A Fragile Modernism: Whistler and His Impressionist Followers

Robins (Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris 1870-1910), a British art historian at Reading University, writes about a lesser known side of the American-born artist James McNeill Whistler. Spending most of his adult life in Europe, he played a pivotal role in the British art world of the late 19th century, setting the standard ""for judging modern painting in Britain based solely on the surface effect."" Whistler argued that a painting-which is inherently two-dimensional-should be ""looked at with only one eye."" While he did not initially receive much support, by 1886 he was elected president of the Society of British Artists. Basing her study on personal letters and newspaper accounts in addition to Whistler's paintings, Robins has chosen to focus on the years between 1880 and 1892, a period of time when Whistler surrounded himself with a group of British artists intent on using paint to create surface effects in a unique and ""exhilarating"" way. This work makes a cogent argument that they should not be grouped with the French Impressionists, but treated as a separate school of modern painting; it should intrigue the more academic of art buffs. 90 b&w, and 40 color illustrations.