A fascinating look at the partnership of artist James McNeill Whistler and his chief model, Joanna Hiffernan, and the iconic works of art resulting from their life together “[A] lavish volume. . . . Illuminating. . . . MacDonald’s deep research has . . . unearthed important new facts.”—Gioia Diliberto, Wall Street Journal In 1860 James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Joanna Hiffernan (1839–1886) met and began a significant professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistler’s works, including his controversial Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that fascinated and challenged viewers with its complex associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This luxuriously illustrated volume provides the first comprehensive account of Hiffernan’s partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s—a period when Whistler was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. Packed with new insights into the creation, marketing, and cultural context of Whistler’s iconic works, this study also traces their resonance for his fellow artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, and Gustav Klimt.
A fascinating look at the partnership of artist James McNeill Whistler and his chief model, Joanna Hiffernan, and the iconic works of art resulting from their life together “[A] lavish volume. . . . Illuminating. . . . MacDonald’s deep research has . . . unearthed important new facts.”—Gioia Diliberto, Wall Street Journal In 1860 James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Joanna Hiffernan (1839–1886) met and began a significant professional and personal relationship. Hiffernan posed as a model for many of Whistler’s works, including his controversial Symphony in White paintings, a trilogy that fascinated and challenged viewers with its complex associations with sex and morality, class and fashion, academic and realist art, Victorian popular fiction, aestheticism and spiritualism. This luxuriously illustrated volume provides the first comprehensive account of Hiffernan’s partnership with Whistler throughout the 1860s and 1870s—a period when Whistler was forging a reputation as one of the most innovative and influential artists of his generation. A series of essays discusses how Hiffernan and Whistler overturned artistic conventions and sheds light on their interactions with contemporaries, including Gustave Courbet, for whom she also modeled. Packed with new insights into the creation, marketing, and cultural context of Whistler’s iconic works, this study also traces their resonance for his fellow artists, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, and Gustav Klimt.
American painter James McNeill Whistler probably never expected the portrait of his mother that graces the cover of this book to become a cultural icon. Begun on a whim when another model failed to show up for a session, the painting, familiarly known simply as "Whistler's Mother," has become one of the best known and most beloved in the world and now hangs in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Nor, we can be sure, did Anna McNeill Whistler expect that her "cook book" would one day be published and thereby enjoyed by myriad readers beyond her own family. Irreverently referred to by her son as her "Bible," the manuscript book was kept faithfully by Mrs. Whistler of many years and contained recipes for such varied and delectable dishes as bread-and-butter pudding, "oisters," "mackroons," "whigs," quince marmalade, and pickled walnuts. Bequeathed by Whistler's sister-in-law, along with other books and letters from his estate, to the University of Glasgow, the manuscript has been edited for this publication by Margaret MacDonald, research fellow at the Centre for Whistler Studies at the university. MacDonald also provides a fascinating account of the Whistler household in the United States, Russia, and Britain, offering a rare and delightful glimpse into nineteenth-century family life. The recipes are both delicious and easy to prepare; just in reading them, one can sense the flavors and aromas of good home cooking. They are presented both in Mrs. Whistler's words-"To a pint of pulped apples add the juice of a Lemon and a little of the peel shred fine, 5 eggs and a gill of cream . . ."-and in terms more familiar to the modern cook. Where deciphering listed ingredients-such as rose-water, emptins, isinglass, or pearl ash-might otherwise prove perplexing, these terms are fully explained and their modern successors substituted. Among the illustrations in this new edition of Margaret MacDonald's 1979 classic are some of Whistler's most evocative drawings and prints of shopping, cooking, and dining, many in full color, as well as portraits of Whistler and his mother and pages from the original cook book.
In "Palaces in the Night", MacDonald looks at a key period in James Whistler's career, examining his unique vision of Venice and his development of the medium of etching. 120 illustrations.
In September 1879, James McNeill Whistler boarded the Venice-bound night train in Paris. He was forty-five years old and bankrupt. What was to be a three-month stay in the Italian city--long enough to complete a set of twelve etchings--stretched to fourteen months. When Whistler returned to London, he brought back over fifty magnificent etchings and a hundred pastels, far in excess of the original commission. In "Palaces in the Night, "Margaret F. MacDonald looks at this key period in Whistler's career, examining his unique vision of Venice and his development of the medium of etching. She shows how he reestablished himself in the art world of London and Paris, turning disaster and disgrace into profit and prestige. Lavishly illustrated with some of the most beautiful and intriguing images Whistler ever produced, this book provides a fascinating account of a pivotal period in the artist's long and complicated career. Whistler's aim was to restore both his fortune and reputation with the Venetian etchings. To that end he included views of familiar sights like the Riva degli Schiavoni and San Marco, but he also captured quiet backwaters, secret gardens, and lantern-lit windows that did not appear in any guidebook. His selection of views and compositions, plus the expressiveness of his line and printing, differentiated his work from that of others, and MacDonald shows the process by which Whistler selected, shaped, and edited his Venetian corpus. He drew figures in distinctively Italian costume, each an individual, moving, gesturing, and interacting with other real people. An appendix of Whistler's letters from Venice provides an entertaining account of his time there and also deepens the reader's understanding of how the city challenged and inspired him.
Every man has a story to tell and this was no less true of the hundreds of emigrants from the Highlands and the Hebrides who crossed the Atlantic from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century to settle in North America. This selection of Scottish Gaelic songs brings to light the revealing and often touching poems of some twenty such emigrants. Focusing on themes of emigration and exile, their subjects range from the biblical motif of liberation from tyranny (pre-destined by the Creator who provided a land of bounty across the seas), to the happier future anticipated for his daughter by a loyalist fugitive in North Carolina; from a sense of security on the part of a clergyman settled in Pictou County after the disruption in his homeland, to the disenchantment of an emigrant to Manitoba who longed to move on to North Dakota. Their tone may be lyrical, elegaic, or satirical. Songs from various parts of the new world – the Carolinas, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and the Canadian west – are included in Gaelic with a facing English translation. A short biography of each bard prefaces the selections attributed to him or her. Detailed notes provide a guide to sources and variant texts, elucidate obscure passages, and define the social and cultural context in which the songs originated. An appendix reproduces the tunes for nine of these songs. This is a book that will inform and entertain both the specialist and the general reader.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.