More about Whistler

The artist's mother - James McNeill Whistler

I have now finished my book on the painter James McNeill Whistler. An American artist, wit and society figure, he lived most of his life in London and Paris where he becomes quite good friends with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

What have I learned from reading this book? I like some of his paintings, I know something of his life which is all I wanted from this publication, but I somehow feel it is all surface stuff. After I read the book on Turner, I felt I had a small insite into the man himself and also felt that when I read about W.H.Davies the writer and poet, but this book left me 'up in the air' feeling I hadn't really got to know anything about the man himself. The information provided was that Whistler was a man who liked to live life in the public eye and was very concerned about his public appearance and the critical reception of his paintings. That made him sound a bit shallow to me, not at all as I first perceived him.

One of his most acclaimed works was 'The Artists Mother' painted in 1871 (Picture above -famous under it's colloquial name 'Whistler's Mother') It is not a picture that I personally like. It has no attraction for me, but surely this journey for me as a beginner, is a discovery of what I like and do not like , and I reiterate what I said previously, (Blog: Monday 5th January 2008) I am not going to be a fan of portraits.

It is said Anna McNeill Whistler posed for this painting while living in London with her son and rumour has it that she acted as a replacement for a model who couldn't make the appointment. Whatever the history, it simply is not my 'cup of tea'. All this reading, is doing me good, at least I have an opinion on these subjects now, which I wouldn't have known anything about a few months ago. This has to be good ?