For reasons that are beyond me, the image most popularly associated with Whistler is not, as it is with most artists, one of his artistic pinnacles; but, at least in my opinion, one of his least successful and least interesting works, Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist’s Mother, known commonly at “Whistler’s Mother”.

How this particular painting became an icon of American art is a mystery I find too uninteresting to pursue. Whistler’s overall body of work, however, his muted tonalist masterpieces, evocative portraits and stunningly beautiful etchings, make him one of the most under-appreciated “famous” artists that I can bring to mind.

While many of his Victorian contemporaries spoke boldly in voices of Academic clarity or Pre-Raphaelite finesse, and the more adventurous shouted with Impressionistic abandon, Whistler… whispered.

Influenced both by the free brushwork of Impressionism and the solid foundation of Academic training (like many of the so-called “American Impressionists”), Whistler, even more than the others, took great inspiration from the spare, open and visually poetic compositions of Japanese prints, which were a popular import into England and Europe at the time.

Though he is considered an American painter, Whistler, like Sargent, spent the better part of his life in Europe (England, actually) and was European in his sensibilities.

The son of an engineer, Whistler went to the West Point Military Academy, where he did poorly but came away with enough acumen from drawing class to be employed mapping the entire U.S. coast for the Military, a job he hated almost as much as school, though the etching skills he acquired would serve him well later.

Whistler despised the way Americans held art and artists in low esteem in comparison to Europeans (a situation that continues to this day, as far as I can tell); and on leaving to seek artistic training in Europe, never returned to the U.S. He subsequently spent much effort, in the course of his continual re-invention of his persona, denying his birthplace in Lowell, Massachusetts — alternately claiming to be a disenfranchised Southern aristocrat or born in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Whistler’s antics, his often arrogant and abrasive personality, dandified appearance and relentless self-promotion can be as misleading as his iconic portrait of his mother in discerning the real painter. For that, seek out his other portraits, like Purple and Rose: The Large Leizen of the Six Marks (one of my favorites in the Philadelphia Museum of Art) or Symphony in White, No 2: The Little White Girl (image above, top); or his beautiful, poetic “nocturnes”, soft harmonies of mist and atmosphere, like Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea (above, bottom).

In these works, and his masterful etchings (Whistler is my second favorite etcher next to Rembrandt), you can see Whistler as the major figure in art that his rather drab portrait of his mother and overly colorful personal behavior might otherwise obscure.

Fortunately, there are many resources on Whistler, numerous books, including a very nice and inexpensive Dover book of his etchings, and lots of web resources, some of which I’ve gathered for you below.

If you live in or near New York, now is a good time to re-discover Whistler, as the Frick Collection is presenting a beautiful little show culled from their own impressive holdings: Portraits, Pastels, Prints: Whistler in The Frick Collection from now until August 23, 2009.

If you’re not familiar with the “real” Whistler, don’t let him hide behind his mother’s skirts, seek out his quiet brilliance in the paintings and etchings where he composes his visual “symphonies”.

I occasionally make the assertion, in my posts about artists like Jan van Eyck, Antonello da Messina, Albrecht Altdorfer and Matthias Grünewald, that prior to the modern era of motion pictures, artists at various times were the special effects wizards of their day — dazzling those who viewed their works with displays of technical virtuosity, monumental scale and dramatic scenes of exotic landscapes, catastrophic events, and vivid imaginings.

A stellar case in point is John Martin, a romantic painter active in the first half of the 19th Century, who was unabashed in his efforts to wow audiences with his large scale paintings of Biblical and literary events.

His paintings were in a way more artistic versions of “dioramas” or “panoramas”, staged at the time as popular entertainments, that utilized images painted on large cloths, theatrical lighting and sometimes props like potted plants, to amuse the public in a way that presaged movies. The diorama makers, in turn, copied Martin’s work, knowing a good thing to steal when they saw it.

Martin’s paintings are said to have been a significant influence on pioneering movie director D. W. Griffith, who sought to impress audiences with his moving scenes of great drama and catastrophe.

In the latter years of his career, Martin was working on a large scale triptych of Biblical scenes, The Last Judgement, The Great Day of His Wrath (image above, with details, large version here) and The Plains of Heaven.

As someone who spent many happy hours as a child watching huge electromagnets unload metal from railroad cars into the steel mill that was about a block from my house in northern Delaware, I find a particular resonance in the urban landscapes of Minnesota artist Michael Kareken.

In them Kareken finds rich subject matter in the jumbled piles of twisted metal in a scrap yard in Minneapolis and the textured heaps of scrap paper in a recycling plant near his studio in St. Paul.

He explores the shifting piles of metal, made rich in texture and color by varying degrees of chrome and rust, realistically rendering geometries that would have satisfied the most enthusiastic cubist; and sifts through the landslides of scrap paper to find shimmering patterns of light and dark, intersecting in waves of shadows.

When looking through his gallery of recent paintings, it’s worth clicking on the “Download” link at the top of the bar of thumbnails to get a larger resolution version of the works.

You can see something of the scale of Kareken’s paintings in the photos of his studio.

There is also a section of his drawings, that finds him investigating many of the same themes, but with the emphasis on value over color.

In addition his site contains an archive of older work that explores other themes, including figurative work and interiors.

Kareken is participating in a Father/Son Art Show at Schuerman Fine Art, in which he and his six year old son Owen display their art along with three other sets of father & son artists. The show runs from June 18 to July 31, 2009.

[Via Painting Perceptions]