In summing up the painting's impact, author Martha Tedeschi has stated: " Whistler's Mother, Wood's American Gothic, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream have all achieved something that most paintings — regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value — have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer.

* James McNeill Whistler — 3 paintings including Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, also known as Whistler's Mother

File: Whistlers Mother high res. jpg | James McNeill Whistler, Whistler's Mother, a portrait of the artists mother, 1871

His most famous painting is Whistler's Mother ( 1871 ), the revered and oft parodied portrait of motherhood.

Whistler's Mother | Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 ( 1871 ), popularly known as Whistler's Mother, Musée d ' Orsay, Paris

By 1871, Whistler returned to portraits and soon produced his most famous painting, the nearly monochromatic full-length figure entitled Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, but usually, and incorrectly, referred to as Whistler's Mother.

From the start, Whistler's Mother sparked varying reactions, including parody, ridicule, and reverence, which have continued to today.

" Whistler's Mother, Wood's American Gothic, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream have all achieved something that most paintings — regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value — have not: they communicate a specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer.

In 1891, with help from his close friend Stéphane Mallarmé, Whistler's Mother was purchased by the French government for 4, 000 francs.

Beatrix and her sisters Rosalind Birnie Philip and Ethel Whibley posed for many of Whistler's paintings and drawings ; with Ethel Whibley being the model for Mother of pearl and silver: The Andalusian ( 1888 – 1900 ).

The title Rhapsody in Blue was suggested by Ira Gershwin after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James McNeill Whistler paintings, which bear titles such as Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and Arrangement in Grey and Black ( better known as Whistler's Mother ).

This broke from the programme's tradition by using a subplot with more developed characters – instead of being the sole centre of attention, Bean here interacted with a suburban Californian family he stayed with while overseeing the transfer of Whistler's Mother to a Los Angeles art gallery.

* Richard Josey ( 1840 – 1906 ), engraver of James McNeill Whistler's Whistler's Mother.

James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, 1871, popularly known as Whistler's Mother, Musée d ' Orsay, Paris

Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler.

< Center >~ Whistler's Mother ~</ center >< center > Issue of 1934 </ center >

For example, in 1934 the U. S. Post office issued a stamp engraved with a stylized image of " Whistler's Mother ," accompanied by the slogan " In Memory and In Honor of the Mothers of America.

" Both the " Whistler's Mother " and " Thomas Carlyle " were engraved by the English engraver Richard Josey.

* In Bean, the portrait of Whistler's Mother is used as a plot device, with Mr. Bean destroying and surreptitiously replacing the painting.

Whistler's Mother, a portrait of Anna, by their first son, James McNeill Whistler, is among the most famous paintings in American art.

Whistler's elegance and wit ensured his success as a portrait artist among the fashionable and he painted many members of London society, including Edith Sitwell, Cecil Beaton and the other members of the set which he belonged to and which became known as the " Bright Young Things ".

* Anna McNeill Whistler ( 1804 – 1881 ), mother of the artist James McNeill Whistler and model for the painting Whistler's Mother.

Anna Matilda ( née McNeill ) Whistler ( September 27, 1804 – January 3, 1881 ) was the mother of American-born, British-based painter, James McNeill Whistler, who made her the subject of his famous painting " Arrangement in Grey & Black No. 1 ", often titled, Whistler's Mother.

* Whistler's Mother: the Life of Anna McNeill Whistler, by Elizabeth Mumford.

Whistler's painting was widely noticed, although upstaged by Manet's more shocking painting Le déjeuner sur l ' herbe.

Countering criticism by traditionalists, Whistler's supporters insisted that the painting was " an apparition with a spiritual content " and that it epitomized his theory that art should be concerned essentially with the arrangement of colors in harmony, not with a literal portrayal of the natural world.

It was accepted as a universal icon of motherhood by the worldwide public, which was not particularly aware or concerned with Whistler's aesthetic theories.

Whistler's approach to portraiture in his late maturity was described by one of his sitters, Arthur J. Eddy, who posed for the artist in 1894:

Unhappy with the first decorative result of the original scheme designed by Thomas Jeckyll ( 1827-1881 ), Frederick Leyland left the room in Whistler's care to make minor changes, " to harmonize " the room whose primary purpose was to display Leyland's china collection.

The case came to trial the following year after delays caused by Ruskin's bouts of mental illness, while Whistler's financial condition continued to deteriorate.

This was much less than what an American collector might have paid, but that would not have been so prestigious by Whistler's reckoning.

Countering criticism by traditionalists, Whistler's supporters insisted that the painting was " an apparition with a spiritual content " and that it epitomized his theory that art should be concerned essentially with the arrangement of colors in harmony, not with a literal portrayal of the natural world.

Although others said while Whistler's painting was widely noticed, he was upstaged by Manet's more shocking painting Le déjeuner sur l ' herbe.

Debussy's nocturnes were inspired by Whistler's paintings.

This was followed by The Four Masters of Etching ( 1883 ), with original etchings by Sir FS Haden, Jules Jacquemart, JM Whistler, and Alphonse Legros ; Etching in England ( 1895 ); an English edition ( 1894 ) of E Michel's Rembrandt ; and a study and a catalogue of Whistler's Etchings ( 1886, 2nd edition 1899 ).

The painting is, displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design in the Musée d ' Orsay in Paris, having been bought by the French state in 1891.

Whistler's works, including this one, had attracted a number of imitators and a number of similarly posed and restricted colour palette paintings soon appeared particularly by American expatriate painters.

Later the public's interpretation of the symbolism of the painting went even farther afield, and it appeared in a myriad of commercial advertisements and parodies, such as doctored images of the subject watching a television, sometimes accompanied by slogans such as " Whistler's Mother is Off Her Rocker.

Although dangerous and unpopular, the bridge was the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in London, and was the subject of paintings by many significant artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman and James McNeill Whistler, including Whistler's Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, and his controversial Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket.

Whistler's mother noted in her diary, " the great artist remarked to me ‘ Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination .’"

In January 1864, Whistler's very religious and very proper mother arrived in London, upsetting her son's bohemian existence and temporarily exacerbating family tensions.

" Adding to the emotional drama was Whistler's fondness for Leyland's wife, Frances, who separated from her husband in 1879.

Having acquired the centerpiece of the room, Whistler's painting of The Princess from the Land of Porcelain, American industrialist and aesthete Charles Lang Freer purchased the entire room in 1904 from Leyland's heirs, including Leyland's daughter and her husband, the British artist Val Prinsep.

She may have been introduced to Whistler's work by the art collector Charles Lang Freer, whom she met on Capri around 1899, and who bought one of her early works.

While the poses are almost identical, Brooks removes the little girl and all the details of Whistler's domestic scene, leaving only Borgatti and her piano — an image of an artist completely focused on her art.

Mary Cassatt painted many famous Impressionist works that idealize the innocence of girls and the mother-daughter bond, for example her 1884 work Children on the Beach During the same era, Whistler's Harmony in Gray and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander and The White Girl depict girls in the same light.