Museu d'Orsay Paris e Museu do Louvre Abu Dhabi
OST - 144x162 - 1871
Arranjo em Cinza e
Preto nº1 ou Retrato da mãe do artista (original: Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 ou Portrait of the Artist's Mother), famoso
sob o seu nome coloquial a Mãe de Whistler (original: Whistler's Mother) de 1871 é uma pintura de óleo sobre tela, do pintor americano James
McNeill Whistler. A pintura é 56,81 por 63,94 polegadas (144,3 x 162,4
centímetros), dispostas numa armação do próprio projecto de Whistler, e agora é
propriedade do Musée d'Orsay, em Paris apesar de ocasionalmente fazer turnês mundiais. A
pintura é um ícone da arte americana, apesar de raramente aparecer nos Estados Unidos.
Anna McNeill
Whistler posou para a pintura, enquanto vivia em Londres com seu filho. Várias histórias inverificáveis
cercam a realização da pintura em si: uma é que Anna Whistler teria substituido
outro modelo que não poderia fazer a nomeação. Outra é que Whistler
originalmente tinha previsto a pintura do modelo em pé, mas seria muito
desconfortável colocar a mãe de pé por um período muito prolongado.
O trabalho foi apresentado na 104ª Exposição
da Royal Academy of
Art em Londres (1872), mas obteve rejeição por parte da
Academia. Este episódio agravou o fosso entre Whistler e do mundo da arte
britânica e seria a última pintura que apresentaria para aprovação da Academia.
As sensibilidades das audiências da era Vitoriana não aceitaria o que aparentemente seria um
retrato a ser exibido como um "arranjo" simples, de modo que o
explicativo título "Retrato de mãe do artista" foi acrescentado
posteriormente. Foi a partir daqui que o trabalho adquiriu seu nome popular.
Depois de Thomas Carlyle ter visto a pintura, ele concordou em
sentar-se por uma composição semelhante, sendo esta intitulada "Arranjo em
Cinza e preto, n º 2".
A pintura
foi adquirida em 1891 pelo Museu de Paris du Luxembourg e Whistler escreveu sobre o
assunto:
"Basta pensar
- para ir e olhar para a nossa própria imagem nas paredes do Luxemburgo -
lembrando como tinha sido tratada em Inglaterra - a serem cumpridas em todos os
lugares com deferência e respeito … e saber que tudo isso é um … tremenda
tabefe na cara da Academia e do resto! Realmente é como um sonho."
Qualquer que
seja o nível de afeto que Whistler sentia por sua própria mãe,
encontrou-se um uso ainda mais divergente da imagem na era vitoriana e,
posteriormente, especialmente nos Estados Unidos, como um ícone para a maternidade, afeição para
os pais e "valores familiares" em geral. Por exemplo, em 1934 os
correios dos EUA emitiram um carimbo com a imagem estilizada da pintura,
acompanhada do slogan "em memória e em honra das Mães da América".
Mais tarde, a interpretação do público sobre
o simbolismo da pintura foi ainda mais longe, e ela apareceu em uma infinidade
de propagandas comerciais e paródias, como imagens manipuladas sobre o tema
'assistir televisão', entre muitos outros.
Arrangement in Grey
and Black No.1, best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is a painting in oils on canvas created by the
American-born painter James
McNeill Whistler in 1871. The subject of the painting is Whistler's
mother, Anna
McNeill Whistler. The painting is 56.81 by 63.94 inches (144.3 cm
× 162.4 cm), displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design. It is
exhibited in Louvre Abu Dhabi and held by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, having been bought by the French state in 1891. It is one
of the most famous works by an American artist outside the United States. It
has been variously described as an American icon and a Victorian Mona Lisa.
Anna McNeill Whistler posed
for the painting while living in London with her son at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
Several unverifiable stories relate to the
painting of the work; one is that Anna Whistler acted as a replacement for
another model who couldn't make the appointment. It is also said that Whistler
originally envisioned painting the model standing up, but that his mother was
too uncomfortable to pose standing for an extended period.
