Birth Year : 1834
Death Year : 1903
Country : US
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, a fact
of which he did not care to be reminded. His father was a builder of railroads
and took his nine year old son to St. Petersburg where the boy lived like
an aristocrat and attended the Russian Academy of Fine Arts. When his father
died, Whistler was brought back to the family farm, but he was restless
and discontented, flunked out of West Point, lost several jobs, and then,
having read Murger's La Vie de Bohème, left for Paris in 1855, never
to return home. He arrived at Gleyre's Academy when Manet,
Monet, and Degas
were students there and the first stirrings of Impressionism were in the
air. Four years later, Whistler went to live in London, carrying with him
an interest in quick impressions but very little of the French approach
to light and color. His palette leaned strongly to grays, whites, and blacks,
and he conceived of his paintings as "nocturnes," "symphonies," and "arrangements"
of "line, form, and color." A strong advocate of "art for art's sake,"
he believed in the importance of the painting rather than in its subject
matter, and as a result, some of his works are so nonrepresentational as
to be true forerunners of twentieth-century abstraction. His most famous
painting, best known to us as The Artist's Mother, has as its first title
Arrangement in Black and Gray. Whistler painted it to emphasize the patterns
evoked by its large, flat area, an idea inspired by Japanese prints. Whistler's
works aroused the antagonism of the critic John Ruskin, and the artist's
sharp-tongued reply to that gentleman's remarks ended in a famous lawsuit
from which Whistler emerged a technical victor. He was awarded damages
of one farthing, but his reputation was so damaged that he went bankrupt.
To recoup his losses, he began to create light and brilliantly executed
etchings, devoting most of his time to them for some years. Whistler's
works have an exquisite charm; his landscapes are airy, his portraits ethereally
wistful. he exerted an extraordinary influence both on public taste and
on future trends in British art. He remained in London until 1890 when
he returned to Paris to open an art school. he died in Paris in 1903.
|
|
James
Abbott McNeill Whistler
White
Girl, The
Venice
James
Abbott McNeill Whistler
Arrangement
in Grey & Black, Artist's Mother
James
Abbott McNeill Whistler
Rose
and Silver the Princess from the L
James
Abbott McNeill Whistler
Portrait
of the Artist's Mother
View
all James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Books about Whistler |
