 | Whistler''s Mother in popular culture |
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Whistler''s Mother |
Whistler''s Mother |
James Abbott McNeill Whistler |
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 14, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Averse to sentimentality in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art''s sake". He took to signing his paintings with a stylized butterfly, possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for Whistler''s art was characterized by a subtle delicacy, in contrast to his flamboyant public persona.
Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist''s Mother, famous under its colloquial name Whistler''s Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by James McNeill Whistler.
Whistler would eventually pawn the painting, which was acquired in 1891 by Paris'' Musйe du Luxembourg. Whistler''s works, including this one, had attracted a number of imitators and a number of similarly posed and restricted color palette paintings soon appeared particularly by American expatriate painters. For Whistler, having one of his painting displayed in a major museum helped attract wealthy patrons. In December 1884, Whistler wrote:
"Just think -- to go and look at one''s own picture hanging on the walls of Luxembourg -- remembering how it had been treated in England -- to be met everywhere with deference and respect...and to know that all this is...a tremendous slap in the face to the Academy and the rest! Really it is like a dream."
Given this outlook, whatever the level of affection Whistler may have felt for his own mother, one finds an even more divergent use of the image in the Victorian era and later, especially in the United States, as an icon for motherhood, affection for parents, and "family values" in general. For example, in 1934 the U.S. Post office issued a stamp engraved with a stylized image of "Whistler''s Mother," accompanied by the slogan "In Memory and In Honor of the Mothers of America."
Whistler''s Mother in popular culture
The painting was featured prominently in the 1997 film Bean, when Mr. Bean, played by Rowan Atkinson was sent to the United States from England to oversee the installation of the painting in a Californian art museum. After sneezing on it, Mr. Bean wipes the painting with his handkerchief, but accidentally smears the mother''s face with blue ink instead. Bean then attempted to clean the ink off using paint thinner, which washed off the ink, as well as the face. Bean ends up replacing the painting with a poster, while taking the original home with him and placing it over his mantlepiece, with a cartoon head drawn over the blank space where the mother''s head had been.
"Whistler''s Mother" is also the title of an episode from the first season of the FOX television series Arrested Development.
In a photoshoot of Cycle 5 of America''s Next Top Model, contestant Jaya Rubenelli was instructed to pose in a modernized version of the painting as an ad for Olay Quench lotion.
The painting can be seen in the background during one scene in Billy Wilder''s film The Fortune Cookie.
In the movie The Naked Gun 2Ѕ: The Smell of Fear one of the characters, Dr Albert S. Meinheimer, can only be told apart from his double by the birthmark in the shape of Whistler''s Mother on his buttock.
There is a reference to this painting in the play Our Town by Thorton Wilder.