James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an abrasive exhibitionist American, who arrived in London in 1859 from Paris. His propensity for entitling his portraits 'arrangements' and his river and seascapes 'nocturnes' and 'symphonies' reflected his attitude that pictures need not have any specific 'subject' and were essentially arrangements of line and form. With Albert Moore he formed the theory of 'art for art's sake', laying the cornerstone to that monument of elitism which fine art would rapidly become as a result of this idea: an impenetrable game, played out beyond the reach - or interest - of laypeople who were no longer initiated into its language or conventions.

Whistler's effect on landscape painting was decisive, although he was not a landscape artist. When he did not paint portraits he chose tidal rivers, coasts and the sea, while living an urban life. He maintained that to create harmony an artist must discriminate and arrange, and he rejected any belief that it was the mission of the artist to copy nature. Towards the end of the 1860s, Whistler began to reject Realism for Aestheticism. He was still painting modern landscapes, but now chose to veil the ugliness of industrial London by painting it at night. He prepared for these pictures by going out in a boat on the Thames after dark, committing the scenes to memory so that he could work on his paintings back in his studio.

Whistler called these revolutionary works 'Nocturnes', deliberately comparing their lack of narrative content to music. Their compositions are startlingly simple, the colours reduced to a few delicate tonal harmonies. He produced them using paint so thin it was as translucent as watercolour. He owed much to his enthusiasm for Chinese and Japanese painting, and it brought him into direct conflict with Ruskin who, viewing Whistler's 'Nocturnes' (twilight studies of the Thames river) in 1879, accused him of 'throwing a pot of paint in the public's face'!

Most Victorian viewers were scandalised by their absence of subject matter and lack of finish. John Ruskin attacked them in print, prompting Whistler to sue him for libel and leading to a celebrated court case.

		JM Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket 1875