A visiting painting of a stark old woman, the mother of American-born painter James McNeill Whistler, is drawing Hillsdale College students to the Chicago Institute of Art on Saturday.
The trip costs $45 and covers transportation, a ticket, and dinner. Professor of Art Barbara Bushey said everything on display at the institute is worth the visit for students studying art at any level because the works are best experienced in person. Whistler’s “Arrangement in Grey and Black #1,” however, makes the trip more attractive, because it is a visiting exhibit. If the trip goes well, Bushey said she hopes to offer it every three years.
For senior art major Rachael Reynolds, Whistler’s visiting piece is a main draw, because she relates to the story behind the painting.
“He needed a model, so he used his mom, and she couldn’t stand, so he had her sit, and then he needed money, so he pawned it off,” Reynolds said. “It’s very plain, but I find that interesting and relatable. It’s difficult to find models, and making money is hard.”
Bushey said Whistler believed in art for art’s sake, concerning himself with the formal qualities of art such as line, shape, value, color, space, texture, and pattern, rather than the work’s resemblance to a particular thing in the real world.
“He gave his works musical titles,” Bushey said. “Music is the most abstract of all the arts and yet no one is angry that a symphony does not exactly replicate the sound of a babbling brook, for instance.”
Bushey said people can learn about form and composition by studying the work of an artist who was particularly interested in these elements.
President of Alpha Rho Tau, Hillsdale’s art honorary, junior Elsa Lagerquist, said she can never pass up on a chance to visit a museum and that trips like this aren’t just for art majors.
“Appreciating art is basically noticing, getting good at observation, and things will come out of that,” Lagerquist said. “If you go, just start looking at a painting, and connections will form, and it’ll get better and better.”
