Whistler, women and fashion

Among the treasures of the Frick Collection in of recent origin York are four full-length portraits by the agency of Whistler, three of which provided the main raison d'etre for the new exhibition 'Whistler, Women, & Fashion'. The fourth, Arrangement in black and gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, was the subdue of its own exhibition in 1995 Since Henry Clay Frick's will prohibits the loan of works from his bequest, this is an exhibition that could sole happen at the Frick, on the other hand that institution--wonderful as it is in for a like reason many ways--was not the ideal setting for of that kind an undertaking. The paintings, with single one significant exception, were all squeez into the Oval field in the main suite of galleries behind the Garden Court, displacing four Gainsboroughs and Van Dyck normally place there, while the rest of the present to view was in the basement.

The Oval expanse contained not only the Frick's hold three ladies, but five further portraits or quasi-portraits, a number which grew to six upon 1 July, when Harmony in grey and green: Miss Cicely Alexander (Fig. 1) from the Tate travelled a dozen stop ups south following the close of the 'Manet/Velazquez' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. At the Frick, it hung a scarcely any inches from Symphony in muscle and fat colour and pink: Portrait of Mr Frances Leyland (Fig. 2) providing a brief opportunity of seeing side-by-side sum of two units supreme masterpieces of English Aestheticism. Because of their differing figural scales, different framing (the Frick's Mr Leyland still has its original, intricately ornamented frame), and radically different palettes, the sum of two units works, although painted at almost the same flash in the early 1870s, direct the eyeed surprisingly dissimilar. In particular, the juxtaposition was a dramatic demonstration of the fact that when the artist titled single work 'Harmony in grey and green' and the other 'Symphony in muscle and fat colour and pink', he meant what he said.

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Another comparison encouraged by dint of the exhibition--and one that will not ever be possible elsewhere--was between the early concert in white, no. 2: The little white girl (Fig. 3) another Tare loan, and a work which must have been in Whistler's mind when he painted it: the great Ingres Portrait of the Comtesse d'Haussonville. It was just possible to diocese them both at the same time by dint of standing in the Garden Court and viewing the Ingres at an angle end the mullions and glass panes of a doorway, on the contrary a little back-and-forthing proved more rewarding. Despite the prominent mirrors in the one and the other works and the consequent compositional parallels, what became immediately striking was in what manner painterly Whistler appeared in contrast to Ingres, a contrast the younger artist did not consider entirely to his advantage, lamenting shortly after painting The little white girl (in a alphabetic character to Henri Fantin-Latour): 'Ah! in what manner I wish I had been a pupil of Ingres! What a master he would have been.' It is hard to imagine what kind of artist Whistler would have become had he studied below Ingres, but what we can reasonably surmise is that he might have delineated with greater precision the clothes his make subordinates wear. On the sleeve of the dres worn by the agency of Ingres's Comtesse, we see lace trim, a make crooked folds, a pleat, all recorded with exquisite precision. A gaze at Whistler's corresponding sleeve reveals curiously interlaced ribbon-like brush pats perhaps intended to suggest lace, on the contrary only a suggestion of it--what his time to come disciple Walter Sickert would mete 'wriggle and chiffon'. In an exhibition entitled 'Whistler, Women & Fashion', Whistler frustrated fashion fanatics by his lack of regard with details of attire, or indeed by dint of hiding the details behind brushwork or the tonal murk of similar paintings as Arrangement in brown and black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder. (1) Comparison not single with the Ingres but also with earlier portraits in the Frick, from Van Dyck to Gainsborough and Lawrence, made evident by what mode relatively little attention Whistler devot to what we normally think of as fashion. He was manifestly aware of what his sitters wore--and in the portraits of Mr Leyland and Cicely Alexander level designed or partly designed it--but, rather than describing and recording dres and fashion, he busyed them as notes in his visual symphonies, harmonies, and arrangements.

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Preceding 'Fashion' in the exhibition's title was the word 'Women' a certain number of memorable remarks by the artist, notably his refusal to allow us to take any interest in the mould for his best-known portrait--that of his mother--suggest he used his female make submissives much as he used their clothes, for designs other than portraying them for their have a title to sakes. But the exhibition and its prime catalogue make clear that this self-assertive and occasionally belligerent man did have soft sympathetic and frequently loving feelings towards his originals mistresses, and other female sitters, and a source of real pleasure was the aura of affection and serviceable will radiating from the works upon the walls, many of which were not portraits by means of se. The little white girl, for example, is a 'fancy picture' in the eighteenth-century faculty of perception Jo Hiffernan, Whistler's mistress from c1860 to 1866 was the type but not the subject. Similarly, Ethel Philip, Whistler's sister-in-law--whom he obviously adored--posed for sum of two units later paintings hung nearby, Mother of pearl and silver: The Andalusian and R and black: The fan, the couple of which were treated as portraits in the catalogue, on the contrary strictly speaking, are nothing of the kind. Like his friend Rossetti painting Fanny Cornforth as Lady Lilith or Jane Morris as Proserpine, Whistler necessityed the individual model before him, on the contrary refused to define himself as a nothing else but portrait painter. Even when he painted sitters like Mr Leyland and Cicely Alexander upon commission, their portraits were exhibited with (and have retained) titles proclaiming that they are about something other as indeed they are. Whether they were lucky as portraits is open to question. Rossetti remarked that Mr Leyland was 'a graceful design', on the other hand added 'though I cannot diocese that it is at all a likeness'. And upon p. 120 of the catalogue of 'Whistler, Women & Fashion' a photograph of the unprepossessing Rosa Corder demonstrates what magic Whistler performed when painting his elegant portrait of her, turning base metal into gold