Sketch for Annabel Lee 1896

James Abbott McNeill Whistler made this sketch for ‘Annabel Lee’ using oil on canvas. The artwork is titled after Edgar Allan Poe’s last complete poem, published in 1849. Poe’s poem laments the death of a beautiful young woman, Annabel Lee, who lived in a kingdom by the sea. Whistler’s interest in the poem reflects the late 19th century’s obsession with the themes of beauty and death. Made at a time when the institutions of art were being challenged by modernists, Whistler attempted to show that art should be produced ‘for art’s sake alone.’ Some of his work has been called ‘art for the studio’ because it seems more concerned with the problems of painting itself than with the outside world. Examining Whistler’s literary influences and the history of Aestheticism can help us appreciate how the artwork's meaning is contingent on social and institutional context.