MRS. WHISTLER AND HER SON, ARTIST JAMES ABBOT MCNEILL WHISTLER
Compiled by Victoria Chick
James Abbot McNeill Whistler did not set out to paint an iconic image, but his “Arrangement in Black and Grey #1” has become one of the most recognizable and meaningful paintings in the world.
Since May is the month of celebrating Mothers, this article is focused on the relationship between Whistler, the artist, and his mom, Anna McNeill Whistler. This often-misunderstood relationship may help understand his private life and his art process.
James McNeill Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on July 10, 1834. Symbolically, he added his mother’s maiden name Abbott to his name after her death. As a child, he was often ill and tended to be “difficult.” Drawing calmed him and helped him to focus. His father, a construction engineer for railroads, devised a viaduct for an East Coast railroad that was an outstandingly inventive feat, and his work came to the attention of the Czar of Russia who offered him the position of Chief Engineer to build a railway from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The family moved to Russia. While there, Whistler, at age 8, took advantage of Russian Art Academy training and did well.
A family trip to England, to visit his aunt and Uncle while his father stayed in Russia, broadened Whistler’s knowledge of the art world by meeting artists with whom his uncle was acquainted, visiting art museums, and attending art lectures in London. These experiences increased his desire to be an artist. He wrote to his father, “I hope, dear father, you will not object to my choice.” However, when Whistler was 15 his father died of Cholera. He, his mother, and sisters returned to America to live. Whistler’s family were letter writers and savers of correspondence. Much is known or can be inferred from surviving letters.
Although Whistler was already attracted to being an artist, his mother hoped he would go into the ministry and enrolled him in an appropriate school. He did not thrive there and, by now, he was of age, so he applied and was accepted to the Military Academy at West Point but repeatedly bucked authority and was dismissed, having only accomplished learning drawing and map making out of all his classes.
He became a draftsman for the U.S. Coast Guard until he became bored and was caught doodling mermaids and sea monsters on the maps and was transferred to the etching division where he did not last long but did learn the etching process that was useful in his later career.
In 1855, a wealthy friend gave him studio space and a stipend to follow his desire to be an artist. Whistler informed his mother he would study art in Paris. He never returned to the U.S.
In Paris, Whistler quickly adopted an unconventional lifestyle with a studio and a live-in girlfriend. He studied traditional art methods at an art school and as a student of well-known artist, Charles Gleyre. From Gleyre, who was a radical painter in a time when Romanticism was still preferred by the Salons, Whistler learned the Tonalist philosophy: the importance of using black mixed with colors, that line is more important than color. He met influential friends: Henri Fantin-Latour, Courbet, Manet, and Charles Baudelaire. He traveled around France taking in a range of ideas more than doing art.
Whistler stayed in London for a short period around 1859 but maintained contact with French Friends. He began painting and was reasonably successful in entering exhibitions. In 1858 he began an etching series of the Thames River that sold very well. His etching experience in the U.S. Coast Guard paid off.
Back in Paris in 1861, Whistler developed his mature painting style using a limited palette. The model for the woman in white, shown at the Salon De Refuses was his lover, Joanna Hifferman. He painted her many times. Back in London by 1866, Whistler’s very religious and proper mother arrived in London, upsetting her son’s free lifestyle. He wrote to Fantin-Latour, “General upheaval!! I had to empty my house and purify it from cellar to eaves”. He also moved his model to another location.
By 1871, Whistler returned to painting portraits as subjects. One day, according to a letter from his mother, a model failed to appear, so Whistler suggested he paint her portrait instead. He had her stand, but she became tired because he took so long. The pose changed to a seated one with numerous sittings to get the composition to his satisfaction. Thus, the portrait of Whistler’s mother came to be. It was extremely nice of her to pose, which is an exacting, uncomfortable task for a person of any age. Whistler saw the subject during these sittings as a tonal shape, part of a composition that included the space around her, and the rectangular shapes that shared that space and were described by line and neutral tones. The title reflects his aesthetic interest in what he saw, not the literal subject, although most people believe the painting represents his reverence toward his mother.
“Arrangement in Grey and Black #1” was followed by Whistler’s “Arrangement in Grey and Black #2,” a similar composition by writer and historian, Thomas Carlyle. Since then, satirical paintings and advertising art have used “Whistler’s Mother” image often. But the painting has a high degree of respect by viewers as a symbol of motherhood everywhere as evidenced by the vast number of times it has been reproduced. One of the most unusual representations of Whistler’s Mother is actually in 3-D, and located in Ashland, Pennsylvania.
Ashland was a coal mining area that suffered a job loss around 1900. Coal miners were forced to leave the area for jobs elsewhere but returned each year to Ashland for a celebration of that community, family, and friends. The miners were known as the Ashland Boys Club. In 1937, a committee at the celebration decided to honor all Ashland Mothers. They agreed to a sculpture “of the painter’s mother” and that it should be done in Bronze. Emil Seiburn, a WPA artist, had to imagine the hidden side of Mother Whistler. His sketches were used by WPA sculptor Julius Loester to produce the 7-foot-tall bronze statue that sits atop a 3-ton block of polished granite and …” honors all mothers, past and present”… Whistler’s Arrangement in “Grey and Black #1” must rank as one of the most inspirational artworks of all time.
According to his biographers, his mother moving and disrupting his way of living was instrumental in improving his health for he moderated drinking and smoking. She stabilized his life, took care of his domestic needs, and provided an aura of respectability that brought him more patrons.
Victoria Chick is the founder of the Cow Trail Art Studio in southwest New Mexico. She received a B.A. in Art from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and awarded an M.F.A. in Painting from Kent State University in Ohio. Visit her website at www.ArtistVictoriaChick.com
