Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Insights Without a Storyline
Review: The artist James McNeil Whistler was an American, but he spent his professional life in Europe, especially London, and had no homesickness for his homeland. Asked how he came to be born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he replied, "I wanted to be near my mother." And it is his mother that his countrymen remember him for. "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother" is one of the most famous paintings in the world, better known as "Whistler's Mother." Sarah Walden, a leading picture restorer, got the job of restoring it a few years ago. She researched the work extensively before she took on the intimidating task of renewing its surface. In _Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship_ (University of Nebraska Press), Walden has described the restoration process in her book's final chapter, but has also given a history of the picture and its changes in meaning. It is a book full of surprises concerning just how the world looks at a masterpiece.

Whistler's mother was sixty-seven when he came to paint her; she was a stand-in when the model of the day did not show, one day in 1871. Walden is firmly of the opinion that the portrait is Whistler's best work. Whistler, a dandy who liked attention and was profuse with his (sometimes foundationless) philosophy of art was reticent about this particular painting. When someone congratulated him on it, he said only, "One does like to make one's mummy just as nice as possible." He lived in England for thirty years, but got little recognition from the English. Even the portrait of his mother was not appreciated. It was cool, gray, and empty, and it puzzled London critics. It was a sensation, however, in Paris. The geometry, the gray, black, and white, the Japanese influence, and the detachment all were a hit. After complicated negotiations detailed here, it was bought for the Louvre, Whistler's supreme achievement. Indeed, the American affection for the painting, after it was lost to France, had to do with its being an icon of home, religion, and maternity. One of the surprising things revealed in Walden's work is that the painting itself physically changed in ways that would reinforce the American interpretation, ways that would have ideally been undone in the restoration.

Walden reveals some of the technical difficulties of the restoration process, but also admits that because of the particular difficulties of this work, we will never get to see it as the Royal Academy did. She has written before of the dangers of over-restoration of paintings, with a result that "... the most seasoned Old Master can come to bear a remarkable resemblance to a colored photograph." The dark blacks that are the signature of the painting are irretrievable, but the light areas did not suffer the same problems of thinned pigment, and ought to be fully restorable. There is here an introduction to the larger philosophy of restoration. Improving the whites of the bonnet and the handkerchief would ruin any remaining trace of the harmony which Whistler so valued. In an analogy Whistler would have understood, Weldon writes, "You cannot successfully readjust one note in a symphony, however historically accurate, if the others are several tones flat." Weldon tells of a number of compromises that left the painting if not like the day it was finished, then a clear reminder of what it used to be. The color before and after pictures here are dramatic. Through Weldon's work on the canvass, and now through this detailed and loving story of the painting, we get to see Whistler's work anew.

Rating:
Summary: Uncovering The Hidden Painting
Review: The artist James McNeil Whistler was an American, but he spent his professional life in Europe, especially London, and had no homesickness for his homeland. Asked how he came to be born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he replied, "I wanted to be near my mother." And it is his mother that his countrymen remember him for. "Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother" is one of the most famous paintings in the world, better known as "Whistler's Mother." Sarah Walden, a leading picture restorer, got the job of restoring it a few years ago. She researched the work extensively before she took on the intimidating task of renewing its surface. In _Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship_ (University of Nebraska Press), Walden has described the restoration process in her book's final chapter, but has also given a history of the picture and its changes in meaning. It is a book full of surprises concerning just how the world looks at a masterpiece.

Whistler's mother was sixty-seven when he came to paint her; she was a stand-in when the model of the day did not show, one day in 1871. Walden is firmly of the opinion that the portrait is Whistler's best work. Whistler, a dandy who liked attention and was profuse with his (sometimes foundationless) philosophy of art was reticent about this particular painting. When someone congratulated him on it, he said only, "One does like to make one's mummy just as nice as possible." He lived in England for thirty years, but got little recognition from the English. Even the portrait of his mother was not appreciated. It was cool, gray, and empty, and it puzzled London critics. It was a sensation, however, in Paris. The geometry, the gray, black, and white, the Japanese influence, and the detachment all were a hit. After complicated negotiations detailed here, it was bought for the Louvre, Whistler's supreme achievement. Indeed, the American affection for the painting, after it was lost to France, had to do with its being an icon of home, religion, and maternity. One of the surprising things revealed in Walden's work is that the painting itself physically changed in ways that would reinforce the American interpretation, ways that would have ideally been undone in the restoration.

Walden reveals some of the technical difficulties of the restoration process, but also admits that because of the particular difficulties of this work, we will never get to see it as the Royal Academy did. She has written before of the dangers of over-restoration of paintings, with a result that "... the most seasoned Old Master can come to bear a remarkable resemblance to a colored photograph." The dark blacks that are the signature of the painting are irretrievable, but the light areas did not suffer the same problems of thinned pigment, and ought to be fully restorable. There is here an introduction to the larger philosophy of restoration. Improving the whites of the bonnet and the handkerchief would ruin any remaining trace of the harmony which Whistler so valued. In an analogy Whistler would have understood, Weldon writes, "You cannot successfully readjust one note in a symphony, however historically accurate, if the others are several tones flat." Weldon tells of a number of compromises that left the painting if not like the day it was finished, then a clear reminder of what it used to be. The color before and after pictures here are dramatic. Through Weldon's work on the canvass, and now through this detailed and loving story of the painting, we get to see Whistler's work anew.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Insights Without a Storyline
Review: While revealing many interesting facts about Whistler's life and the portrait itself, Walden shares with the reader his inspirations, insecurities, and values, but none of these reveals a tragic or heroic character. She reveals him as simply a passionate artist. The book is efficiently organized according to topics such as "The Moment of Creation," "The Portrait as Patriotism," and "Restoration: the Elusive Original," and I admit to jumping to sections in which I was most interested. I was not glued to the pages in the way I would be to a narrative, but I found the information a good supplement to my enjoyment of Whistler's paintings. Certainly any reader with an appreciation for Whistler or a broader interest in late 19th century art would enjoy this book.