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Images: Whistler and Music: Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano

This concert podcast explores relationships between visual arts and music, specifically the work of American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), his influence on French composer Claude Debussy (1862-1918), and their mutual connection to Japan.
During the 1870s and 80s, Whistler created a series of dark, atmospheric paintings of nighttime landscapes that he called "nocturnes," such as this one depicting the south bank of the Thames River. His inspiration for these works came, in part, from Japanese woodblock prints, while the term "nocturne" was suggested to Whistler by one of his patrons, Frederick Leyland, an amateur pianist. Leyland, in turn, borrowed the label from Frédéric Chopin's piano works of the same name, written in the 1830s. Some years later, Debussy was inspired by Whistler (rather than Chopin) when he composed orchestral works that he in turn titled "nocturnes" in the 1890s.

Nocturne: Blue and Silver—Battersea Reach; by James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903); 1870-1875; oil on canvas; gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1902.97a-b
In this nocturne from the 1870s, Whistler depicts waves breaking along a beach under late evening light. All three Whistler nocturnes in this slideshow were exhibited in London in 1892, where Debussy apparently saw them. The paintings so inspired Debussy that he began composing his orchestral nocturnes immediately upon returning to Paris.
Debussy was deeply influenced not only by Whistler's paintings but also by his revolutionary ideas about art. Whistler's aesthetic theories reached a wide audience in Britain through the "Ten O'Clock Lecture" he delivered in London in 1885, which was translated into French by the symbolist poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé in 1888. Both Whistler and Debussy attended a series of famous Tuesday-night gatherings at Mallarmé's Paris home, where Debussy became known as the "Whistler of music."

Nocturne: Blue and Silver—Bognor, by James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903); 1871-1876; oil on canvas; gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1906.103a-b
This nocturne, depicting a snow-laden Trafalgar Square in Chelsea, was also in the 1892 exhibition of Whistler's work that Debussy is thought to have seen. Deeply influenced by Whistler's art and thought, Debussy once wrote about his orchestra Nocturnes (1897-99), "It's an experiment, in fact, in finding the different combinations possible inside a single color, as a painter might make a study in gray, for example." The composer's indebtedness to the visual arts is also reflected in the names he gave to many of his other works: images, sketches, estampes (prints), and scenes.
Nocturne: Trafalgar Square, Chelsea—Snow; by James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903); ca. 1875-77; oil on canvas; gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1908.169a-b
Whistler was one of the first artists in the West to actively collect and study Japanese art after American Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened Japan to Western trade in 1854. Especially influential for Whistler (and many of the French impressionists) were Japanese woodblock prints, such as this one by the great nineteenth-century artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Whistler is thought to have known this image, as well as the other Japanese prints in this slideshow; they may even have formed part of his personal collection. One of his most famous nocturnes, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, portrays a nighttime scene of fireworks exploding over boats on water, very much like this print.
One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo Hyakkei): Fireworks at Ryogoku Bridge (Ryo goku hanabi); by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858); Japan, Edo period, 1857, eighth month; woodblock print; ink and color on paper; gift of Alan, Donald, and David Winslow from the estate of William R. Castle, F1994.30
This print by Hiroshige is another image that was probably known to Whistler and may have been in his collection. Hiroshige and his contemporary Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) were the Japanese artists most often collected and studied in Europe.
Like Whistler, Debussy collected Japanese art, including a lacquered wood panel titled Poisson d'Or (Goldfish). That piece inspired the last movement of his piano series Images Book II (1907), which he similarly titled Poisson d'Or. He named his 1903 piano work Estampes (prints) in direct homage to the art of woodblock prints. For his orchestral tone-poem La Mer, Debussy insisted that his publisher place Hokusai's famous woodcut The Great Wave at Kanagawa on the cover. The full title of La Mer also reflects the importance of the visual arts to Debussy's work: The Sea, Three Symphonic Sketches for Orchestra.

Suido Bridge and Surugadai, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Edo Meisho Hyakkei); by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858); Japan, Edo period, 1857, fifth lunar month; woodblock print; ink and color on paper; gift of Dr. John Fuegi, F1996.24
This is one of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, by Katsushika Hokusai (1760—1849), a series that was so popular in Japan that it eventually ran to forty-six images. Whistler was introduced to the work of Hokusai in the 1850s through a copy of Hokusai's Manga, a collection of informal prints that later gave rise to the current rage in the West for Japanese comic-novels (also called manga) and animation (anime). Manga was also Debussy's introduction to Japanese prints, first shown to him in the 1880s by sculptor Camille Claudel. He later became familiar with Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido.
The Sazaido Hall of the Temple, Gohyakurakanji, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji; by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849); Japan, Edo period, ca. 1823-1831; woodblock print; ink and color on paper; gift of the family of Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer, F1974.63

CREDITS
Slideshow coordinated and written by Michael Wilpers, concert manager, in consultation with Lee Glazer, curator of American art. Sources: Leon Botstein, "Beyond the Illusions of Realism: Painting and Debussy's Break with Tradition," in J. F. Fulcher, ed., Debussy and His World (Princeton 2001); and Paul Roberts, Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy (Amadeus 1996).