Why Is “Whistler’s Mother” So Iconic?

A detail of Whistler’s iconic portrait. The sentimental responses to it exasperated him.A couple of weeks ago, I visited two mothers in Massachusetts. One was my own, Charlene, who lives in a retirement home in Lenox. The other was the black-clad lady portrayed in “Whistler’s Mother”—the popular name of the masterpiece that James Abbott McNeill Whistler painted in 1871 and titled “Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1.

The chromatic subtleties contribute to an unsettled feeling. A more substantial jolt occurs when you register an over-all spatial distortion: the forms stretch horizontally, so that the length of Anna’s concealed legs, angled and descending to an upholstered footstool, suggests the anatomy of an N.B.A. draft pick.

I’m the oldest of Charlene’s five kids with our late father, Gilmore, an inventor and entrepreneur. When I walked into her building, she was at the piano accompanying a sing-along that concluded with a briskly rendered “Yellow Rose of Texas.” Charlene is ninety-eight, but her memory is sharp, and I had hoped that it would yield associations with Whistler’s portrait. Her father was a postmaster in a North Dakota prairie town.

James followed his father’s example and his own military fantasies by entering West Point. But he proved a feckless cadet—the superintendent, Robert E. Lee, liked but despaired of him—and he flunked out in his third year. He evinced no better discipline in government jobs as a geographical draftsman. Then, in 1855, Whistler went to Paris and launched himself as an artist, a dandy, and a lover of women.

Because she is his marvellous old bat.

Mr Bean

I saw this painting at the Boston Museum Of Fine Arts in the early 1970's. There was a guard at the entrance of the room and one inside. The painting was velveted roped off to prevent direct contact. The guard did mention the artist's signature was in a gold circle which

Because she made a wicked apple pie

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