James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Whistler was born in America and spent much of his life in England, and both countries claim him as their own; yet he belongs as much to France, where he studied art and became friends with most of the great painters of his day. He was always a controversial figure, the centre of public quarrels and a libel case; and he was also a dandy with a biting wit, who could outdo even his friend Oscar Wilde in verbal repartee.

Whistler was a master etcher, and was more interested in the formation of shapes and colours on a canvas than in subject matter. Art for art’s sake was his motto, and his portraits of women, domestic interiors and views of water are vehicles for the creation of perfect compositions, each one made up of delicate gradations of tone.

This portrait of his mother, to whom he was deeply attached, is intensely personal and full of character and atmosphere. She is seen in profile, her grey hair rather severely dressed and her hands folded in her lap. The effect is dignified and a little austere, but alleviated by the delicate lace at her neck and trimming her sleeves and cap.

As its title states, the painting is primarily ‘an arrangement’ of colours, and its most arresting feature is the way in which areas of subtle colour have been weighed against each other. The woman’s dress is a bold expanse of black, balanced by the dark vertical mass of the curtain and the frame of another Whistler painting on the wall ; and these dark shapes are offset by precisely calculated areas of grey and white. It is a sensitive and beautifully constructed composition of blocks of muted colour, in which any change in emphasis would upset the delicate balance.