Whistler in Amboise

The Clock Tower Amboise, James McNeill Whistler

In 1888, in Amboise, James McNeill Whistler (known as ‘Jimmy’) had never been so happy. He was on his honeymoon, with his beloved Trixie in his beloved France. He was fifty, Beatrix was thirty. It was his first marriage, her second. They had known each other for many years.

Whistler had always admired Beatrix from afar. She was a talented artist, stylish, educated and cultured with an attractive personality. She was dark, foreign looking. Whistler was delighted when she told him there was gipsy blood in her family. Beatrice was plumpish and tall, Whistler was short and slight. He was dwarfed beside her.

A mutual friend engineered the marriage:

I was dining with them,...they were obviously greatly attracted to each other …

‘Jemmy, I said, will you marry Mrs. Godwin?'

'Certainly,' he replied.

'Mrs. Godwin,' I said, 'will you marry Jemmy?'

‘Certainly,' she replied.

‘When?' I asked.

'Oh, some day,' said Whistler.

‘That won't do' I said, 'we must have a date.'

They agreed that I should choose the day,...the church...the clergyman and who to give the bride away. I...got the Chaplain of the House of Commons to perform the ceremony…

I happened to meet the bride the day before the marriage in the street:

‘Don't forget to-morrow,' I said.

‘No,' she replied, 'I am just going to buy my trousseau.'

'A little late for that, is it not?' I asked.

'No,' she laughed '...I am only going to buy a new toothbrush and a new sponge...one ought to have new ones when one marries.'

Wanting to see the châteaux of the Loire, they chose the Touraine for their honeymoon. Whistler in straw hat and white shoes was in his element. For the first time in his life, he was truly content, happy and relaxed in his wife’s company, drawing and sketching together. Chateau d’ Amboise and The Clock Tower Amboise were filed under 'French Plates' in Whistler's studio.

Chateau d’ Amboise, James McNeill Whistler

He wrote home to a friend:

‘I have brought away something lovely from Amboise-and on my return to London will send you one of the first proofs to hang up in your diplomatic breakfast room’

Whistler was devoted to Beatrice. He was proud of her and encouraged her talent. Her design for a beautiful memorial window for All Saints Church, Orton in Cumbria shows a girl with angels in a flower-studded meadow. Beatrice was also an accomplished etcher and a caricaturist. A Caricature of Oscar Wilde shows her sharp sense of humour. She drew portraits, illustrated books, designed jewellery, sang beautifully and gave singing lessons.

Whistler liked to have her with him in the studio when he was working. If she could not be there, he took the pictures he was painting home for her to see.

They lived in Paris until Beatrice was diagnosed with cancer in 1894. They moved to London where Whistler spent eighteen months looking for a cure which did not exist. His portraits of her, The Siesta and By the Balcony were drawn during this time.

Beatrice died at St. Jude's Cottage in Hampstead Heath on 10 May 1896. She was buried on her 39th birthday, 12 May, in Chiswick Old Cemetery. They had been together for a fleeting eight years. A devastated Whistler was inconsolable. He went into mourning until he himself died seven years later. He was buried in the same tomb as his beloved wife.

In 1877 Ruskin savaged Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket. He used musical terms such as arrangements, harmonies and nocturnes for titles of his paintings.

For the painting, Whistler concocted a recipe, which he called ‘sauce’, and painted thin washes of it onto the canvas with fast brush strokes to give an impression of smoke blowing across the night sky. He dripped paint across the surface to convey the effect of fireworks. He wanted to capture a mood, how he felt when he was there. This began his transition from realism to impressionism.

Ruskin said in a printed criticism:

[I] never expected to hear a coxcomb (a vain, conceited, dandy) ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

Whistler sued him for libel. The case was heard in the High Court. Counsel for Ruskin, Attorney General Sir John Holker, cross-examined Whistler: ‘

What is the subject of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket?’

Whistler: ‘It is a night piece and represents the fireworks at Cremorne Gardens.

John Holker: ‘Not a view of Cremorne?’

Whistler: ‘If it were A View of Cremorne it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement. That is why I call it a nocturne.’

John Holker: ‘Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?’

Whistler: ‘Oh, I 'knock one off' possibly in a couple of days – one day to do the work and another to finish it..’

John Holker: ‘The labour of two days, is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?’

Whistler’s answer defended for all time all those who work in creative fields.

‘No. I ask it for the knowledge gained in the work of a lifetime.’

The jury, whose reaction to the painting was derisive, reached a double edged sword verdict in favour of Whistler but cynically awarded him a farthing, the least valuable coin of the realm, in damages.

The cost of the court case, together with huge debts accumulated from building his dream home, designed by his friend, the architect E. W. Godwin, bankrupted Whistler. His paintings, house, contents and belongings were auctioned to pay his debts.

Ruskin, immensely wealthy, did not suffer financially but his reputation as an art critic was damaged. With the rise of Impressionism, he was now seen as old-fashioned, set in his ways, blinkered and out-of-date.

Monet is credited with kick starting the Impressionist movement but it could just as well have been Whistler. Whistler and Monet, close friends working in London, hero worshipped Turner and spent hours studying his paintings. Whistler’s style pre-empted that of Monet. When he returned to France, Monet painted Impression: Sunrise which gave Impressionism its name.

Degas so admired Whistler, he invited him to exhibit with the Impressionists, but Whistler turned him down. What a pity. Had he accepted he might have become, like Degas and Monet, household names. Instead, Whistler is remembered for his infamous court case with Ruskin and for a portrait of his mother, Arrangement in Grey and Black.

For some inexplicable reason this wonderful, evocative, masterpiece attracted parody, ridicule and mockery. To this day, it is satirised in greeting cards, magazines and cartoons. Bought by the French government, it’s in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.