Andrew Lambirth

The painter of poetry

Whistler's paintings of the Thames are allusive and atmospheric, but they also show his skill in drawing

‘Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge’, 1859–63, by James McNeill Whistler. Credit: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts 
issue 16 November 2013

The famous court case in which Ruskin accused Whistler of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’ continues to rumble through the public response to art in this country. The man in the street, the man on the Clapham Omnibus and most of the men who drive black cabs all like their art to be recognisable.

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