boston; the following year similar retrospectives were held by the International Society in London, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Whistler's paintings are related to Impressionism (although he was more interested in evoking a mood than in accurately depicting the effects of light), to Symbolism, and to Aestheticism, and he played a central role in the modern movement in England. His aesthetic creed was explained in his Ten O'Clock Lecture (1885) and this, and much else on art and society, was republished in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890).

The Lime-burner 1859; Etching and drypoint printed in black ink on cream laid paper with watermark of bricked arch in shield surrounded by stylized foliage, Plate: 25.1 x 17.6 cm Wapping 1861-64; Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 101.6 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington Wapping Detail; 1861-64; Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 101.6 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks 1864; Oil on canvas, 92 x 61.5 cm; Philadelphia Museum of Art Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl 1864; Oil on canvas, 76.5 x 51.1 cm; Tate Gallery, London Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander 1872-74; Oil on canvas, 190.2 x 97.8 cm; Tate Gallery, London Cremorne Gardens, No. 2

Question: Which nineteenth century artist had the Christian names James Abbot McNeil?
Answer: WHISTLER