James McNeill Whistler

American, 1834 - 1903

NationalityAmerican

BiographyLeading figure in the Aesthetic Movement in British painting. Although he always considered himself an American, Whistler lived in the United States for only fourteen years and during the remainder of his life resided alternately in Paris and London, with sojourns in virtually every country in continental Europe. While pursuing his art training in France, he came under the influence of avant-garde artists such as Gustave Courbet, and in England, too, he gravitated toward controversial and progressive figures, such as the poet Algernon Swinburne and the painters Albert Moore and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Under their influence he began to explore analogies between music and painting in portraits and genre pictures, to which he often appended musical titles. The startling minimalism of his night scenes on the Thames, which he called "Nocturnes," elicited sharp criticism from John Ruskin, whom the artist sued for libel in 1878. He won the case but was bankrupted by the costs.

Person TypeIndividual