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art: The big picture.

Whistler's Velvet RevolutionThe art of painting softly.

By Christopher Benfey
Posted Wednesday, July 9, 2008, at 6:58 AM ET

Click here to launch a slide show on James McNeill Whistler's revolution.Click here to read a slide-show essay on James McNeill Whistler's revolution.

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Christopher Benfey is Mellon professor of English at Mount Holyoke. His latest book, A Summer of Hummingbirds, about writers and artists in Gilded Age America, has just been published by the Penguin Press.
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