Welcome to the Deep Dive. We take stacks of source
material, wade through it all, and pull out the
really fascinating bits so you can get up to
speed fast. Today we're tackling James Abbott
McNeil Whistler. He's quite a figure. An American
artist -painter, printmaker, mostly active in
the UK during the Gilded Age. And the mission
today, it's really about the central paradox,
isn't it? His art is incredibly delicate, almost
ethereal sometimes. But the man himself. shark
tongue, very combative. Absolutely. That's the
core tension we want to unpack. This contrast
between the sort of soft focus of his paintings
and the really hard edge of his public personality.
We need to look at his aesthetic ideas, but also
how that combative persona got tangled up with
his genius. Okay, let's start right there with
that duality, because Whistler himself gave us
the perfect symbol for it, his signature. It
started as a butterfly, right? Yes, a stylized
butterfly, which sounds lovely, doesn't it? Delicate,
transient beauty. Exactly. But it didn't stay
that way. No, it evolved. As he got more involved
in arguments, especially around the 1880s, he
added a stinger. A stinger to the butterfly.
Yeah. So you have the delicate art, the butterfly,
and the sharp defensive personality, the stinger.
It was almost like a warning label right there
on the canvas. He was branding himself, the aesthetic
warrior. Okay, this perfectly leads into his
big idea, his philosophy. Art for art's sake.
What did that actually mean in Victorian England?
because it sounds quite provocative oh it's hugely
provocative you have to remember the victorians
generally believed art should have a purpose
a moral lesson a social commentary or you know
at least tell a clear story something you could
easily grasp right and whistler just threw all
that out no sentimentality no moral messages
for him art was its own justification its job
wasn't to teach or copy reality but to interpret
it to create visual harmony so he was actively
fighting the idea that if you paint a person
it has to be a about that person's story or character.
Precisely. He famously said, nature is very rarely
right. Meaning, nature provides the raw materials,
but the artist needs to select, arrange, improve
it. The artist becomes this sort of aesthetic
refiner. And he drove this home with his titles,
didn't he? Calling paintings, arrangements, harmonies,
nocturnes? Yes, that musical language was completely
intentional. It forced the viewer, or at least
tried to, to think about the painting -like music.
Focusing on? On the composition, the balance
of colors, the tones, the rhythm across the canvas.
Not, who is this person? or what's happening
here. He wanted a pure aesthetic response, stripped
of all that narrative stuff the public loved.
It's a clever way to try and control how people
see the work, but you can immediately see why
it would annoy people. He's taking away their
story. Absolutely. Which brings us to the man
himself. Where did this aesthetic dictator, this
guy who famously hated being from Lowell, Massachusetts,
actually come from? Let's look at the early years.
Okay, so born in 1834, Lowell, Mass. A fact he
wasn't exactly proud of. Not remotely. You mentioned
that quote from the Ruskin trial. I shall be
born when and where I want, and I do not choose
to be born in Lowell. Just pure arrogance, but
also this desire to completely craft his own
identity. And even as a kid, the signs were there.
The temperament. Apparently so. Moody, prone
to tantrums, not great health -wise. But his
parents noticed that drawing. That was the one
thing that seemed to settle him, focused him.
And that focus got a serious boost from a change
of scenery. Russia. Yes, a really significant
period. His father, George Washington Whistler,
was a major railroad engineer. Tsar Nicholas
Len hired him in 1842 to build the St. Petersburg
-Moscow Railway. So off the family went. That's
a huge move. And he started formal art training
there. He did. Private lessons. And then incredibly
young, only 11, he enrolled at the Imperial Academy
of Arts in St. Petersburg. So he's getting this
rigorous European training early on. Did he show
promise? Undeniably. There's an account from
Sir William Allen, a Scottish artist who met
him around 1844. He saw uncommon genius, but
also warned his mother, you know, don't push
him too hard. The independent streak was already
visible. But that Russian period ended tragically.
Yes, his father died of cholera in 1849. The
family returned to America, to Connecticut. And
his mother, Anna, a very pious woman, apparently
hoped he might become a minister. A minister.
Whistler. That's hard to picture. Couldn't be
further from the path he took. But family connections
led to the next rather odd chapter, West Point.
The military academy? How did that happen? He
seems like the least likely candidate. Well,
his father had taught drawing there. So the name
helped. And despite being really nearsighted
and not particularly healthy, he got in in 1851.
How did it go? Predictably badly. Utter disaster,
pretty much. He lasted three years, hated the
authority, got tons of demerits, they called
him Curly, because he wouldn't cut his hair properly.
