James MacNeill Whistler: Uneasy Pieces

James McNeill Whistler was one of the most misinterpreted creative talents of his age. While devoted to the expression of the beautiful, he was among the first to recognize that popularized arts and commercialized leisure were complex, interrelated phenomena that made urban life "modern." Whistler's showmanship had far greater impact than countless imitations of his The White Girl and Portrait of the Painter's Mother might suggest. His purposeful use of past art; his intermingling of private …