Portrait of the Artist’s Mother

In 1891, James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother was the first painting by an American artist to be bought by the French Government.

It would have been hard to predict that a moody, temperamental young boy, whose parents had discovered that the best way to soothe him was to hand him pencils and crayons and let him draw, would end up with such a distinguished honour.

His engineer father had been commissioned by Tzar Nicholas 1 to design a railroad, taking young James (1834-1903) and his family to live in St Petersburg, Russia.

The precocious 11-year-old insisted that he be allowed to show his drawings to the Tzar’s court artist, who was impressed enough to assist James’ acceptance into the Imperial Academy of Fine Art.

Four years later after his father died, he was back in America and grudgingly enrolled in West Point Military Academy; this part of his education was to be short-lived, as he was promptly expelled for poor conduct and dismal academic results.

Keen to fulfil his artistic ambitions, young Whistler decided that Paris was the place to be. Here he was free to become the epitome of a bohemian painter, adopting the casual air of a stylish young man, who spent freely on clothes and drink. He funded his somewhat louche lifestyle by selling his copies of the works by French and Spanish masters whose work he admired in the Louvre museum.

Soon his circle of friends included many artists on the brink of greatness including Henri Fantin-Latour, Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet, and his work was influenced in those early years by their earthy, realistic approach to painting.

It was after he moved from Paris to London, and produced his remarkable picture, At the Piano in 1859 that he achieved recognition as an artist of note. The picture was included in the Royal Academy exhibition, to some critical acclaim.

However, his initial success was fleeting. As he developed his mature style, incorporating Japanese aesthetics and oriental motifs, it separated him from the Realists.

Pictures such as The White Girl, 1862, picturing his flame-haired mistress standing full length and confronting the viewer directly, were rejected by both the Royal Academy and the French Salon. The paintingwas considered inflammatory, inappropriately suggesting a blatant loss of innocence.

The picture introduced his singular approach, employing a limited colour palette, flat tonal contrasts, and the skewed perspective he created by manipulating his paintstrokes.

He was soon seen as spearheading the Aesthetic movement, whose ethos of ‘Art for art’s sake’ presented unconventional ideas for paintings that celebrated beauty.

And then, like a thunderclap, his Portrait of the Artist’s Mother from 1871 transfixed audiences when it was first shown. Seen seated in complete profile, in a long black dress and white lace cap, she is simply holding a handkerchief in her lap, gazing straight across the room.

The curtain hanging straight down to the left has a Japanese floral pattern, and although the picture appears an oddly simple one, there is a calculated balancing of the structural elements. The rectangular shape of the curtains, the picture hanging behind her on the plain grey wall, the simplicity of the matching dull floor, all combine to emphasise the stillness of the seated figure.

The painting became widely interpreted as a celebration of the stoicism of motherhood, and resonated with radical thinking artists and critics, as well as with the public.

When it was purchased for the Louvre Museum 20 years later, Whistler’s reputation was elevated to new heights, and his work was soon in demand by wealthy American collectors.

Disconcertingly for Whistler, his mother was also impressed by her son’s celebrity, and decided to move to London to live with him. This was to somewhat cramp his man-about-town persona, and he even had to move his mistress out of his home.

His reputation as a witty, but opinionated member of fashionable society found him verbally feuding with Oscar Wilde and others at various parties, and arguing vociferously with art critics. He went so far as to sue the most eminent of them, the redoubtable and revered John Ruskin, for libel. Ruskin had been very publicly disobliging about his picture, Nocturne in Black and Gold, from 1874.

Whistler was awarded a derisory one quarter of a penny by the judge in the court case, but the legal expenses he had racked up brought him to financial ruin. Forced out of his house after his bankruptcy, he moved to Venice and managed to secure a commission to create a series of etchings for the Fine Art Society.

Whistler was fond of wearing a monocle, dressing flamboyantly, and even dyed a lock of his brown hair bright white, to denote his devilish magnetism.

By the time of his death in London in 1903, although much of his work had been difficult for the Victorian era to fully embrace, the Daily Chronicle newspaper credited the importance of the impact he had made. ‘It is twenty-five years since the famous case, Whistler versus Ruskin was tried. In the history of art, it might be two hundred years, so completely has the point of view of the critics and public changed, so completely has the brilliant genius of the man whom Ruskin called a ‘coxcomb’ been vindicated.’

The fiery young boy who had grown up to become a monocle-wearing dandy would have been quietly satisfied with that legacy. But his personality is perhaps best summed up in his own words: “I can’t tell if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.”

In reality, his approach to colour and composition marked the beginning of art moving towards abstraction. His true legacy was to become the forefather to the greats of Abstract Expressionism, the most powerful art movement in American history.