Whistler’s Mother

In the worlds’world's most famous museum, the louvreLouvre in Paris, hangs a painting by Americas’America's celebrated artist, James McNeill Whistler. This painting’s formal title is An Arrangement in Gray and Black, but it is better known by the simple name Whistler’s Mother.

Studies have been made to explain this portraitsportrait's almost universal appeal, but what criteria can an art critic use to judge a painting? Critics are not like scientists. They cannot set up controlled experiment’sexperiments in which a number of stimulus are shot into subject’s and data collected on the subjects reactions. No, an art critic relies on inner emotions and sensitivity when analyzing a painting. Analyses of a painting isare very personal.

When you visit Paris and look at WhistlersMotherWhistler's Mother, what will you see? Will you, like most of us, be left wondering about the source of this portraitsportrait's greatness?