He just wasn't military material. Robert E. Lee
was the superintendent then, apparently tried
to accommodate him, but eventually Whistler had
to go. And the final straw was that famous chemistry
exam moment. That's the story. Asked to describe
silicon, he supposedly declared silicon is a
gas. Wow. Just completely wrong, but stated with
confidence. In his later joke about it, if silicon
were a gas, I would have been a general one day.
It's pure whistler. Wit out over substance almost.
But West Point wasn't a total loss, artistically.
No. The drawing and map -making instruction he
got from Robert W. Weir was actually very good.
He used that skill for his first job. Briefly,
mapping the U .S. coast. Another job he hated.
Found it incredibly boring. Apparently, he got
transferred out of the main mapping work because
his bosses found sea serpents and mermaids drawn
in the margins of the official coastal survey
maps. Classic. But he learned etching there.
Yes, in the Coast Survey's etching division.
Only for a couple of months, but he picked up
the technique. That became really important later
on, a major part of his output and income. So
mapmaking wasn't for him. What next? He decided
art was the only way. Got some money together,
told his mother he was off to Paris to study,
and basically never looked back. Left the U .S.
for good. Paris, 1855. The bohemian life. Absolutely.
Threw himself right into it. Studied for a while
in Charles Glair's studio. It wasn't long, but
Glair left a mark. In what way? Two key ideas
stuck with him. First, the importance of line
drawing over color. That's quite traditional,
tracing back to Angra. Okay, and the second?
That black is the fundamental color. the key
to tonal harmony. Right, and that's interesting
because it immediately sets him apart from...
The Impressionists, exactly. They were coming
up around then, obsessed with pure color, light,
often banning black from their palettes altogether.
Whistler, influenced by glare, saw black as essential,
the anchor for his tonal studies. Big difference
in approach. But while his technique looked back
towards line and tone, his subject matter was
influenced by the moderns. Yes, he fell in with
Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, the poet Baudelaire.
Baudelaire especially pushed artists to tackle
modern life, you know, the reality of the city,
warts and all, not just old myths. So Whistler's
absorbing this modern subject matter, even while
his technique focused more on atmosphere and
arrangement than strict realism like Courbet's.
Okay, so he's got these influences swirling.
Let's follow him to London, where his signature
style really starts to emerge, the white girl
period. Right. He makes London his main base
from about 1859, settles in Chelsea. He has an
early success at the piano in 59. It's a portrait
of his niece and mother, and critics noted the
composition, the handling of blacks and whites,
still quite controlled. But the one that really
caused a stir was Symphony in White, number one,
the white girl from 1862. That's the one. A portrait
of Joanna Hiffernan, who was his mistress and
also managed his business affairs. She's standing
in a white dress against white curtains on a
bare skin rug. And Whistler insisted it was purely
what? A study in white. Exactly. Just an arrangement
of different white tones. But nobody saw it that
way. No, they immediately started reading things
into it. The white dress, her expression. They
saw symbolism everywhere. Lost innocence. Connections
to Wilkie Collins' popular novel, The Woman in
White. All things Whistler vehemently denied.
It must have infuriated him. Oh, undoubtedly.
And the official art world wasn't impressed either.
The Royal Academy in London rejected it. Too
unconventional. Maybe seemed a bit suggestive.
But it got shown eventually. Yes, at the Salon
des Refusés in Paris in 1863. That was the exhibition
of works rejected by the official Salon. It got
a lot of attention there, though Manet's Dejeuner
sur l 'Arabe kind of stole the show. So even
early on, we see this clash. Whistler pushing
pure aesthetics, the public demanding meaning
and story. Precisely. And around this time, his
style also starts absorbing other influences.
Japonism becomes really important. Right, the
influence of Japanese art. How did that start?
He was collecting blue and white Chinese porcelain,
studying Japanese prints. He got fascinated by
the designs, the flat perspectives, the asymmetry,
and those potter's marks he studied. That's supposedly
where the idea for the butterfly signature came
from. Ah, interesting connection. And we see
this influence in the paintings. Clearly. He
painted Heffernan again in works like The Little
White Girl and Lady of the Landlakes. She's wearing
kimonos, holding fans, surrounded by Asian objects.
He's using those Japanese design principles,
the flat patterns, the different sense of space,
to push his art further towards decoration and
harmony, away from realism. But this period also
had some major personal drama. His friendship
with Courbet ended. Yes, that fell apart. The
story goes that Heffernan posed nude for Courbet.
