Whistler's Mother, meet Whistler's very, very close friend at the National Gallery

The "Mall" is slowly coming back post-Covid. Still a great place if you can figure out the hours of operation

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."What's with those titles? Well, the famous painting of Whistler's Mother is officially called Arrangement in Grey and Black. He was exploring variations in those colors, how they sat together, echoed one another. He's doing the same thing in his Symphonies. Whistler's white wasn't just white. He mixed several colors into it. "So it had a warmth," MacDonald explains. "It isn't cold white."

Painters like working with white. Nice texture. Fun to use.

"Whistler got a big brush, got enough paint on it, and slams is down like a mosaic of colors. It all feels good. If you're an artist, you enjoy that!" she says.

So do art lovers. Although Joanna Hiffernan wrote a friend about some 19th century reactions to Whistler's Symphony No. 1, the centerpiece of the National Gallery's exhibition: "The White Girl has made a great sensation, for and against. Some stupid painters don't understand it at all. The old duffers may refuse it altogether."

And they did. But not for long!"

I always wanted to go there someday, but when in the states 2009, it was either at the Smithsonian, or Sturgis.
Sturgis was the choice, maybe someday, to the Smithsonian, to see some old bones.