James Abbott McNeill Whistler

@culturaltutor

This painting is one of history’s most controversial and influential works of art.

It’s by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who painted it all the way back in 1875.

Why was it so controversial? Because it totally redefined the meaning of the word “art”…

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, born on this day in 1834, helped change the world of art.

He was an unusual man who essentially created a personality for himself, as though he were a character in a novel.

This portrait by Walter Greaves, from 1869, sums him up well.

Whistler was born in Massachusetts but spent his early years in Russia, where he first studied art.

Back in the US he joined the military but was dismissed, so he went to Paris to become an artist.

There his uniquely subdued, contemplative style started to emerge.

Whistler moved to London in 1859, where he was based for the rest of his life.

There he became involved in Aestheticism, a movement best known by the phrase “art for art’s sake”.

And his style developed further — away from realism and toward a more poetic approach.

Aestheticism now seems a strange cultural movement, and perhaps only makes sense in the context of the late 19th century.

It was a society that had grown too rich, too quickly, and one that was changing too radically, too fast.

How did artists respond? They retreated inwards…

Aestheticism’s core principle was the separation of art from any context — morals, society, politics, or religion.

A cutting-loose of art, an embrace of subjectivity and of pure sense without reference to the real world.

Epitomised by the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne:

But if a single work summarises Aestheticism it is, perhaps, a room.

Whistler decorated it as decadently and sensuously as he could, working with the architect Thomas Jeckyll.

And he gave it a name: “Harmony in Blue and Gold — The Peacock Room”.

It was also in London that Whistler started painting his “nocturnes”.

This name was taken from the nocturnes of Frederic Chopin — piano pieces inspired by the night.

Works like “Nocturne in Blue and Silver, Chelsea” were painting as mood rather than place.

So Whistler had found his style.

And these landscapes — diffused in a gorgeously dreamlike light, elusive and scattered with fragments of gold — came thick and fast.

He usually titled them with two colours, as with the famous “Nocturne: Blue and Gold — Old Battersea Bridge”.

It’s hard to grasp how radical it was at the time, but Whistler’s work was unlike anything else.

The Aestheticist desire to cultivate a delicate and refined lifestyle had found a reflection in his intellectual, languid art.

Like “Nocturne: Grey and Gold — Westminster Bridge”:

Why did Whistler call them nocturnes?

Well, it was the critic and fellow Aestheticist Walter Pater who first and famously said “all art aspires to the condition music”.

What Pater said in 1869 applies perfectly to Whistler’s art:

Pater’s philosopy, and that of Whistler also, was about creating sensations without solid reference to anything objective; this was, literally, art for art’s sake.

Whistler even explained this himself.

A beautiful art theory or overeducated nonsense?

And this is how Whistler differed from the Impressionists in France, like Monet, who were still painting the real world — but in an impressionistic and, they believed, more realistic way.

Whistler wasn’t trying to paint “the real world”; he was trying paint pure art.

Whistler also painted “symphonies”, another musical term.

Like “Symphony in Green and Violet”, a ghost-like portrait that according to all traditions of Western art would have simply been considered an unfinished painting.

Even Whistler’s most famous painting, of his mother, is called “Arrangement in Grey and Black №1”.

So Whistler was far ahead of his time, embracing the abstraction of art before Abstract Art was a thing and trying to separate art from sense of purpose.

The words of Walter Pater are again suitable — a lengthy excerpt from the conclusion of Pater’s book on the Renaissance, but it’s almost a manifesto for Aestheticism and is perfectly aligned with Whistler’s art.

His words caused a scandal in Victorian Britain.

This seems uncontroversial now, but that is precisely because it has been so influential.

During the 19th century the established view was that art had a moral, social, and religious purpose, and that it was inseparable from its context.

As in the art of William Holman Hunt:

All of that is the background to Whistler’s “Nocturne in Black and Gold — The Falling Rocket”, painted in 1875.

This wasn’t just an abstract painting of a fireworks show — it was an artistic critique of objectivity and of morality, of the very nature of society as it then was.

In 1877 a man called John Ruskin wrote a negative review when he saw it at an exhibition.

Who was Ruskin? The most influential critic of the age, and a talented artist himself.

He had a totally different philosophy to the likes of Pater and Whistler:

Some have portrayed Ruskin as close-minded or old-fashioned, but this could not be further from the truth — consider only that Claude Monet’s favourite book was The Elements of Drawing, by John Ruskin.

In any case, here’s what he said about Whistler:

Whistler sued Ruskin for libel and thus ensued a complicated court case involving several other famous artists.

The case essentially became a legal battle about the nature of art, although Ruskin was already suffering bouts of psychological illness and could not attend.

The jury found for Whistler, but Ruskin was only told to pay nominal damages and the legal costs were split.

This bankrupted Whistler — he sold his paintings and house and left London for Venice.

There he continued with his nocturnes, like this one of St Mark’s Basilica:

Years later Whistler published a personal account of the trial called “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”.

A typically Whistlerian title, whimsical and unserious, with a consciously overwritten and delicately cerebral Aesthetic subtitle.

He would never back down.

Most debates about art — modernism v tradition, objectivity v subjectivity, abstraction v realism — are restatements of Whistler’s nocturnes and his battle with Ruskin.

And, in the end, Whistler won — his ideas were foundational for modern art.