Whistler Paintings

These artifacts were made for the sake of art which rejects the idea that the success of an art object can be measured by its accuracy, as a representation or the effectiveness with which it tells a story or suggests a moral. It actually really implies that an art object is best understood as a creation to be valued only for the success with which it organizes color and line into a formally satisfying and therefore beautiful whole.

These artifacts communicate the reality of nature and village scenes. Whistler also created nudes, and portraits. In his landscapes he tried to make his paintings like a musician plays a keyboard where all elements are available, but the musician, or painter must choose which one to use. In his nocturnes he describes how at night a warehouse can look like palaces, and the whole city hangs in the heavens with the covering of the fog. In his domestic scenes he tries to re-create the flatness of a picture plane. In his portraits he was a great master and often compared to Velasquez. In Whistler's late nudes there was a "sketchiness" and Freer was one of the first collectors to realize their importance and beauty.

Whistler worked with a variety of mediums. One of them was oil, in which he used his entire career. Many of them were his nocturnes and portraits and were the most celebrated. Another was pastels where he began using it in the 1860's, but not seriously until 1879 when he created about ninety Venetian scenes. Also, he used watercolors which he learned at West point in 1876-77 and painted Sir Henry Thompson's porcelain collection. He also made artifacts of drawings, lithographs, etchings, and drypoints. Finally, this exhibition was great and I wish it had all of Whistler's paintings. He has created so many throughout his career that he could have his own museum with just his work. I really like his portraits and nudes. His sceneries are also good and I like the way that he uses color and brush