JAMES WHISTLER, quotes on painting, music art and his life; + biography facts of the American-born artist, working in England
James Whistler (1834 – 1903), his artist quotes on painting art and music + biography information and life facts. Whistler was an American-born, British-based painter. Early in his life he was professional cartographer and doing many etchings. Later he went to Paris to study classical painting circa 1857, where he became familiar with the poet Baudelaire, Fantin-Latour and Manet. In 1868 – after an influential stay in Valparaiso, in Chile, he returned to London, where he painted several more famous ‘Nocturnes’ over the next ten years;, many were of the River Thames and of Cremorne Gardens. These art works meant a big shift in his painting style and in painting in general. In his maritime nocturnes, Whistler used highly thinned paint as a ground, with lightly flicked color to suggest ships, lights, and shore line. Music influenced Whistlers art deeply.’
* At the bottom art links for more biography facts and art images of James Whistler, – the editor.
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James Whistler: ‘Nocture’, painting 1870 |
James Whistler, artist quotes of the American / British painter, on the relation between his painting art and music + life facts
- Why should not I call my works “symphonies”, “arrangements”, “harmonies”, and “nocturnes”?… .The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell. My picture of “Harmony in Grey and Gold” is an illustration of my meaning – as snow scene with a single black figure and lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture, Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.
* James Whistler, his quote on the connection between painting and music: ** letter to “The World”, London 22 Mai, 1878, quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186.
- As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony or sound or of colour. The great musicians knew this. Beethoven and the rest wrote music – simply music, symphony in this key, concerto or sonata in that.
* James Whistler, quotes on music art and painting as visual poetry, from: ** letter to “The World”, London 22 Mai, 1878, quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186.
- Art should be independent of all clap-trap – should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it; and that is why I insist on calling my works “arrangements” and “harmonies”.
* quote of James Whistler on his painting art as arrangement, from ** letter to “The World”, London 22 Mai, 1878, quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186.
- If the man who paints only the tree, or flower, or other surface he sees before him were an artist, the king of artists would be the photographer. It is for the artist to do something beyond this: in portrait painting to put on canvas something more than the face the model wears for that one day: to paint the man, in short, as well as his features; in arrangement of colours to treat a flower as his key, not as his model. This is now understood indifferently well – at least by dressmakers. In every costume you see attention is paid to the key-note of colour which runs through the composition, as the chant of the Anabaptists through the ‘Prophète’, or the Hugenots’ hymn in the opera of that name.
* James Whistler, painter quotes on color in painting: ** letter to “The World”, London 22 Mai, 1878, quoted in ”Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock – ”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186.
Art links for more biography facts on the American / English painter-artist James Whistler
* information on life and creating art by the painter artist James Whistler, on Wikipedia
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