Art 109 Modern Art Analysis

Gemma Conine, Art 109 Modern Art, TTH
One of the most influential artists of the Modern Period of art was James Whistler. Whistler was an accomplished printer and painter and a brief background of the painter allows us to understand Whistler, and why more than any artist of his time, he would be attracted to Japanese woodblock prints called Ukiyo-e. It is also essential to understand the essence of Ukiyo-e, Japanese aesthetics and its migration to the Western world. Additionally, a chronological selection of Whistler’s works must be analyzed showing how he integrated the lessons he learned from his exposure to Ukiyo-e.
Ukiyo-e literally means “pictures of the floating world”. They were mass produced woodblock prints which depicted various
After being transferred to the etching department it is here he learns how to bite a copperplate for etching. This skill served him well for the duration of his life. His background and experience as a printer may have given him a greater appreciation for Japanese woodblock prints, techniques and qualities. Whistler arrived in Paris as a student of painting in 1855 and was undoubtedly exposed to Ukiyo-e since they were common and French Impressionists he associated with were attracted by the Ukiyo-e “genre themes, bright colors, flattened shapes, unconventional spatial effects and asymmetrical compositions.” 2 While he was in Paris he frequented a shop called La Porte Japonaise, where he purchased fans, woodcuts and blue and white porcelains. He also combed the shops of Amsterdam and Rotterdam for Oriental artifacts. Whistler’s mother wrote to a letter to a friend in 1864 which stated James Whistler “considers the paintings upon them (fans, woodcuts, porcelains) the finest specimens of art.” 3
Whistler painted La Princess du pays de la Porcelaine (Fig.1) between 1863-64. It is a large painting, at approximately 6.5 feet tall and 3.8 feet wide which presents the subject as virtually life sized. This painting is filled with Far East objects; however this is the first painting where we begin to see the Ukiyo-e influences of simplicity of color,
4) is where he fully moves from just utilizing oriental props to fully employing Ukiyo-e principles of composition. The single figure creates a strong vertical element while her companions complete the triangle areas below. They are like cardboard cutouts and the 3rd dimension hardly exists. The tea pot looks suspended above a plain, flatly painted, block of turquoise color representing the floor. The London city scape in the background is ethereal and waste heaps take on the look of mountains, an illusion. In the spirit of Ukiyo-e, Whistler has created a dreamlike world in industrial London. “Whistler's purpose was not to criticize or even to document the industrial landscape, but rather to transform it: the smokestacks are veiled in atmospheric mist, and the adjacent slag heap (a well-known monument of industrial waste) evokes images of Mount Fuji by the Japanese artist Hokusai.” 5 The elements and composition is reminiscent of Ukiyo-e artist Torii Kiyonaga’s Twelve Months in the South, “The 4th Month” and “The 6th Month”, 1784 (Fig. 5) which Whistler referenced to create The