Another story associated with the painting is
that Whistler called upon his beautiful young neighbour, Helena Amelia Lindgren
(1855-1931), of number 5, Lindsey Row, to sit in Anna's place when she grew too tired.
Well into her old age, Helena talked of secretly modelling for Whistler, who
was especially enamoured of her hands. According to a surviving letter of 1935
(now in the possession of Helena's great-great-grandson, David Charles Manners),
Anna had first called on the Lindgrens to ask that Helena's older sister,
Christina, be her stand-in. However, Christina's mother, Eliza Lyle née
Warlters, forbade it. Ever a free spirit, Helena secretly offered herself
instead and modeled for the portrait without her mother's knowledge.[citation
needed]
The work was shown at the 104th Exhibition of the Royal Academy
of Art in London (1872), after coming within a hair's breadth
of rejection by the Academy. This episode worsened the rift between Whistler
and the British art world; Arrangement was
the last painting he submitted for the Academy's approval (although his etching
of Old Putney Bridge was exhibited there in 1879). Vol. VIII of The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete
Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904 (by
Algernon Graves, F.S.A., London 1906) lists the 1872 exhibit as no. 941,
"Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's mother",
and gives Whistler's address as The White House, Chelsea Embankment.
The sensibilities of a Victorian era viewing audience would not accept what was
apparently a portrait being exhibited as an "arrangement", hence the
addition of the explanatory title Portrait
of the Painter's mother. From this the work acquired its enduring
nickname of simply Whistler's
Mother. After Thomas Carlyle viewed
the painting, he agreed to sit for a similar composition, this one titled Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2. Thus the previous
painting became, by default, Arrangement
in Grey and Black, No. 1.
Whistler
eventually pawned the painting, which was acquired in 1891 by Paris's Musée du Luxembourg.
Whistler's works, including this one, had attracted a number of imitators, and
numerous similarly posed and restricted-colour palette paintings soon appeared,
particularly by American expatriate painters. For Whistler, having one of his
paintings displayed in a major museum helped attract wealthy patrons. In
December 1884, Whistler wrote:
Just think — to go and look at one's own picture
hanging on the walls of Luxembourg — remembering how it had been treated
in England — to be met everywhere with deference and respect...and to know
that all this is ... a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the
rest! Really it is like a dream.
As a proponent of art for art's sake,
Whistler professed to be perplexed and annoyed by the insistence of others upon
viewing his work as a "portrait." In his 1890 book The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, he
wrote:
Take the picture of my mother, exhibited at the Royal
Academy as an "Arrangement in Grey and Black." Now that is what it
is. To me it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought
the public do to care about the identity of the portrait?
The image has been used since the Victorian
era, especially in the United States, as an icon for motherhood, affection for
parents, and "family values" in general. For example, in 1934
the U.S. Post office issued
a stamp engraved with a stylized image of Whistler's Mother, accompanied by the slogan "In Memory and
In Honor of the Mothers of America." Both "Whistler's Mother"
and "Thomas Carlyle" were engraved by the English engraver Richard Josey. In the Borough of Ashland, Pennsylvania, an
eight-foot high statue based on the painting was erected by the Ashland Boys'
Association in 1938 during the Great Depression as a tribute to mothers.
The image has been repeatedly appropriated
for commercial advertisements and parodies, such as doctored images of the subject watching a
television, and sometimes accompanied by captions such as "Whistler's
Mother is Off Her Rocker."
In summing up the painting's influence,
author Martha Tedeschi has stated:
Whistler's Mother, Wood's American Gothic, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream have all achieved something that most
paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary
value—have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to
almost every viewer. These few works have successfully made the transition from
the elite realm of the museum visitor to the enormous venue of popular culture.
Over the last century and a half Whistler’s
mother has been having a high old time. Perhaps 1934 was the giddiest
year: Cole Porter name-checked her in “You’re the Top” while the US government
put her on a postage stamp to celebrate Mother’s Day.
