Detailed information gleaned from Anna's diaries and letters, as well as previous biographies, show that she lived a more interesting life than her Victorian apparel and demure pose in the painting would indicate. She was a well-traveled woman with a wide, international social network.
She held Confederate-leaning sensibilities along with Christian pietism while exemplifying Christian values; she socialized with Russian peasants and her son's Pre-Raphaelite friends and distributed church pamphlets.
A pious Episcopalian, Anna was born in the American South among slave owners but was raised in the North. Sixteen-year-old Anna was quite taken with her brother's handsome friend from West Point, George Washington Whistler, but he married another. After the early death of his wife, George and Anna met again. They married and Anna helped raise his children from his first marriage as well as their own children. George became America's leading engineer--who gave the locomotive it's whistle! His work meant frequent moves, including to Britain and St. Petersburg.
Anna endeavored to embody Christian virtues of reverence, charity, and patience in her daily life. She warned her children against the vanities of the world. And yet, she accepted slavery as a "benevolent" institution. Her own family was kind toward their slaves, and one member had several slave 'wives' and families that were well provided for.
Even after the death of her husband, Anna was always on the move, visiting family across America and the Continent. Her sons Willie and 'Jemmie' (John McNeil Whistler) were a 'handful.' Willie finally settled on a career in medicine and Jemmie in art.
Anna made friends everywhere whether participating in charitable activities or dining with Bohemian artists. Through Jemmie she met Mazzini, Garibaldi, the Rossettis, and Swinburne. Thankfully, she was ignorant of some things, such as Jemmie's long-term association with a mistress.
The place of the painting in art history and its reception over time is presented. Whistler's work was too modern for his time. He endeavored to move away from the Victorian preference for art that told a story, a moral, or to convey emotion.
"Art should be independent of all clap-trap--should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like,"he later told a journalist..."Take the picture of my mother...Arrangement in Grey and Black. Now that is what it is."
The painting we know as Whistler's Mother became famous in America in the early 20th c. In the 1930s it toured the country, drawing two million viewers. President Roosevelt endorsed the use of the painting in a stamp to commemorate Mother's Day.
The painting became one of the most iconic and popularly known in America. Cole Porter and other songwriters referenced the painting in popular music. It was exploited in cartoons, satire, and became a symbol in movies and literature.
It is amazing how much Anna packed into her lifetime.
I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Whistler's Mother: Portrait of an Extraordinary Life
Daniel E. Sutherland and Georgia Toutziari
Yale University Press
Publication: March 27, 2018
254 pages, 60 color + b/w illus.
Hardcover: $25
ISBN: 9780300229684
