James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) A collection of paintings 4k

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.
Whistler painted his first exhibited work, La Mere Gerard in 1858. He followed it by painting At the Piano in 1859 in London, which he adopted as his home, while also regularly visiting friends in France. At the Piano is a portrait composed of his niece and her mother in their London music room, an effort which clearly displayed his talent and promise. A critic wrote, " a recklessly bold manner and sketchiness of the wildest and roughest kind, a genuine feeling for colour and a splendid power of composition and design, which evince a just appreciation of nature very rare amongst artists." The work is unsentimental and effectively contrasts the mother in black and the daughter in white, with other colours, kept restrained in the manner advised by his teacher Gleyre. It was displayed at the Royal Academy the following year, and in many exhibits to come.
In 1861 Whistler painted his first famous work, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl. The portrait of his mistress and business manager Joanna Hiffernan was created as a simple study in white; however, others saw it differently. The critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary thought the painting an allegory of a new bride's lost innocence. Others linked it to Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, a popular novel of the time, or various other literary sources. In England, some considered it a painting in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. In the painting, Hiffernan holds a lily in her left hand and stands upon a bearskin rug (interpreted by some to represent masculinity and lust) with the bear's head staring menacingly at the viewer. The portrait was refused for exhibition at the conservative Royal Academy but was shown in a private gallery under the title The Woman in White.
By 1871, Whistler returned to portraits and soon produced his most famous painting, the nearly monochromatic full-length figure entitled Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, but usually referred to as Whistler's Mother. A model failed to appear one day, according to a letter from his mother, so Whistler turned to his mother and suggested that he do her portrait. He had her stand at first, in his typically slow and experimental way, but that proved too tiring so the seated pose was adopted. It took dozens of sittings to complete.
The austere portrait in his normally constrained palette is another Whistler exercise in tonal harmony and composition. The deceptively simple design is, in fact, a balancing act of differing shapes, particularly the rectangles of the curtain, picture on the wall, and floor which stabilize the curve of her face, dress, and chair. Whistler commented that the painting's narrative was of little importance, yet the painting was also paying homage to his pious mother. After the initial shock of her moving in with her son, she aided him considerably by stabilizing his behaviour somewhat, tending to his domestic needs, and providing an aura of conservative respectability that helped win over patrons.
From the start, Whistler's Mother sparked varying reactions, including parody, ridicule, and reverence, which have continued to today. Some saw it as "the dignified feeling of old ladyhood", "a grave sentiment of mourning", or a "perfect symbol of motherhood"; others employed it as a fitting vehicle for mockery. It has been satirized in endless variations in greeting cards and magazines, and by cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and Bullwinkle the Moose. Whistler did his part in promoting the picture and popularizing the image. He frequently exhibited it and authorized the early reproductions that made their way into thousands of homes. The painting narrowly escaped being burned in a fire aboard a train during shipping. It was ultimately purchased by the French government, the first Whistler work in a public collection, and is now housed in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
During his life, he affected two generations of artists, in Europe and in the United States. Whistler had significant contact and exchanged ideas and ideals with Realist, Impressionist, and Symbolist painters. Famous protégés for a time included Walter Sickert and writer Oscar Wilde. His Tonalism had a profound effect on many American artists, including John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase and Willis Seaver Adams. Another significant influence was upon Arthur Frank Mathews, whom Whistler met in Paris in the late 1890s.
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