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B+Winspiration. But inspiration
and originality are so often
about the unexpected. On this
occasion, I found it in Whistler’s
1871 painting of his mother.
The rather obvious clue to my
interest is in the monochrome
title: Arrangement in Grey
and Black No.1. But it was the
arrangement of intersecting
rectangles bisected by the
sideways-on, curving form of
his seated mother in a full-
length black dress that caught
my eye. Its edgy composition
might look more familiar in a
late 20th century photograph,
like John Loengard’s
composition of Georgia
O’Keefe, in which she holds
a pebble, as opposed to Mrs
Whistler’s handkerchief, and
the structured shapes are of
intense New Mexico light and
shade, as opposed to Victoriancurtains, carpets and pictures
on the wall.I
Googled (as of course one
does) Arrangement in Grey
and Black No.2, to see if
anything followed No.1. On a
phone screen, No.2 didn’t have
the same sheer sense of scalethat I experienced seeing the
surprisingly large No.1 in the
flesh. The almost textureless
grey background that frames
Mrs Whistler feels almost
uncomfortably empty, and,
I would imagine the painting
was quite challenging for the
audience of the time. And
to think it is rendered in our
beloved monochrome, except
for a slight flush of colour in
his mother’s cheeks.
No.2 employs the same
sideways-on composition for its
male subject, Thomas Carlyle. ›Above The idea
I was interested to make photographs that reflected something of the art
I saw, and which expressed the conversations I had with my wife, mirrored
in the two chairs here. Learning from the grand masters (of course, I include
my wife), it might only take the subtle curve of a shaded bench to give
a surrounding expanse of deep black a vital sense of life and depth.