Some historians think she might have been the
model for Corbet's really explicit paintings,
like L 'Origine du Monde. Wow. That would certainly
strain a friendship. To say the least. It seems
it revealed an intimacy between Corbet and Heffernan
that Whistler couldn't accept. The friendship
was broken. And then another upheaval. His mother
arrives. Yes. Anna McNeil Whistler came to London
in January 1864. Very devout, very proper. Whistler
had been living this bohemian life with Hiffernan.
So things had to change. Radically. He wrote
to a friend about the general upheaval, said
he had to empty my house and purify it from cellar
to eaves. Hiffernan had to move out, though she
continued to model for him and help with his
business. That must have been awkward. But his
mother's presence actually helped him professionally
in Victorian London. Ironically, yes. While it
cramped his personal style, having his respectable,
pious mother living with him gave him a veneer
of... well, respectability. Made him seem less
like a potentially scandalous bohemian artist.
Exactly. Patrons felt safer. So this very traditional
domestic setup actually provided the stability
for him to produce some of his most aesthetically
radical work. Okay, that stability sets the stage
for his next big phase, the nocturnes, his portrait
work, and getting deeper into his technique.
The nocturnes really started with a strange trip
he took in 1866 to Valparaiso, Chile. Why he
went is still a bit debated. He claimed it was
political, something about supporting Chile against
Spain. But artistically, it was significant.
Very. He painted his first night scenes there
views of the harbor, mostly blues and greens,
very atmospheric. He initially called them moonlights.
And he brought that idea back to London. Yes,
applied it to the Thames River at night and also
to Cremorne Gardens, which was a popular pleasure
garden famous for fireworks. These paintings
owe a huge debt to Japanese prints, especially
Hiroshige, in their composition and mood. How
did he actually paint them? The technique sounds
unusual. It was. Very thin paint, almost like
watercolor, used as a base wash. Then he'd add
touches of color, little flicks and dots to suggest
lights on the water, boats, fireworks. It wasn't
about detail at all. Just capturing the feeling,
the light, the tone. Precisely. Evocation, not
description. And the name Nocturne, where did
that come from? That was suggested by his patron,
Frederick Leyland. Leyland was an amateur musician,
loved Chopin's Nocturnes. Whistler jumped on
it. He liked the musical connection. Loved it.
But he also loved, as he admitted, that it proves
an irritation. To the critics. Ah, the stinger
again. Always. He said the title does so poetically
say all that I want to say and no more than I
wish. It denied the critics an easy narrative
hook. Which leads us perfectly to the most famous
painting associated with him, which is also the
most misunderstood in terms of his intention.
Arrangement in gray and black number one, or
as everyone knows it. Whistler's Mother, painted
in 1871. And the story behind it is quite practical,
really. His scheduled model didn't show up. That's
right. And his mother, Anna, was there. He started
trying to paint her standing, but she found it
too tiring. So they switched to the seated pose
we all know. It took ages, dozens of sittings.
And despite it being his mother, he insisted
it wasn't about motherhood. He really tried to
push the formal aspects, call it an arrangement.
He wanted people to see the composition. The
balance of the black dress against the gray wall,
the geometric shapes of the curtain, and the
picture frame balancing her profile. A purely
aesthetic exercise. But the public and posterity
just didn't buy it. Not really. Initially, it
got a pretty cool reception. It was too simple,
too austere for Victorian tastes. The Royal Academy
rejected it at first, then hung it badly. But
it survived and grew in stature. Immensely. It
was eventually bought by the French government
in 1891, which was a huge deal for Whistler's
prestige. But its massive fame as an icon came
later, especially during the Great Depression
when it toured the U .S. It was billed as this
priceless symbol of motherhood. Became the ultimate
American icon, even though it lives in France.
As Peter Sheldahl said, the most important American
work residing outside the United States. And
it's the ultimate irony isn't it? The painting
is famous for the very sentimentality Whistler
tried to reject. The public imposed the meaning
he fought against his whole life. We should also
touch on his working method for portraits, because
that mother portrait took so long, he was famously
slow. Notoriously slow. William Merritt Chase,
another painter who sat for him, called him a
veritable tyrant for making him pose for hours
on end into the twilight. Was he just indecisive,
or was there a method to the madness? Oh, there
was definitely a method. We have a great description
from another sitter, Arthur Eddy, from 1894.
It really complains his tonal approach. How did
Eddy describe it? He said Whistler worked quickly
in terms of brushstrokes, but used very thin
paint, building up countless layers. He'd start
the whole canvas, figure, and background in muted
gray -brown tones that almost merged with the
canvas itself. So not painting features first?
No. He'd gradually intensify the figure a little.
Then the background a little, going back and
forth. The whole picture emerged together. Like
developing a photograph. That's exactly the analogy
Eddie used. He said the portrait developed as
an entirety, very much as a negative under the
action of the chemicals, comes out gradually.
