1st Edition

James McNeill Whistler and France A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music

By Suzanne Singletary Copyright 2017
    236 Pages 39 Color & 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    252 Pages 39 Color & 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    252 Pages 39 Color & 40 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    James McNeill Whistler and France: A Dialogue in Paint, Poetry, and Music is the first full-length and in-depth study to position this painter within the overall trajectory of French modernism during the second half of the nineteenth century and to view the artist as integral to the aesthetic projects of its most original contributors. Suzanne M. Singletary maintains that Whistler was in a unique situation as an insider within the emerging French avant-garde, thereby in an enviable position to both absorb and transform the innovations of others – and that until now, his widespread influence as a catalyst among his colleagues has been neither investigated nor appreciated.

    Singletary contends that Whistler’s importance rivals that of Manet, whose multi-layered (and often unexpected) interconnections with Whistler are the focus of one chapter. In addition, Whistler’s pivotal role in linking the legacies of Baudelaire, Delacroix, Gautier, Wagner, and other mid-century innovators to the later French Symbolists has previously been largely ignored. Courbet, Degas, Monet, and Seurat complete the roster of French artists whose dialogue with Whistler is highlighted.

    Contents

    List of Illustrations

    Acknowledgments

    Introduction: Whistler’s Dialogues

    1. Crossing Thresholds: Baudelaire and Whistler

    2. The Artist’s Studio: Courbet and Whistler

    3. Voyage: Manet and Whistler

    4. Holland and the Modern Interior: Degas and Whistler

    5. Alliteration and Ellipses: Monet, Mallarmé and Whistler

    6. Seurat’s Butterfly: Seurat and Whistler

    Conclusion: Whistler and France

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Suzanne M. Singletary is Associate Professor of Art and Architectural History at Philadelphia University. She has published on Eugène Delacroix, French Symbolism, and Francesco Goya, and contributed essays to Impressionist Interiors (2008), Perspectives on Manet (2012) and Rival Sisters (2014).

    "Singletary has composed a beautifully written text (her prose at times rises to level of Mallarmé’s and Baudelaire’s) that may complement recent work into Whistler’s international connections."

    - Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide