Whistler: the Gentle Art of Making Enemies

Arts & Activities, Nov, 2003 by Barbara Herberholz

Video/50 min./$29.95. Level: Higher Ed. Home Vision Entertainment, 4423 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60640, (800) 826-3456.

This 19th-century American artist, is viewed from several angles in this enlightening video. His early years at West Point are noted in Academy records, which showed a number of his demerits and inattention to things military. Later, working as a painter, etcher and interior designer in Paris and London, he was renowned for his wit, style and elegance. His work is ardently discussed and explored by several vehement critics acting as Whistler's contemporaries who argue about, praise and deplore his style of painting, which was a departure from the academic norm of the time. We see several of his paintings come to life as models and background merge, and explanations of his way of constructing a painting are revealed. For information about this program, circle No. 397 on the Reader Service Card.