James McNeill Whistler

Copy after Ingres’ “Roger déliverant Angélique”

Date 1857
Materials Oil on canvas
Dimensions 82 cm x 53 cm
Marks Signed and inscribed on the rock: “Ingres / Whistler / Paris / 1857”
Further information GLAHA 46395.
Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1980 (11, plate 3).

Note As an art student in Paris, Whistler’s copied Ingres' [link – Key figures] painting Roger déliverant Angélique in the Musée du Luxembourg. Students were encouraged to copy the works of famous painters in order to gain experience and inspiration for when they were ready to paint their own pictures. Whistler's copy shows only one third of Ingres’ painting and some details are missing. It is interesting that he chose to focus on the body of the helpless female, rather than on the rescue story. Whistler was to turn his back on the tradition of painting pictures only to tell a story, and painted many passive female figures that for him symbolised beauty in form. Whistler felt that the principal aim of art was to be beautiful. Notice that in this painting the woman becomes simply a means to depict graceful, flowing form. In this way narrative and detail were unimportant for Whistler.