Deanna Marohn Bendix

Diabolical Designs.

Paintings, Interiors, and Exhibitions of James McNeill Whistler

Smithsonian Institution Press 1995

Stron XII+329, format: 22x25 cm

100 czarno-białych i 16 kolorowych ilustracji.

Książka wycofana z biblioteki: pieczątki na stronie 1 i 3, wklejka na ostatniej stronie. Stan bardzo dobry.

 
"A landmark study, Bendix has taken a sharply focused look at one artist-designer and has pursued the work carefully with descriptive  clarity, biographical narrative, original sources, and theoretical placement. The book is an important, original contribution to Whistler studies and the  ambient issues of Japonisme, art theory of the late nineteenth century, and art  in context—physical and intellectal." —Richard Martin, curator, Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In Diabolical Designs, Deanna Marohn Bendix chronicles James McNeill Whistler's career as an "agitator" for elevating design. Demonstrating that Whistler's design ideas— seen most fully in his Peacock Roqm—were central to his entire artistic enterprise, Bendix reveals the artist's prominence in the Victorian design reform movement. She unearths rare documentation; public notices (both laudatory and critical), and written appreciation by his colleagues of at least twenty-five interiors designed by Whistler.
Noting that many of his paintings were called "arrangements"—indeed, Whistler's Mother is actually titled Arrangement in Grey and Black- Bendix traces the extension of Whistler's holistic view of art to include the painting's frame and the entire setting in which the work would be seen. His designs for private and public spaces emphasized plain walls, light colors, and empty spaces; his stark interiors not only contrasted dramatically with the fussy Victorian style but pointed the way toward modern interior design.
Bendix compares Whistler's role as a design influence to that of his contemporaries John Ruskin, William Morris, Edward Godwin, and his friend and rival Oscar Wilde. By exploring both well-known and obscure aspects of his career against the backdrop of the design mania of his time and milieu, she reveals Whistler's singular contributions to design renewal in Victorian England.


Contents


Foreword

The Whistler Phenomenon ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1. Manipulating the Press: The Artist as Celebrity 5
 
2. The Dandy Dresses for Battle 27

3. The "Japanese Decorator" in Chelsea  49
 
4. Passage to the Splendor of the Peacock 99

5. From Tite Street to the Rue du Bac  143

6. Whistler as Exhibitioner 205

Notes 269

Bibliography 307

Index 319