Symphony in white

In 1861, after returning to Paris for a time, Whistler painted his first famous work, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl. The portrait of his mistress and business manager Joanna Hiffernan was created as a simple study in white; however, others saw it differently. The critic Jules Castagnary thought the painting an allegory of a new bride's lost innocence. Others linked it to Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, a popular novel of the time, or various other literary sources. In England, some considered it a painting in the Pre-Raphaelite manner.In the painting, Hiffernan holds a lily in her left hand and stands upon a bear skin rug (interpreted by some to represent masculinity and lust) with the bear's head staring menacingly at the viewer. The portrait was refused for exhibition at the conservative Royal Academy, but in 1863 it was accepted at the Salon des Refusés in Paris, an event sponsored by Emperor Napoleon III for the exhibition of works rejected from the Salon.

Story

shown at the extraordinary exhibition "Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde" from 13 September 2011 - 15 January 2012. This exhibition explores the British "aesthetic movement" that, in the second half of the 19th century, set out to move away from the ugliness and materialism of the time, by proposing a new idealisation of art and beauty. Painters, poets, decorators and designers defined an artistic style freed from the principles of order and Victorian morality, and allowing the expression of sensuality.

bear

Artist: James Mc Neill Whisler

Uploaded by: Anne

Facts:

Type of artwork: painting
Animal group: other mammal
Type of animal: bear
Sort of location: art museum
Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris