What a delight it always is to visit Rouen, the North-Western French city and capital of the Normandy region.

Apart from the magnificent hills, lakes and the River Seine, the historical and architectural wonders dating back to the Roman Empire here are absolutely stunning. One can add to these delights an on-going exhibition at the Beaux Arts Museum in Rouen, exclusively devoted to the works of the painter James Abbott Whistler, who was born in the United States but lived and worked in Paris and London.

His enchanting oil creations are mostly devoted to scenes of hills, lakes, rivers and forests illuminated by a rising moon, a setting sun and vice versa.

The particular technique of these explosive landscapes, and also of many of his unusual portraits, was immediately named as “Whistlerism” by art experts of the era, an appellation soon forgotten following the artist’s demise in 1903 in London at age 69.

The wide variety of Whistler’s paintings as well, as his excitement for living an adventurous life, can better be understood if one follows the details of his own itinerary as a child, as an adolescent and then as a grown man and artist full of various passions.

An exhibition in Rouen, France, pays homage to the American-born rebel painter James Whistler

The son of an American railway engineer who moved from country to country setting up train lines, the young Whistler had already lived in many parts of the United States, in St. Petersburg, in London and in Paris. While still in his teens, Whistler could speak many languages, and he had already painted landscapes and portraits inspired by scenes and people in the aforementioned cities.

In 1855, at age 21, he happened to be in Paris with his family due to his father’s work. Whistler was fascinated by the creative, intellectual movements led by writers, musicians and, of course, painters in the Latin Quarter neighbourhood of the French capital.

He immediately decided to settle down there all by himself and started painting landscapes for his own pleasure, and portraits of passersby in order to earn a living.

The young Whistler’s wild and uncompromising behaviour, not to forget his artistic talents, attracted many well-known French personalities of the era, such as painters Henri Fantin-Letour, Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet and the legendary author Charles Baudelaire, who all remained Whistler’s close friends and admirers.

Speaking of portraits, Whistler obstinately declined to obey the much followed artistic rule of the era of never using black or dark brown paints on the canvas. His many self portraits, not to forget the most famous one of his own mother titled Whistler’s Mother, were much criticised by the specialists for violating the above-mentioned rule, but were nevertheless enthusiastically relished by art lovers who had become his fans. This maternal portrait was often called the ‘Old Mona Lisa’ by another group of critics who had already begun admiring the original and unusual characteristics of Whistler’s techniques.

While looking at his works at the Rouen exhibition, it is impossible to ignore the fact that, impressed by natural scenes and expressions on people’s faces (including his own), this rebel genius remained motivated all his life by the emotions that the experience of watching the realities around oneself provokes, be it a human face, an animal’s body or a scene of nature.

‘Whistler — The Butterfly Effect’ is on display at the Beaux Arts Museum in Rouen, France, from May 24-September 22, 2024

The writer is an art critic based in Paris. He can be reached at zafmasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 14th, 2024