In Tate Britain
Walk Through British Art: 1840
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James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects of his personality: his art is characterized by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother, the revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers.
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Artist as subject
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong, addressed 11 Elgin Avenue, London
27 April 1887
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong, addressed 11 Elgin Avenue, London
13 April 1888
Stanhope Alexander Forbes, recipient: Elizabeth Forbes Letter from Stanhope Forbes to Elizabeth Armstrong
7 April 1888
Anita Bartle, Grant Richards (London, UK) This is my Birthday
1902
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed 26 Red Lion Square, London
[August–September 1915]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
[c.July–August 1915]
Film and audio
Podcast
Walks of art: Dolly Alderton on Monet and the Thames
The writer and journalist wanders along the river and explores its hidden depths
Watch
This is Britain: Vivienne Westwood
This is Britain: The Home of British Art. Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood takes us on a personal tour of Tate ...
Features
Art Term
British impressionism
British impressionism describes the work of artists working in Britain in the late nineteenth-century who were influenced by the ideas ...
Art Term
Luminism
Luminism means roughly, the painting of light and is applied specifically to the American landscape painters of the Hudson River ...
Art Term
Tone
The lightness or darkness of something – this could be a shade, or how dark or light a colour appears
Art Term
Aesthetic movement
The aesthetic movement was a late nineteenth century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake’ emphasising the ...
Art Term
Japonisme
Japonisme is a French term coined in the late nineteenth century to describe the craze for Japanese art and design ...
Read
People behind the pictures - Painting with Light
In the early years of photography, photographers and painters collaborated, borrowed and shared ideas, ushering in a period of innovation ...
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Forgotten Faces comprises seventeen portraits or figure paintings and three sculptures ranging between 1896 – a year before the foundation of ...
Tate Etc
The deliberate accident in art: Blots
Ever since Leonardo da Vinci urged artists to search for inspiration in the dirt on walls or the streaked patterns ...
Tate Papers
Listening for the Sublime: Aural-Visual Improvisations in Nineteenth-Century Musical Art
Music’s capacity to expose the contradictions which emerged within late nineteenth-century understandings of the sublime is explored in relation ...
Tate Etc
Art for fiction's sake: The art of writing
In the Studio: Will Self tracks the ever-changing relationship between the literary and visual arts from John Keats to J ...
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