"His landscapes of those years [mid-1860s] reveal that he had rejected his earlier commitment to transcribing nature in the manner of Courbet, and was responding instead to formalist imperatives, including flat, decorative surfaces, subtle tonal harmonies, and allusive, rather than literal, subjects. Taking a cue from a critic who had referred to his early portrait of his mistress, 'The White Girl' (1862; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), as a 'symphony in white,' Whistler began to envision and entitle his works with the abstract language of music, calling them symphonies, compositions, harmonies, nocturnes, arrangements, and so forth."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Quote of H. Barbara Weinberg, in: James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), 'Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History'. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (April 2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_McNeill_Whistler
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (10 July 1834 – 17 July 1903) was an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'.
34 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by James McNeill Whistler →
Related Quotes
"John Ruskin: 'The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?' Whistler: 'No. I ask it for the …"
"Why should not I call my works 'symphonies', 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'?.. .The vast majority of En…"
"If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artis…"
"Shall the painter then.. ..decide upon painting? Shall he be the critic and sole authority? Aggressive as is this sup…"
"May I therefore acknowledge the tender glow of health induced by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flatt…"
"Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better othe…"
"Art is upon the Town!"
"Listen! There was never an artistic period. There was never an art-loving nation."
"Nature is usually wrong."
"“The story of the beautiful,” said Whistler, with the swagger that made all but his contemporaries love him, “is alre…"