Old Woman with Rags 1858

James Abbott McNeill Whistler made this etching, "Old Woman with Rags," sometime in the late 19th century. This close-up and shadowed portrayal of poverty departs from earlier conventions of social realism. Whistler was an American expatriate working in London at a time when the city's art world was debating the role of academic training and artistic institutions. In his etchings of working-class life, such as this image of an old woman in what appears to be a squalid interior, we see the influence of Japanese prints. He uses the etching needle to reduce detail, flatten space, and emphasize tonal contrasts. The lack of sentimentality is striking. Whistler seems less concerned with documenting social ills, as someone like Gustave Courbet might have been, and more interested in formal experimentation. Was this a progressive attitude or simply a cold one? We might look at the art criticism of Whistler's time, as well as the artist's own writings, to find out more.