Whistler’s Mother; An American Painting

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Ellen Gamerman, Why Was Whistler’s Mom Such a Grump?  A new exhibit at the Clark Art Institute explores how ‘Whistler’s Mother’ became a pop-culture icon. Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2015.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why- ... -a-grump-1435851300

Note:
(a) "bad teeth hidden behind a set jaw"
(i) set (adj): "5a: IMMOVABLE, RIGID <set frown>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/set
(ii) set (adj):
"4  of a person's face or expression : in a firm position that does not move or change
<He stared at me with angry eyes and a set jaw>
<a set smile>
<a crowd of set faces>"
Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary, undated
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/set
(iii) set (adj): "1.2: (of a person’s expression) held for an unnaturally long time without changing, typically as a reflection of determination"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.co ... merican_english/set

(b) "The show [of whistler's artwork] presents the work as a bold example of abstraction in early modern art, with its geometric blocks of color and spare style that rejected the cloying depictions of motherhood that had preceded it."

cloy (v): "to make weary or cause weariness through an excess of something initially pleasurable or sweet"
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cloy

(c) “The work remained in Paris, at the Musée d’Orsay, which lent it for the exhibit.”
(i) Musée d’Orsay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musée_d'Orsay
(housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900)
(ii) The museum is located at Orsay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsay
(map)
(iii) French English dictionary
* gare (noun feminine): "railway station"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gare
* beaux arts (noun masculine, plural (plural only)): "fine arts"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beaux_arts
* beau (adjective masculine; feminine belle, masculine plural beaux, feminine plural belles): "handsome, fine, attractive"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beau
(iv) beaux arts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux_arts
((Fine Arts in English) may refer to: "Beaux-Arts architecture, an architectural style")

(d) "Anna’s southern gentility—she was born in 1804 in Wilmington, NC—put a smooth cover on a complex past."
(i) Anna was James McNeill Whistler’s mother.
(ii) The noun "gentility" has to corresponding adjectives. See
William Dwight Whitney (ed), The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language. vol 3. New York: The Century Co, 1889, at page 2489
https://books.google.com/books?i ... age&q=gentility gentile gentle&f=false
(right column)
(iii) Both adjectives "gentile" and "gentle" are from the same "Latin gentīlis belonging to the same family; see [noun feminine] gens [Roman clan; tribe]."
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/gentle

(e) "An early Whistler image, the etching 'Black Lion Wharf,' hangs on the wall."
(i) Black Lion Wharf. Metropolitan Museum of Art. undated
www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/372709
(ii) University of Glasgow also has one, whose web page for the same etching states, "Known impressions: 104."

(f) “The pious woman not known for vanity praised her own likeness”

likeness (n): "a painted, carved, moulded, or graphic image of a person or thing"
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/likeness