James McNeill Whistler : “Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl” (1862)

Though innocuous by modern standards, The White Girl was infamous in its own time. It marked a turning point for Whistler, who was beginning to shun realism in favor of a looser, more abstract style — but to the 1860s art establishment, The White Girl looked less like a tonalist masterpiece than an unfinished painting. The vacant expression, moreover, and languid posture of the model, who dons an informal house dress normally reserved for private, registered as seedy and weird to 19th-century audiences. The piece was rejected from the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition in London as well as the 1863 Paris Salon, but found a home at the famous Salon des Refusés — a protest exhibition where controversial artists like Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet made their stand. In the end, painting’s infamy helped put Whistler on the map, garnering international attention for his work just as it was finding its voice.