Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, best known under its colloquial nameWhistler's Mother or Portrait of Artist's Mother,[1][2] is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The subject of the painting is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler. The painting is 56.81 by 63.94 inches (1,443mm ×1,624mm),[3] displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design. It is held by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris,[2] having been bought by the French state in 1891. It is one of the most famous works by an American artist outside the United States. It has been variously described as an American icon[3][4][5][6] and a Victorian Mona Lisa.[3][7][8]
Several unverifiable stories relate to the painting of the work; one is that Anna Whistler acted as a replacement for another model who could not make the appointment. Whistler originally envisioned painting the model standing up. However, his mother was too uncomfortable to pose standing for an extended period.[11]
The work was shown at the 104th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London (1872), after coming within a hair's breadth of rejection by the academy. This episode worsened the rift between Whistler and the British art world; Arrangement was the last painting he submitted for the academy's approval (although his etching of Old Putney Bridge was exhibited there in 1879). Vol. VIII of The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 (by Algernon Graves, F.S.A., London 1906) lists the 1872 exhibit as no. 941, "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's mother", and gives Whistler's address as The White House, Chelsea Embankment.[citation needed]
The sensibilities of a Victorian era viewing audience would not accept what was a portrait exhibited as an "arrangement", hence the addition of the explanatory title Portrait of the Painter's mother. From this, the work acquired its enduring nickname of simply Whistler's Mother. After Thomas Carlyle viewed the painting, he agreed to sit for a similar composition, this one titled Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2. Thus the previous painting became, by default,[citation needed]Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1.
Whistler eventually pawned the painting, acquired in 1891 by Paris's Musée du Luxembourg. Whistler's works, including this one, had attracted several imitators. Numerous similarly posed and restricted-colour palette paintings soon appeared, particularly by American expatriate painters. For Whistler, having one of his paintings displayed in a major museum helped attract wealthy patrons. In December 1884, Whistler wrote:[citation needed]
Just think—to go and look at one's own picture hanging on the walls of Luxembourg—remembering how it had been treated in England—to be met everywhere with deference and respect...and to know that all this is... a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the rest! Really it is like a dream.
As a proponent of "art for art's sake", Whistler professed to be perplexed and annoyed by the insistence of others upon viewing his work as a "portrait". In his 1890 book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, he wrote:[12]
Take the picture of my mother, exhibited at the Royal Academy as an "Arrangement in Grey and Black." Now that is what it is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the portrait?
Both Whistler's Mother and Thomas Carlyle were engraved by the English engraver Richard Josey.[13] The image has been used since the Victorian era as an icon for motherhood, affection for parents, and "family values" in general, especially in the United States. For example, in 1934, the U.S. Post Office Department issued a stamp engraved with the portrait detail from Whistler's Mother, bearing the slogan "In memory and in honor of the mothers of America." In the Borough of Ashland, Pennsylvania, an eight-foot-high statue based on the painting was erected as a tribute to mothers by the Ashland Boys' Association in 1938, during the Great Depression.[14]
In summing up the painting's influence, art historian Martha Tedeschi has stated:
Whistler's Mother, Wood's American Gothic, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream 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.[15]
Fight for Her, World War I recruitment poster from Canada, urging men to enlist with the Irish Canadian Rangers and to fight for the women in their lives. It appeals to notions of motherhood and "family values" that were popular at the time, and often attributed to this painting.
English rock musician John Lennon used a self-portrait modeled after the painting on the cover of his 1975 compilation album Shaved Fish.[citation needed]
In a four-part episode of the Underdog cartoon series (Parts 69–72 in the series) entitled "Whistler's Father", Underdog is assigned to stand guard in a museum to prevent the theft of a valuable painting called Whistler's Father.[citation needed]
The painting is central to the plot of the comedy film Bean (1997), in which Mr. Bean accidentally defaces it during its repatriation to the United States and secretly replaces it with a poster.
Actor Hurd Hatfield toured internationally several times with the play Son of Whistler's Mother by playwright Maggie Williams.[28]
The movie Sneakers (1992) features two characters code-named Whistler and Mother, played by David Strathairn and Dan Aykroyd, respectively.[29]
Between 1959 and 2021, the Douglas A-26 Invader serial number 41-39401 was either flown or displayed with the name of Whistler's Mother. It featured a reproduction of the painting on the nose.
In music
Whistler, and particularly this painting, had a profound effect on Claude Debussy, a contemporary French composer. In 1894, Debussy wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color – what a study in grey would be in painting." Whether Debussy used the term color to refer to orchestration or harmony, critics have observed "shades" of a particular sound quality in his music.[30]
Édouard Manet 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.
The Musée d'Orsay 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 dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.
Henri Fantin-Latour was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake".
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet 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 the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
Events from the year 1881 in art.
Marie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde as a member of the Cubists associated with the Section d'Or.
Events from the year 1863 in art.
Events from the year 1864 in art.
Events from the year 1872 in art.
Anna MatildaWhistler 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.1, often titled Whistler's Mother.
Bal du moulin de la Galette is an 1876 painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Vincent van Gogh lived during the Impressionist era. With the development of photography, painters and artists turned to conveying the feeling and ideas behind people, places, and things rather than trying to imitate their physical forms. Impressionist artists did this by emphasizing certain hues, using vigorous brushstrokes, and paying attention to highlighting. Vincent van Gogh implemented this ideology to pursue his goal of depicting his own feelings toward and involvement with his subjects. Van Gogh's portraiture focuses on color and brushstrokes to demonstrate their inner qualities and Van Gogh's own relationship with them.
Babar's Museum of Art was the collaborative product of Laurent de Brunhoff (illustrations) and his wife Phyllis Rose de Brunhoff (text) for the Babar the Elephant series. The aim was to introduce different notable works of art found in museums around the world, mostly paintings, but also including sculptures. The human subjects in these artworks were re-interpreted as elephants.
Henry Lerolle was a French painter, art collector and patron, born in Paris. He studied at Académie Suisse and in the studio of Louis Lamothe.
Portrait of Lady Meux is a name given to several full-length portraits by James McNeill Whistler. Valerie Susan Meux, née Langdon, was a Victorian socialite and the wife of the London brewer, Sir Henry Meux. She claimed to have been an actress, but was apparently on the stage for only a single season. She is believed to have met Sir Henry at the Casino de Venise in Holborn, where she worked as a banjo-playing barmaid and prostitute under the name Val Reece.
Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle is an 1872–73 oil painting by James McNeill Whistler. It depicts the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle in a composition similar to that of Whistler's 1871 Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, commonly known as Whistler's Mother. It is now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets is an 1872 oil painting by Édouard Manet. It depicts fellow painter Berthe Morisot dressed in black mourning dress, with a barely visible bouquet of violets. The painting, sometimes known as Portrait of Berthe Morisot, Berthe Morisot in a black hat or Young woman in a black hat, is in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Manet also created an etching and two lithographs of the same composition.
Mrs. Beckington is a 1913 miniature painting in watercolour on ivory by Alice Beckington. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Homage to Delacroix is an 1864 painting by Henri Fantin-Latour painted in homage to the French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix who died the year before. The work features a group of painters and writers, all of whom went on to become notable themselves, gathered around a portrait of the late Delacroix. The painting was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1864. Today the painting is part of the permanent collection of the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
Walden, Sarah (2003). Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship: Secrets of an American Masterpiece. London: Gibson Square; Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN1903933285.
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