It's an icon. An old woman dressed in black. Why has this painting captured our attention? We don't know the woman, but flash an image of it to a stranger on the street and find that just about anyone has a familiarity with her.
Whistler's title for the painting is "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Artist's Mother." While only a portion of the life-size painting is represented here, one can get an inkling of what captures our fascination. The canvas (representing the wall behind her) is rough but her aged features are softened with delicate layers of paint. Had we not been told we would not know she was cold, sick, could not stand for long and withstood the constant pain of bad teeth. The lace of her white bonnet is portrayed with transparent fragility. Her plain black dress is her statement of years of mourning after the death of her husband. Though we do not see them directly, her eyes are wide open with a kind of readiness.
Whistler says of the painting, "To me, it is interesting as a picture of my mother; but what can or ought the public to care about the identity of the portrait? . . . As music is poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight and subject matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or color."
It captures our attention because of the care Whistler put into it. A harmony of sound (or lack thereof) and color.
