Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship (review)

Can one sustain a whole book on the subject of a single painting? It is a difficult task, and for the restorer, who spends months or years with a painting, the work literally looms larger than life. This myopic lens can distort the viewing, yet Sarah Walden, in Whistler and His Mother, provides a larger context for seeing anew. Walden offers a unique approach to the extensive literature on James McNeill Whistler.

The title, Whistler and His Mother: An Unexpected Relationship, is in some ways misleading, but it is also telling, as the book is largely about the history of the painting widely known as "Whistler's Mother." To Walden, the "Mother" is emphatically the painting Arrangement in Grey and Black, no. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother (1871), a work she painstakingly restored. Of the nine chapters, only one concerns the relationship Whistler had with his mother; the portrait acts instead as the pivotal point around which Walden shapes her story.

Reading the book, I found myself conflicted. As a Whistler specialist I was aware that not all the material was accurate, and at times it was glaringly incorrect. I found Walden's reliance on outdated texts, and her disregard for more recent and critical interpretations of Whistler's work, a major oversight. The book also could have been copyedited more thoroughly, as typographical errors interrupted the reading. But the writing is lively and the author's position unique.

For a lay reader, or even a nineteenth-century generalist, the book is approachable and quite fascinating. Walden writes in a refreshing style, devoid of the technical jargon often associated with the scientific nature of restoration. She is a historian with an ability to see the whole picture at once, rather than only the minutiae—a rare skill, as the restorer spends much of his or her time looking closely at the work. Walden ably offers both the conservator's insight into the painting and the story that necessarily accompanies the work. Walden is well aware of the consequences of Whistler's lack of traditional training and the complex history of the painting, which essentially become the context for the book.

One of Walden's more interesting points emerges from the nature of her restoration. As she uncovers the work she becomes aware of the painting's inconsistencies, its inherent mystery. The canvas acts as a narrative on which she pins her story. In her introduction she states, "It was as if the picture, like the portrait of Dorian Grey in the story of Oscar Wilde, had some inner life of its own that would be mysteriously disrupted at the first touch to its fragile, forbidding surface" (9–10). She hints at the complexity of this work, from its delicate surface to Whistler's unorthodox approach to painting. The painting is a mystery, from its unpredictable beginnings in Aestheticism to its subsequent history as an icon of American motherhood. For Walden, the portrait's complexity resides in its restoration. As she uncovered its yellowed skin of varnish she was able to reveal the hidden text. What becomes apparent to Walden is that the work, with all its failings as a traditionally painted masterpiece, belies its avant-garde origins. Whistler's unconventional handling of paint, though frustrating for the restorer, "foreshadowed later experiments in painting, not the least in his own country" (18). As the sensitive restorer, Walden provides an insider's look at the questions raised during restoration and attempts to provide answers about one of the more elusive of painters.

Walden is at her best in the introduction and the chapter dedicated to the close restoration of the painting, in which she speaks of problems she encountered and raises the important question of how far a conservator can go with the restoration. Even after careful restoration, the portrait "is a perfect example of the limits of the possible, and of the desirable, in restoration" (197). With cleaning...