It ensures the whole thing is unified, totally
balanced from the start. That obsession with
total control over the image, it seems like it
extended beyond the canvas itself. Absolutely.
which leads us right into the period where things
got really fiery, the peak of controversy. The
butterfly definitely grows its stinger now. Around
1880 is when he formally adds the stinger to
the signature, and he becomes obsessed with frames,
how paintings are hung, the whole environment.
The aesthetic experience didn't stop at the edge
of the canvas for him. And this desire for total
control blew up spectacularly with the Peacock
Room project. Oh, the Peacock Room. 1876 -77.
commissioned by Frederick Leyland, the same patron
who suggested Nocturne. The one with the big
porcelain collection. Right. Leyland just wanted
Whistler to make some minor adjustments to his
dining room to better show off the china. The
room itself was already designed by someone else,
Thomas Jekyll. But Whistler saw an opportunity
for more than minor changes. He saw a canvas,
Leyland went away, Whistler got started, and
just took over. He painted the entire room, walls,
shutters, ceiling, and these incredible intense
blue greens with gold leaf peacock motifs. It
became this immersive total work of art. In the
process. In the process, as he put it, he forgot
everything in my joy of it, including the fact
that he painted over very expensive 16th century
Cordoba leather wall hangings that Leyland had
paid a fortune for, about a thousand pounds.
Leyland must have been furious when he got back.
Apopleptic. Not just about the leather, but the
massive cost overruns. They had a huge, bitter
argument. And Whistler, being Whistler, responded
how? By painting a savage caricature of Leyland
as a greedy peacock covered in gold coins playing
a piano. He titled it the gold scab. Eruption
and filthy lucre. Frilty being a nasty pun on
Leyland's frilly shirts and filthy lucre. Wow.
Torpedoing his relationship with his main patron
after destroying his dining room. That takes
nerve. Or just an absolute conviction in his
own artistic rightness, above all else. The irony,
of course, is that the Peacock Room is now seen
as a masterpiece. Charles Lang Freer bought the
whole thing later, and it's installed at the
Smithsonian. A treasure. But the immediate result
was financial trouble for Whistler, which set
up the even bigger conflict, the Ruskin trial.
Exactly. The Peacock Room cost him dearly. And
then came the confrontation with John Ruskin.
the most powerful art critic in England at the
time. 1877. What sparked it? Whistler exhibited
one of his nocturnes, Nocturne in Black and Gold,
The Falling Rocket, a firework scene at the Grosvenor
Gallery, which was a more progressive alternative
to the Royal Academy. Ruskin, who championed
detailed, morally uplifting art, saw it and was
absolutely scathing. He didn't just dislike it,
he attacked Whistler personally. Viciously. He
wrote that He never expected to hear a coxcomb
as 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in
the public's face. Flinging a pot of paint. That's
basically calling him a con artist. Precisely.
An attack on his skill, his integrity, his price.
Whistler, predictably, sued Ruskin for libel.
He wanted a thousand pounds in damages. And the
trial became famous for Whistler's defense of
his prices. Yes. When Ruskin's lawyer pressed
him about charging 200 guineas for a painting
that only took him maybe two days to paint, Whistler
gave that legendary reply. What was it again?
The lawyer asked, The labor of two days is that
for which you ask 200 guineas. And Whistler said,
No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained
in the work of a lifetime. Perfect encapsulation
of his belief. The value isn't the hours, it's
the expertise. A brilliant defense of artistic
value, but it didn't quite work out financially.
He won the case, technically. He won, but the
jury awarded him only one farthing in damages.
The smallest coin imaginable. A symbolic victory.
but a financial disaster. He had to split the
court costs, and that, on top of the debts from
building his fancy new house, bankrupted him
by May 1879. He lost everything. House, art collection,
possessions all auctioned off. The stinger proved
costly. But even in failure, he controlled the
narrative. He published his own witty, biased
account of the trial, Whistler v. Ruskin, Art
and Art Critics. That later became the centerpiece
of his book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies.
turning defeat into publicity. He was relentlessly
resilient. Which brings us to the final phase,
recovery, more wit, and his lasting impact. He
didn't just fade away after bankruptcy. Not at
all. He immediately got a commission to do a
set of 12 etchings in Venice, left almost right
away in 1879. A fresh start. How long was he
there? Supposed to be three months. Ended up
staying for 14. He was incredibly productive.
What did he produce? Over 50 etchings. more nocturne
paintings, and over 100 pastels. And crucially,
he focused on a different Venice. Not the grand
landmarks, but the back canals, the little workshops,
the everyday life. Finding his own view again.
