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Introducing new paradigms, whether in science or the arts, has been often associated with substantial professional risks for an individual. James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 -1903) is an example of an artist who pursued his philosophy of painting in the face of controversy and sometimes very strong criticism. His art sits between Impressionism and Postimpressionism and was also appreciated by the Symbolists. He was one of the most prominent members of the Aesthetic movement that in Britain also included personalities such as the art historian Walter Pater and the writer Oscar Wilde (1 ).
Aesthetics is "the study of the emotions and the mind in relation to their sense of beauty in literature and otherfinearts"(2). Thepoint that washighlycontroversial in Aestheticism was that it separated art form from any social or moral context; thus the "art for art's sake" phrase attributed to the French philosopher Victor Cousin.
Whistler was an American born in Lowell, Massachusetts (3 ). As it were, he spent relatively little time in his native country. As a child he travelled with his parents to St. Petersburg in Russia, where his father was involved in railway construction. The boy received initial arts training there. Back in the US he did something quite different: he was sent to the West Point military academy, from which he, however, did not graduate. In 1855, he went to Paris. There, he studied painting with Charles Gleyre (1808 -1874) and was influenced by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and Henri Fantin-Latour (1836- 1904). He kept in touch with French Symbolist writers, particularly Stéphane Mallarmé(1842-1898). Whistler was also strongly influenced by Japanese aesthetic and collected Oriental artefacts and porcelain. Later he made London his home, although he again moved to...