James Abbott McNeill Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo, "art for art's sake". 

Whistler’s paintings are usually subtle and sensitive, but his views on art were outspoken and progressive. He thought that painting should deal mainly with abstract qualities such as colour and shape, rather than with subject matter.

Whistler's work was usually called 'unfinished' or 'unrefined'. When looking at his work, you can see that it is indeed blurry and looks a bit rushed, but it's the opposite. The effect captured in this image is almost like the mood you get if you were the place yourself. The color and shape of the picture make you feel as if you're looking through someones dream and a big impact on this is the light used in the image.

My first impressions were similar to what some people call the work. "Unrefined", but that was just from the first glimpse at his work. As I looked deeper into it, I realised how abstract the piece is and how it quickly pulls you into the environment created by the artist in the painting.

The artist used color, texture, shape and tone as the main formal elements, but line is also recognised. The artist carefully distorts the color in the image making it feel very foggy and misty.

The reason I want to use the artist in my project is because he uses light is a very different way than most artist. He focuses on the light during night time and this is what I got interested in. Many of my photographs include scenes from night. Piccadilly Circus is very fascinating when you go there during night time and I want to create responses from that place during night using the techniques Whisper used in his paintings.

Responses

I wanted to use photographs that give out a similar feel to Whistlers work when creating response. The image below shows a tunnel area. It was distorted by the two lights at the top and bottom to cover the whole image in a coat of light. Whispers work usually focuses on the lights during night time so as a response, I used an image that would work well as a night image.

I used chalk to create the response. The photograph has a wide variety of shades which I could easily achieve using different shades of chalk. The biggest difficulty was getting the corners bright after I already used the dark shades.

I also took photographs of scenes similar to the ones Whistler captures using paints. The one below was taken right outside my window just before the sun set all the way down. You can only see a glimpse of the light in the background and this light gives a blurry outline of the trees in the image. Whistlers work mainly focused around shape and color rather than what was in the painting itself and in this photograph, I believe I achieved this very meaning.

Whistler would also say "As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, the subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or color". The quote says that what is important in the painting is not what you can see, but what you should be getting out of it. He looks at the aesthetic quality of what he sees. He takes out what is not important and leaves what he finds the most beautiful which is also something that I am doing with light itself. 

I used one of my paper cut outs from previous responses to Nicholas Wright and placed a light bulb behind the response. While responding to Wright, I used natural light behind the response, but this time decided to go for an artificial light which was a light bulb. I used more than one type of paper which allowed the light to pass the object easier with some materials than the other. It worked the best with tracing paper which was used as the sky in and sugar paper for the van and the people in the image. It gave out a feeling as if there was a sun all the way behind those buildings and also distorted it making the viewer focus a bit more on the quality of light than the actual content of the response.

While responding to Nicholas Wright using my large 3D installation,I decided to push that towards Whistler too. I went to Photoshop and experimented with the qualities of light in an image and was able to come up with some very interesting responses.

What I really like about these responses is that the viewer focuses on how the light effects the buildings rather than the buildings themselves. The light in these images is very strong and creates a nice contrast between the objects and the light as the buildings appear much darker and allow the light to stand out much more. I think those responses successfuly link to Whistler because they capture and demonstrate the quality of light and just as in Whistler's work, you want to focus on how the light effects the installation rather than the installation itself.

Links to artists

To me, Whistler is an artist who links with my theme in his own way. He works differently from the other artists and uses different techniques to other painters. The one thing I think links to others is the atmospheres created in his artwork. Most of my artists create a feeling in their work as if you're in a different place all of the sudden. Whistler created paintings the bring you into a very gloomy atmosphere and a similar thing happens with Manet's paintings. Both of the artists paint differently and have different intentions, but their work has the same effect on you if you're looking at them for the first time without knowing what they represent.

Whistler uses very little light in his work and it's pretty much the opposite of my other artists, Nauman and Flavin. They work with neon lights and create an atmosphere using a whole room using light.

An artist I think that goes between the neon users and the painters is Nicholas Wright who works similar to Whistler by creating a feeling that you're in a city and there is much depth in his work, but instead of it being a painting, it's an installation. It still however gives the same feeling you get when you look at Whistler's work. His work also might not use neon lights, but the work itself depends on light and without the light, he can't create the atmosphere just like Nauman and Flavin.