James McNeill Whistler

Blue and Silver: Screen, with Old Battersea Bridge

Date 1871-1872
Materials Distemper and gold paint on paper laid on canvas stretched on back of silk
Dimensions 195.0 cm x 182.0 cm (Fully open, in frame)
Marks Signed with a butterfly on the frame
Further information GLAHA 46379.
Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1980 (139, plate 114).

Note Whistler painted this screen for the Liverpool shipping merchant Frederick Leyland, but kept it for his own studio, perhaps because he liked it so much. It shows the River Thames at night. The gold face of the clock tower of Chelsea Church can be seen in the left panel. Whistler did not intend to paint an accurate representation of Battersea Bridge but simply an arrangement in line and colour. Look how a pattern is created by the upright supports of the bridge. The bridge is not painted a natural colour but is blue, and the gold-green colour of the river and sky merge, creating a single flat decorative surface. This was inspired by his knowledge of Japanese prints [link – Painting/Japanese art]. Whistler was fascinated with oriental art and chose to paint this image on an original oriental screen. Notice how the frame is painted gold and decorated with painted flowers and butterflies, and lines that suggest bamboo stems.

Related works GLAHA 46380; YMSM 140; MacDonald (1995) 484.