A Quick Visit to See Whistler's Mother

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Marianne and I made a quick jaunt to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see James McNeill Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. Better known as Whistler's Mother, it's a painting you normally have to go to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to see.

And, yeah, it's a great painting. The flatness and stillness of the composition are striking, and it seems to me to be a work that recognizes that abstraction is on its way. The old woman's face--you can see that she's thinking, but there's not the least clue as to her thoughts--makes this a very mysterious work. 

The PMA has made a small and very interesting show of the painting's visit to Philadelphia, its first since the late nineteenth century, by pairing it with paintings and etchings by Cecilia Beaux, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dox Thrash, Alice Neel, and Sidney Goodman of their mothers (or, in Beaux's case, of her sister, since their mother died when they were young). All were artists with Philadelphia connections and some of them were definitely in dialogue with Whistler's painting. Tanner's painting in particular benefits from seeing how brilliantly he contrasts his portrayal of his own beloved mother with the painting which he definitely saw in person. It's a beautiful and moving painting that you could look at for a long, long time.

But what's most interesting about the show is that all the other portrayals of mothers are portraits, meant to convey a great deal about their subjects' personalities. But not Whistler's. His mother is an element in a composition, much like a bunch of grapes in a still life. In fact, she was a last-minute addition, drafted into the picture when the scheduled model fell ill and couldn't sit for it.

A terrific little one-room show and one I highly recommend if you're in the area. It runs until October 29.

And I wish I knew . . .

 I wonder what the original model, the one who fell ill, was like. Was she as old as Whistler's mother? Or was she a woman in the prime of her life? Whistler was baffled that everyone wanted to know about his mother. But that fact, and the unreadability of her expression, were definitely factors in its popularity. Would the painting be as famous today if the model had showed up? I have no idea.

If you happen to know, I'd be grateful for your posting the information in the comments below.

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