Early in his career, James McNeill Whistler submitted Symphony
in White, No.1:The White Girl to two esteemed
annual European exhibitions—the Royal Academy in London, England,
and the Paris Salon in France. The painting was rejected at both.
It was shown in a less notable exhibition in 1863 and received tentative
reviews. While the painting’s white tones and the lily held
by the woman imply purity, her morning dress and disheveled hair
suggest impropriety. This ambiguity baffled the European critics
and public: “Folk nudged each other and went almost into hysterics;
there was always a grinning group in front of [The
White Girl].”—Emile Zola, novelist, 1886;
“It is one of the most incomplete paintings we have ever met
with. A woman, in a quaint morning dress of white, with her hair
about her shoulders, stands alone, in the background of nothing
in particular.”—F.G. Stevens, critic, June, 1862.
Critics tried to create a story behind the painting’s subject,
interpretations. They called the model a “sleepwalker,"
"a newly deflowered bride," and an "apparition.”
Whistler left no clues as to how the painting should be read. He
said, “My painting simply represents a girl dressed in white
standing in front of a white curtain.” The real “story”
was Whistler’s manifestation of art for art’s sake—his
focus on color, line and composition—not the subject matter
of the painting.
When the painting was shown in the United States 10 years later,
the public generally reacted differently. The model was described
as “attractive and even fascinating” with a “singular
and an indescribable face, full of the strangest and subtlest expression.”
American artists soon imitated the work, creating their own paintings
in the manner of Whistler’s White Girl.