|
COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
James McNeill Whistler is among the greatest of painters when you are in the mood for him and oddly daunting when you aren't. He was a radical dandy, who imbued the nuances of style with something like moral zeal. Taking him seriously, as he should be taken, requires a willed suspension of incredulity. After flunking out of West Point, in 1855, when he was twenty-one, he turned his back on America for good and abandoned himself to modish longueurs of London and Paris; he died a hundred years ago, in 1903. For him, the trivial--the just-so fall of a feather boa, say--bordered on the sublime. Some people dote on such socially charged arcana, which upholster Victorian literature; in serious painting, however, a heavy emphasis on manners and mores of a vanished world can perturb, especially when the painting is generally marvellous. (Fashion-intensive portraiture befits the more modest gifts of Whistler's contemporary James Tissot, who was content to simper winningly.) Edgar Degas put his finger on the problem of Whistler when he reportedly remarked to the brash expatriate, "You behave as though you have no talent”--a cruise missile of a bon mot that might have annihilated a man of feebler self-esteem.
Now is the time to come to terms with Whistler's subtle, opulent caprices. "Whistler,...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