More
recently the playwright Edward Bond turned her into the devil in a wheelchair
in Grandma Faust,
while in 1997 Rowan Atkinson gurned in front of her as Mr Bean. Whenever Whistler’s Mother (its official title
is Arrangement in
Grey and Black No 1) tours the world, gallery crowds flock to
stare at the elderly, seated figure staring enigmatically into the middle
distance.
Along with the Mona Lisa and Girl With a Pearl Earring, she has
become an instantly quotable pin-up of popular art. Which is odd because
“Whistler’s mother” doesn’t exist, not really. The fact that the woman in the
picture was indeed the artist’s mother was not, at least for James McNeill Whistler, the
point at all. The London-based American painter had no interest in doing family
portraits – Anna Whistler was a stand-in for someone who hadn’t turned up – nor
was he concerned with conjuring up “wisdom”, “age” or even “mothers” in
general. As the picture’s real title suggests, what actually drove him was the
technical challenge of modulating tones of black and grey in a way that made
them legible in half-light.
He had
done something similar nearly 10 years earlier in The White Girl when
he’d painted his mistress Jo Hiffernan in a froth of white on more white. Now
here was another aesthetic experiment, this time at the opposite end of the
colour spectrum.
For a
painter who said he wasn’t interested in mimetic portraiture, illustrative
anecdote or symbolic signalling, it’s ironic that Whistler is now best
remembered for a painting that appears to do all three. There’s something
telling, too, in the fact that Anna Whistler herself never seemed to grasp that
she was only there as a useful arrangement of shape and volume rather than as a
subject who actually mattered.
When
Whistler finished the picture and murmured “Oh Mother … it is beautiful,” it
was his handiwork he was admiring, not her bone structure. And there’s no
getting away from the odd fact that, while everyone agreed that the picture was
the very spit of Anna, they quickly spotted one deliberate distortion. Instead
of an accurate rendering of her neat little patrician slippers, Whistler had
given his mother “sprawling, flat peasant feet”.
Daniel E Sutherland and Georgia Toutziari are
adamant that we shouldn’t try to read anything into this. Yet they proceed to
offer such a treasure trove of odd information about Whistler mère et fils that
it seems a dereliction of curiosity, duty even, not to probe further.
You
can’t help noticing, for instance, how strangely the flesh-and-blood Anna was
positioned in her adult son’s life, managing to be simultaneously at its centre
and entirely to one side. Living around the corner from his studio in Chelsea,
the American-born widow acted as “Jemie’s” amanuensis, agent, cheerleader and
chief scold. She prepared lunch for visitors at his studio, nagged him to
number his engravings in order to boost their market value, and told him to
make friends with important people who might buy his work. She remained hugely
proud of what she called “my painting”, claiming it not just as a portrait but
as an emblem of the contribution she had made to her darling son’s career.
“He
always confides in his mother,” Anna approvingly told her friends which,
unsurprisingly, turns out to be the opposite of true. Whistler was instead
careful to present his mother with a tightly edited version of his extremely
rackety life. Whenever she met his disreputable male friends, they were instructed
to be on their best behaviour. How else can one explain the fact that this
deeply religious woman believed the boisterously drunk and gay Algernon
Swinburne to be a delightful young man fit to be her honorary son?
And as for Hiffernan, Jemie’s Irish mistress,
Anna seems to have thought that she was nothing more than his favourite model.
When in 1870 the girl-mad Whistler had an illegitimate son by a local
chambermaid, the news was kept from Anna, who sailed on oblivious, offering
prayers and tracts to anyone she thought looked spiritually peaky.
While
Sutherland and Toutziari are meticulous in rendering the busy life of Anna
Whistler – she crossed the Atlantic 11 times as she followed her peripatetic
husband and sons around the world – they remain uninterested in teasing out the
emotional resonances of these constant dislocations. What we get instead is a
respectful portrait of a woman who prided herself on her moral restraint and
good breeding, yet whom, for some unaccountable reason, her son decided to
paint with cumbersome feet that appear poised to step on other people’s toes.
