Painting thought of as music · 1860 -1903

By naming his portraits arrangements and harmonies, Whistler invites us to first look at the tonal accords, silhouettes and rhythm of the surface.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in 1834 in Lowell, United States, and died in London in 1903. Formed between America, Paris and London, he defended an autonomous painting, appreciated for its color relationships as much as for its subject. From the 1860s, he adopted a musical vocabulary - symphonies, harmonies, nocturnes and arrangements - in order to look away from the anecdote. Arrangement in gray and black n° 1, painted in 1871 and known as Whistler's Mother, became the most famous example. The profile pose, the dark curtain, the gray wall and the frames compose a balance of rectangles and sober values. In the Harmonies in pink, green or black, the models keep their identity but above all participate in an agreement of silhouette, fabric and background. Whistler simplifies contours, reduces depth and gives equal importance to voids. This aesthetic, linked to the idea of art for art's sake, transforms the portrait into a visual experience comparable to listening to a musical composition. The selection "Arrangements and harmonies of James McNeill Whistler" notably compares Arrangement in gray and black n° 1 - James McNeill Whistler and Harmony in pink and green: Carmen - James McNeill Whistler. His reading favors space.

At Whistler, the musical title does not erase the model: it teaches us to see how a silhouette, a wall and a color produce their agreement together.