EXPLORING IDEAS Art, People and Life

Location. This is the first meetup in the new venue, the Keynsham Library. From the train station it's a walk of about 10 minutes to the Library. If you come on the bus (A4 Airport bus), get off at Ashton Way stop and walk down to the High Street. If by car, park in the big car park in Ashton Way.

For refreshments we will have access to tea and coffee only. We are expected to give a donation, so please have some change.

This meetup focuses on James McNeill Whistler's portrait of his mother; what it can say about art and what it can say about life. My 24 questions follow very closely the 49-minute long BBC documentary The Private Life of a Masterpiece, Whistler's Mother (2004). Watch the documentary and consider the questions.

Note The questions are sometimes about art and the painting itself and sometimes about life. The order they appear follows the documentary.
The section between minutes 22 and 32 of the documentary is either not related directly to the painting in question or is very technical and there are no questions on it.

Note 24 questions is a lot. Some require short answers, others longer. We may only be able to tackle, say, half of them. If so, we may do Part 2 a week later for the remaining, depending on how people feel about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00jhpsk/private-life-of-a-masterpiece

1. At the beginning of the doc we see the painting in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. Which of the nouns and adjectives used by the viewers and the narrator to describe the mother ring more true to you? What in the painting gives her those qualities?
2. What do you think of the title Whistler gave to the painting?
3. What makes someone at the age of 14 know what they want to be? To what extent should that knowledge be trusted?
4. How do you account for Whistler's behaviour in the military academy and the Costal Survey?
5. Comment on the mother's wish that her son work hard and his own attitude towards work.
6. What do you think was the most important thing Whistler learnt from Courbet?
7. How do you compare Whistler's aim in his painting The White Girl and the critics' interpretation of it? Why should the painting make Whistler notorious?
8. How does Whistler's art compare with Tracy Emin's art?
9. Why do you think Whistler detested the Victorian affection for cautionary tales and sickly sentiment?
10. What do Whistler's choices of titles of his paintings say about his artistic beliefs? Do you (fully) agree with him?
11. What's your own preference between the mother's qualities as a person and her son's? How do you explain your preference?
12. What does decadent mean? Examples of decadence.
13. What made Whistler distance himself from Courbet, do you think?
14. The creation of his masterpiece 'came about by chance'. Chance, then, in art. How important is chance in life? Is it a result of randomness or contingency?
15. In the painting, comment on
Anna's pose
the colours
the arrangement of what's in the painting.
16. How safe is 'experimenting' in art? And in life?
17. It is clear that Anna's religious beliefs gave her strength when she became a widow with two sons to bring up; and also helped her during the long hours of sitting for her son's painting. If religion does that, why have so many people now, especially in the West, distanced themselves from it?
18. How does an artist decide what is necessary and what is not in a painting?
19. How important do you think is the fact that the lady in the painting is Wistler's mother and not another woman of the same age?
20. 'It would have stood out like a sore thumb'. Do you think that was a good reason for not including it in the exhibition?
21. When you look at the portrait, do you feel The Mother was 'sanctified'?
22. The portrait is a symbol of the traditional American values of 'simplicity, puritanism, self-reliance, not being too showy'. Some would say that today's America no longer represents these values. If so, how do you explain this change?
23. What do you think of the history of the painting, from rejection after rejection to be finally exhibited in the Louvre and loved by the public?
24. What can we learn about art and about life by considering the history of Whistler's painting?

Note Please make sure you watch the documentary at least once before coming to the meetup.