The Missing Sitter
July 14 2016


Whistler’s Mother
was actually entitled 
Arrangement in Grey and Black 
No. 1.

So was there no No. 2
because there was no doing better?
Or had he hit a dead end, and moved on?

Grey and Black
because he was a painter
pre-occupied with composition, technique, contrast.
Not politics or narrative
but shades of light.
Not subject matter,
but the aesthetics
of paint on canvas.

And as it turns out
she was only sitting-in
because the model didn’t show up.
Yet we all know Whistler’s mother.
And think of James
as the dutiful son.

Forgetting
that in some alternate history
he was smitten by the beauty of the missing sitter
and spent the rest of his art
rendering his new-found love
in salacious colour, immodestly garbed.

The banal beauty of youth
so many others have painted 
countless times.
While the grey old lady
in the shapeless shawl
still fascinates us.

You let your art out into the world
and it’s no longer yours.
Each viewer remakes it,
each reader 
has her say.

Even titles change. 
The immortal mother
in black and grey.

I read about this in Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac, which consists of a daily poem along with a small vignette of literature or history or art, and drops into my inbox each weekday like a delightful little indulgence. (So if it turns out this story is apocryphal or embellished, don’t blame me!) 

When I read Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, I immediately realized that Whistler had a whole differently take on what he was trying to do with this portrait:  very different than the take Whistler’s Mother would lead us to presume. And when you learn about the missing sitter, it’s especially clear that the painting wasn’t about his mother at all! 

So I begin with a literal dissection of the formal title. It seems to suggest an artist pre-occupied with aesthetics and technique, not content. There is a purity and single-mindedness to this that appeals to me. 

Although I think the delight of this poem is my whimsical little alternate history. Instead of the sober upper-case “Artist” and dutiful son we think of, Whistler becomes infatuated; running off with his lover and spending the rest of his life making second-rate art.

The story of Whistler’s Mother made me think of unintended consequence and happy accident. Would the painting have ever become as famous and loved if things had gone as planned?

It also made me think about ideas of beauty:  the conventional propinquity of youth; and another kind of beauty that comes out of dignity and perseverance and attachment. 

And also, as the poem ends, about the distance between an artist’s intent and how his work is perceived. This may be more true of poetry that visual art. Each reader inhabits a poem differently. She see things the writer never intended. (Not that I’m reluctant to take credit!) A different reading at a different time and place can transform meaning. So you let your work out into the world, and then must let it go. Creation is a collaborative act between the writer and the reader, the artist and the viewer.