Arrangement en gris et noir n°1

James Abbott McNeill Whistler · 1871

Arrangement en gris et noir n°1 - James Abbott McNeill Whistler

An elderly woman sits in profile, dressed in black, against a grey wall. Whistler called it an arrangement in grey and black, but the world kept calling it his mother, and it became one of the most famous paintings by an American artist.

The story behind the painting

Anna McNeill Whistler posed for her son in 1871 while living with him at 96 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London. Several stories about the sitting cannot be verified; one says she stood in for a model who failed to come. Whistler first imagined his sitter standing, but his mother was too uncomfortable to stand for long, so he painted her seated. In 1872 the Royal Academy came within a hair's breadth of rejecting the picture before showing it, and it was the last painting Whistler ever submitted there.

What to look for

The canvas is large, about 144 by 163 cm, and sits in a frame Whistler designed himself. His mother is seen in profile on a chair, in black, a curtain hanging at the left and a framed picture on the grey wall; Wikidata links that picture to Black Lion Wharf. The palette is held almost entirely to grey and black, which is why Whistler titled it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. The number came later, after Thomas Carlyle agreed to sit for a similar composition, No. 2.

Meaning and intent

Whistler believed in art for art's sake and was annoyed when people read the work as a portrait. In 1890 he wrote that to him it was interesting as a picture of his mother, but asked what the public could or ought to care about the identity of the sitter. Victorian viewers would not accept a portrait shown as an arrangement, so the explanatory title Portrait of the Painter's Mother was added, and the nickname stuck. The image went on to stand for motherhood and family values, especially in the United States.

Legacy

Whistler eventually pawned the painting, and in 1891 it was acquired by the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris; Wikipedia says the French state bought it, and it is now in the Musee d'Orsay. Whistler called seeing it there, after its treatment in England, like a dream. In 1934 a US stamp honoured the mothers of America with its detail, and in 1938 an eight-foot statue based on it rose in Ashland, Pennsylvania. Debussy linked his Nocturnes to a study in grey, and the art historian Martha Tedeschi placed it beside the Mona Lisa and The Scream.

Le saviez-vous ?

Wikipedia · Wikidata

À propos de l'artiste

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

femme · portrait · musée d'Orsay · rideau · siège

Autres œuvres de James Abbott McNeill Whistler