James Baquet

    If you asked most Americans if they were familiar with “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1,” they would probably say “no.” But ask them if they knew of “Whistler’s Mother,” and they would probably change their answer!

    Apparently, James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) liked to refer to his paintings as “arrangements,” “harmonies,” and “nocturnes,” a pose consistent with his philosophy of “Art for Art’s Sake.” This credo means that art should be complete in itself, never meant to be “useful” or to carry any kind of “moral message.” Rather, art should lead to a pure aesthetic experience.

    He was born to a modest family in Lowell, Massachusetts, the United States, but later said he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, explainng, “I shall be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in Lowell.” When James was five, his father received a promotion, and the family built a mansion in Springfield, Mass., one of America’s most prosperous cities at that time. Three years later, the Tsar of Russia called the elder Whistler to St. Petersburg to build a railroad, and he took the family along (giving James support for his later fabrication).

    He was an ill-tempered child, and his parents found that drawing would help settle him down. While later he was highly respected for his technique, he was the model of the “temperamental artist,” alienating many of his wide circle of artistic friends through his arrogance and cantankerousness. For example, he took offense when the humorist Oscar Wilde wrote that Whistler “is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting, in my opinion;” then added “that in this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs.” This ended their friendship.

    After trying his hand at various jobs (and washing out of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point) Whistler left for Paris around age 21, and never again returned to the United States — though his most famous painting, “Whistler’s Mother,” has been exhibited in the States several times since its creation in London in 1871. Since 1891, it has hung in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. irritable, sensitive

    2. pushing away, making enemies of

    3. motto, statement of belief

    4. leader of Russia before the 1917 revolution

    5. disagreeable attitude

    6. a musical work suitable for nighttime

    7. easily angered

    8. pertaining to art, or beauty in general

    9. something made, here, a lie

    10. agrees