An elderly woman in black sits in profile before a grey wall, calm, her hands folded in her lap. Whistler titled it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, stressing the harmony of colour and form; yet it went on to become America's icon of motherhood.
Key facts
- Artist
- James McNeill Whistler1834–1903 · American
- Date
- 1871
- Period
- Realism1840–1880
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 144.3 × 162.4 cm
- Location
- Musée d'Orsay Paris, France
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#1C1B11#3A392C#7B7A69#5C5944#949182Background
The sitter is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler, then in her sixties and living with her son in London. The story goes that another model failed to turn up, so Whistler asked his mother to pose instead; she began standing but grew tired and sat down.
In 1872 the Royal Academy nearly rejected it, eventually accepting it but hanging it in a poor position. In 1891 the French state bought it, making it one of the first works by an American artist to enter the French national collection.
Technique & composition
Whistler championed “art for art's sake”, believing that painting, like music, should move us through harmonies of colour and form rather than stories or morals. Hence the musical title “Arrangement”, treating his mother as one element of the design.
The composition is made of rectangles: the grey wall, the dark , the , the black dress. His mother's profile forms a stable triangle. The palette is almost entirely grey, black and white, the paint thin and soft.
The patterned curtain and flattened composition reveal the influence of Japanese woodblock prints on Whistler.
Details
Symbolism
From arrangement to icon
Whistler did not want viewers to care who the sitter was. Yet in the twentieth century the painting became a symbol of motherly love, endurance and family values. In 1934 the US Post Office issued a Mother's Day stamp based on it.
The picture on the wall and the butterfly
The picture on the wall is Whistler's own etching Black Lion Wharf. On the curtain is a small , Whistler's distinctive monogram signature.
Stories
- Did you know?
From 1932 to 1934 the painting toured the United States, drawing huge crowds and becoming a comforting symbol during the Great Depression.
- Did you know?
In the 1997 comedy film Bean, the hapless hero is sent to escort this painting to America and accidentally ruins it, giving the picture a new burst of pop-culture fame.
- Did you know?
Whistler remarked that the picture was interesting to him because it was his mother, but asked what the public could care about the identity of the portrait.
Legacy
The painting is a key work of the Aesthetic Movement; its emphasis on tonal harmony and design anticipated twentieth-century abstraction. At the same time it is one of the most famous images in American art, sometimes called the “American Mona Lisa”.