Exactly. He wrote about finding a Venice in Venice
that the others never seemed to have perceived.
It was, again, about his unique artistic interpretation
being superior. And this Venetian work was well
-received. Yes. The etchings and pastels sold
well, helped him get back on his feet financially,
and they were hugely influential on younger American
artists who were in Venice at the time, like
Frank Duveneck and Robert Blum. They saw his
atmospheric approach and were inspired. So he
returns to London with his reputation somewhat
restored, maybe even enhanced among the younger
generation. Yes. And he capitalized on that by
delivering his big lecture, the 10 o 'clock lecture,
in 1885. This was his manifesto. Pretty much.
His polished public defense of art for art's
sake. He laid out his whole philosophy. Art is
separate from life. It doesn't need a moral.
The artist is an interpreter, not a copier. Nature
needs improving by the artist's vision. All his
key ideas. And this lecture led to another famous
feud. Yes, with Oscar Wilde. Wilde initially
praised the lecture, called it a masterpiece.
But Wilde being Wilde, he couldn't resist also
making fun of Whistler's massive ego. Two great
wits colliding. It became a legendary public
spat. Trading barbs in the press. Wilde said
something like, Whistler has the highest opinion
of himself, and I entirely concur. Whistler shot
back, asking what Wilde had to do with art besides
dining with artists and being laughed at. Brutal.
They're French and completely dissolved. Totally.
It got so bitter that Wilde later seemed to get
revenge in the picture of Dorian Gray. The doomed
artist character Basil Hallward, is widely seen
as being, based on Whistler, the sensitive artist
ultimately destroyed. Throughout all this, Whistler
cultivated a very specific public image, didn't
he? Oh, absolutely. He was actually a small man,
physically quite slight. But he dressed like
a dandy monocle, distinctive clothes, and his
way of speaking was apparently very studied.
Lots of pauses, like he was sketching with words.
It was all part of the performance. What about
his personal life in these later years? Well,
through the 70s and 80s, he lived with Maude
Franklin. She was his model, his mistress. They
had two children together. Her patience during
those endless sittings was really crucial for
his portrait work. But he eventually married.
Yes. In 1888, he married Beatrice Godwin Trixie.
She was the widow of E .W. Godwin, an architect
friend. By all accounts, it was a happy marriage,
brought him stability. But it ended sadly. Very
sadly. Trixie developed cancer and died in 1896.
It hit him extremely hard. He said himself he
never really got over her death. Professionally,
though, did he achieve the recognition he craved?
He did, in important ways. His book, The Gentle
Art of Making Enemies, came out in 1890 and kept
him in the public eye, cemented his reputation
as this witty provocateur. And the big one, the
French government buying Whistler's mother. That
was huge for him. 1891. The price wasn't astronomical,
but the prestige being acquired by the French
state, housed in the Luxembourg Museum, that
meant more to him than money. It validated his
European artistic identity over his American
roots. And his artistic style, tonalism, had
a real impact. Definitely. Especially in America.
Artists like John Singer Sargent, William Merritt
Chase, many others were influenced by his focus
on mood, atmosphere, subtle color harmony, soft
edges. The tonalist movement owed a huge debt
to him. He died in London in 1903. Looking back,
how do we sum him up? It really comes back to
that core contradiction. The butterfly and the
stinger. He was a genuine innovator in painting
etching pastel. He fundamentally changed how
people thought about art's purpose, pushing aesthetics
over narrative. And he did it all while being
this incredibly sharp, often difficult public
figure, using his wit as another tool. Exactly.
So the key takeaways, that relentless focus on
tonalism, art for art's sake. The surprising
origin of the butterfly signature from Asian
ceramics. And the very real cost of his artistic
battles, the bankruptcy after the Ruskin trial,
being the prime example. But the biggest takeaway
might be that ultimate irony we discussed with
Whistler's mother. Yeah. He fights his whole
life for his work to be seen as pure form, pure
arrangement. rejecting sentiment. And his most
famous painting becomes a global icon because
of its perceived sentiment, celebrated as the
ultimate symbol of motherhood, especially in
America, the country he tried to distance himself
from. His intention got completely overridden.
Which leaves us with a final thought for you,
the listener. Whistler proved an artist could
fight ferociously for their vision, control their
narrative, battle critics, risk everything for
their aesthetic principles. But in the end...
Does the meaning the public finds in an artwork
eventually eclipse whatever the artist originally
intended, no matter how hard they fought? Something
to think about. Thanks for joining us for the
Deep Dive. We'll see you next time.