This idea of an essential truth that was more evocative than literally illusionistic would influence the development of American modernism it allowed artists the freedom to abstract their subjects in the quest for more evocative suggestion than outright description. And, with its melancholic color scheme, the interior takes on an elegiac feeling, becoming a kind of visual poem on age as Whistler explained, "As light fades and the shadows deepen, all petty and exacting details vanish, everything trivial disappears, and I see things as they are in great strong masses: the buttons are lost, but the sitter remains." In this poetic description, we see the simplification of the forms and the quietness of Whistler's palette as meaningful signifiers his minimalism sought to present the essence of the subject and create a contemplative mood that allowed it to be best appreciated. With this monochromatic color scheme that displays tones of gray, from the greenish gray of the floor to the slate gray of the drape, we witness the development of the Tonalist style. The palette is similarly restrained, with broad black and grey planes contrasted only by the asymmetrical black and white pattern of the curtain on the left side of the frame. Seated primly and staring straight ahead, her folded hands holding a white handkerchief and her feet resting on a footrest, the woman conveys a sense of alert and self-contained repose. The title, with its musical vocabulary, suggests that the arrangement of tones and shapes was of primary interest to Whistler, even as he painted a likeness of his own mother. One of the iconic (and often parodied) paintings, commonly known as "Whistler's Mother," this work is both a portrait of resolute poise and severity and a color study in delicately modulated shades of black and gray. This emphasis on process would influence generations of photographers, even after this style faded from popularity. By manipulating their exposures and printing, these photographers were able to simulate the atmospheric effects and tonal relationships that defined the style. The aesthetics of Tonalist painting appealed to Pictorialist photographers who wanted to establish photography as an artistic medium.Bypassing narrative as a means of communicating spirituality, their example was instrumental to the development of early-20 th-century abstraction. Tonalist painters emphasized both the formal components of their work - color, line, and shape - and the symbolic meaning conveyed to the viewer.Building on the example of the Hudson River School artists, they rearranged elements of the observed world in order to better convey musical and visual harmonies. Inspired by strategies of musical composition, the Tonalists developed theories of color and line that they believed heightened the symbolic potential of landscape painting.
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