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James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1861-62, oil on canvas. This was Whistlers first painting which drew major attention from the art world. It depicts his mistress and business manager Joanna Hiffernan as an innocent young woman clad in pure white. At the time this image raised some eyebrows in the artistic community as individuals and critics clambered to imbue Whistlers portrait with symbolism relating to ideas of lust and sexual awakening. However Whistler intended this portrait to be a simple study in colour. This reflects changing attitudes at this time and the emergence of the concept of ‘Art for Arts Sake’.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875, oil on panel.
The famous art critic and champion of the pre raphaelite movement once famously said about this painting, that it was like ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’. Consequentially they faced a libel case which Whistler won after claiming that Ruskin had damaged his reputation. This painting has risen above this important defining moment in art history to become a masterpiece in its own right. It shows immense musicality and expressiveness capturing the spontaneity of the nightly firework display over Cremore Gardens.
On this day in 1834: the birth of James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Above, images (courtesy the Freer) from Whistler’s masterpiece, the Peacock Room, housed at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art. View a panorama of the room here.
The story of Whistler and his patron in this case
, Frederick R. Leyland, is actually a bit shocking. We’ll come in mid-scene:
“After Leyland agreed to pay only half, Whistler did some more work on the room. He painted two more peacocks on the wall opposite The Princess. The birds faced each other, on ground strewn with silver shillings, as if about to fight. Whistler titled the mural Art and Money; or, the Story of the Room. Then Whistler painted an expensive leather wall covering with a coat of shimmering Prussian blue, an act of what might be called creative destruction. According to Lee Glazer, curator of American art, after Whistler finished in 1877, Leyland told him he would be horse-whipped if he appeared at the house again. But Leyland kept Whistler’s work.” - Owen Edwards, Smithsonian Magazine
Whistler inspired Darren Waterston’s brilliant installation, Peacock Room REMIX: Filthy Lucre.Waterston wrote: “I set out to recreate Whistler’s fabled Peacock Room in a state of decadent demolition—a space collapsing in on itself, heavy with its own excess and tumultuous history. I imagined it as … a vision of both discord and beauty, the once-extravagant interior warped, ruptured.”
Images of Filthy Lucre below, (courtesy the Sackler) top: a finished view, bottom: the work in progress.
Filthy Lucre was exhibited in the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery May 2015 - December 2016. Fortunately, the beautiful produced exhibit catalog, below, is available; request it through our catalog.
The calming world of Impressionism is now available on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr with the following Impressionist social media accounts. From Monet’s garden to Degas’ dancers, there are thousands of paintings to make your day a little softer!
Portrait of Artist’s Mother (1871), one of the most iconic paintings in the world, was exhibited in NGV, Whistler’s Mother, along with the artist’s and other Australian painters’ works that were highly influenced by Whistler’s art. The original title of the famous painting is Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, which refers to the exploration of form and colour rather than the portrait of his…
