James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903) American
Pencil on Paper
Measure 10 3/4"in H x 8"in W and 16 1/4"in H x 13"in W with frame

Known for: Figure, landscape, and portrait painting, etching
Biography: While in Europe, although he liked to pose as a dashing Tidewater cavalier, Whistler never became an officer, and saw little action in the Civil War. This insufficiency troubled him, and it accounts for a peculiar adventure he undertook in 1866, when he sailed from France on a ten-month trip to Chile - a long and grueling trip across the Atlantic and around Cape Horn - to be present at a Spanish naval blockade of the port of Valparaiso. Whether Whistler thought his being there would make an ounce of difference in the outcome of Chile's small colonial rebellion, one cannot tell. In the event, the Spanish warships bombarded Valparaiso and reduced most of its waterfront to rubble, while Whistler, along with most of the Chilean officials, fled for the hills. By the end of 1866 he was back in Paris with a few misty, blue seascapes of Valparaiso to show for his trip, but no honorable scars. Valparaiso was as close as Whistler ever got to the Orient, but he was seen in France and England as a cultural bridge to Japan. The formal beauty of Oriental art obsessed him, especially Japanese prints, which were available by the ream in Paris and London, as well as Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, of which he amassed a choice collection. Through the study of Japanese concision, he brought an esthetic of hints and nuances into late-nineteenth-century painting. His abhorrence of narrative, his refusal to moralize through art, his preference for the exquisitely designed moment over the slice of life, these were new, and they epitomized his ideal of Art for Art's Sake. Before leaving on his trip to Chile in 1866, he made a will on January 3lst in favor of his mistress, Jo Hiffernan, giving her power of attorney to manage his affairs during his absence in South America, and on February 2nd departed Southampton on board the Seine. He stopped in Jamaica and Colon, then crossed the Isthmus by land. Journeying south down the Pacific coast, he stopped in Peru, and in March arrived in Valparaiso, after a journey of six weeks. There he witnessed the bombardment of Valparaiso harbor by the Spanish fleet. It is presumed he returned to England by way of Cape Horn, but in any case, he was back there by November, at which time he parted amicably from his mistress.

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