103

  • The Music Room

  • 1858
  • James McNeill Whistler (American 1834-1903)
  • Etching on cream laid paper
  • 14.4 x 21.6 cm., 5-11/16 x 8-9/16" image
  • Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Moss through Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 1996.17.9

Essay by Catherine Carter Goebel, Editor

The medium of etching first distinguished James McNeill Whistler in his career. The Music Room is an early work, centered on a table lamp set within the warm, comfortable domestic interior of the London residence at 62 Sloane Street. Dr. Seymour Haden and his wife Deborah, Whistler's older half-sister, lived here with their daughter Annie. The subject simultaneously illustrates typical French Realist and English Victorian subject matter which both focused on everyday life. This atmosphere provided Whistler with bourgeois relief when he needed a break and family support during his tumultuous bohemian student days in Paris. In fact, soon after this etching was completed, Whistler moved his artistic base from Paris to London. This was due to his perceived promise for success through the acceptance of his related painting, At the Piano (also staged in this music room), for exhibition at the Royal Academy. Haden, in addition to having a solid career in medicine, was an accomplished artist who reinforced Whistler's printmaking by installing a printing press in his home to enable collaboration. With time, however, this artistic linkage was broken through competitive egos and viewpoints, resulting in a falling-out that prohibited Whistler from further visiting Deborah and Annie.

Whistler demonstrated his early mastery of etching in this work, ultimately earning him a reputation as the new Rembrandt, the most celebrated Old Master in this medium. The lamp provides a central axis from which the figures revolve as each responds to the welcome light. Deborah, mainly cast in shadow at right, focuses on her needlework in traditional female role-play. Seymour, in contrast at left, appears relaxed as he stretches outward in the glow to read his newspaper, thus portrayed as a man of the world. Behind the lamp, slightly left of center, Haden's partner, Dr. James Traer, examines a book at the table, demonstrating his continuing education. The complexity of chiaroscuro (contrast of light and shadow) is beautifully captured via the various perceptions of light as it filters throughout the room and between the various figures and objects it illuminates. Whistler would later evolve away from such complexity toward a simpler Art for Art's Sake aesthetic.