Biography from Whistler House Museum of Art:
| The following is from Peter Kostoulakos, ISA - Fine Art Consultant, www.pkart.com
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
1834-1903
The Daily Chronicle Obituary
It is twenty-five years since the famous case, "Whistler versus
Ruskin", was tried. In the history of art it might two hundred years,
so completely has the point of view of the critics and the public
changed, so completely has the brilliant genius of the man whom Ruskin
called a "coxcomb" been vindicated. And yet, even now, there are no
standards by which one can judge his work, by which one can form an
estimate of his true place in the ranks of the world's great
artists. That he is among them is not doubted; just how high up
among them is not so clear. It is only once or twice in a century
that the originator of a new style in art or literature appears, and it
takes at least a century for the world to recover from the dazed
condition into which it is thrown by such a man's work.
References: The Daily Chronicle, July18, 1903;
American Art Review, Vol. XVI No. 2 2004.
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Biography from AskART:
| Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, James Whistler became one of the most
influential late 19th-century American painters and etchers, although
he lived primarily in England. He worked in a wide variety of
styles that included Impressionism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau.
He was especially influential in the Tonalist movement and was a
catalyst for those who wanted to break away from prescribed academic
methods, credited with being the first American modernist to influence
European art.
He also created 179 lithographs, having received a
commission in 1879, and from that time, he worked in graphics, pastel,
and watercolor, and favorite subjects were subtly delineated cityscapes
or ships at docks.
He was raised both in New England and in
Russia where his father, an engineer, was commissioned by the Czar to
build the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad. In 1847, Whistler went
to London for his sister's wedding to Seymour Haden, a key figure in
19th century etching, and association with this man stimulated
Whistler's interest in that medium.
After the father's death in
1849, the family returned to the United States, and he entered the
Military Academy at West Point where he did illustrations for student
publications and also worked as surveyor and cartographer in U.S.
Coastal and Geodetic Surveys.
In 1855, determined to have a fine
art career, he sailed for Europe and never returned to the United
States. He studied in Paris with Charles Gleyre and became a part of
avant-garde circles that included Henri Fantin-Latour, Alphonse Legros,
Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, and Edgar Degas. In 1859, he
settled in England but stayed in close touch with his Parisian friends.
His
style was independent of realism and of those such as John Ruskin who
thought art should have a moral purpose. To many his paintings were a
mystery because they seemed dreamy, abstract, and somewhat ghost-like.
For some of his works, he chose musical titles to remove them from
narrative context.
Ruskin accused him of doing paintings that
were like "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face," and the two
faced each other in court when Whistler sued Ruskin for damages.
Whistler won the lawsuit but was awarded only one farthing, which left
him financially broke and bitter. However, he gained a lot of attention
and positive recognition.
Source:
Matthew Baigell Dictionary of American Art
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Biography from AskART:
| While
in Europe, although he liked to pose as a dashing Tidewater cavalier,
Whistler never became an officer, and saw little action in the Civil
War. This insufficiency troubled him, and it accounts for a peculiar
adventure he undertook in 1866, when he sailed from France on a
ten-month trip to Chile - a long and grueling trip across the Atlantic
and around Cape Horn - to be present at a Spanish naval blockade of the
port of Valparaiso. Whether Whistler thought his being there would make
an ounce of difference in the outcome of Chile's small colonial
rebellion, one cannot tell. In the event, the Spanish warships
bombarded Valparaiso and reduced most of its waterfront to rubble,
while Whistler, along with most of the Chilean officials, fled for the
hills. By the end of 1866 he was back in Paris with a few misty, blue
seascapes of Valparaiso to show for his trip, but no honorable scars.
Valparaiso
was as close as Whistler ever got to the Orient, but he was seen in
France and England as a cultural bridge to Japan. The formal beauty of
Oriental art obsessed him, especially Japanese prints, which were
available by the ream in Paris and London, as well as Chinese
blue-and-white porcelain, of which he amassed a choice collection.
Through the study of Japanese concision, he brought an esthetic of
hints and nuances into late-nineteenth-century painting. His abhorrence
of narrative, his refusal to moralize through art, his preference for
the exquisitely designed moment over the slice of life, these were new,
and they epitomized his ideal of Art for Art's Sake.
Before
leaving on his trip to Chile in 1866, he made a will on January 3lst in
favor of his mistress, Jo Hiffernan, giving her power of attorney to
manage his affairs during his absence in South America, and on February
2nd departed Southampton on board the Seine. He stopped in Jamaica and
Colon, then crossed the Isthmus by land. Journeying south down the
Pacific coast, he stopped in Peru, and in March arrived in Valparaiso,
after a journey of six weeks. There he witnessed the bombardment of
Valparaiso harbor by the Spanish fleet. It is presumed he returned to
England by way of Cape Horn, but in any case, he was back there by
November, at which time he parted amicably from his mistress.
Source:
American Art Review
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James Whistler is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
New York Armory Show of 1913
Impressionists Pre 1940
Painted in Latin America
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
Paris Pre 1900
Tonalism
Modernism
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