File:Life of James McNeill Whistler, (1911) (14783199402).jpg

Identifier: jamesmcnei00penn (find matches)
Title: Life of James McNeill Whistler,
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Pennell, Elizabeth Robins,
Subjects: American Art
Publisher: J. B. Lippincott company
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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ed onthe canvas. The arrangement of the pictures on the wall and themouldings of the dado in At the Piano, the harmonious balance of theblack and white in the dresses of the mother and the little girl, showthe sense of design, of pattern, which he brought to perfection inthe Mother, Carlyle, and Miss Alexander. There was nothing like itin the painting of the other young men, of Degas, Fantin, Legros,Ribot, Manet ; nothing like it in the work of the older man,their leader, when painting VEnterrement a Ornans and Bonjour,Monsieur Courbet. M. Duret says that Whistlers fellow students,who had immediately recognised his etchings, now accepted hispaintings, which confirms Whistlers statement to us. At the Piano was sent to the Salon of 1859 with two etchings thetitles of which are not given. The etchings were hung, the picturewas rejected. It may have been because of what was personal in it;strong personality in the young usually fares that way at official hands.Fantins story is :52 (1859 ,
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The Beginnings in London One day Whistler brought back from London the Piano Picture,representing his sister and niece. He was refused with Legros, Ribot,and myself at the Salon. Bonvin, whom I knew, interested himselfin our rejected pictures, and exhibited them in his studio, and invitedhis friends, of whom Courbet was one, to see them. I recall very wellthat Courbet was struck with Whistlers picture. Two portraits by Fantin, some studies of still life by Ribot, andLegros portrait of his father, which had also been rejected, wereshown. The rejection was a scandal. The injustice was flagrant, theexhibitors at Bonvins found themselves famous, and Whistlers pictureimpressed many artists besides Courbet. With its exhibition Whistlerceased to be the student, though he was a student all his life ; it wasonly in his last years that he felt he was beginning to understand,he often said to us. CHAPTER VIII: THE BEGINNINGS IN LONDON. THEYEARS EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE TO EIGHTEEN SIXTYTHREE. It was n

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