James McNeill Whistler The Sea Shore, Dieppe

Date 1885 or summer 1888
Materials Oil on wood
Dimensions 8.9 cm x 14.0 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly at the bottom right
Further information GLAHA 46341.
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 (379, plate 239).

Note This small seascape may have been painted on Whistler’s honeymoon in France. It is a very beautiful painting with its delicate shades of blue, purple and green in the water and sky. Whistler painted these areas with long strokes in a fairly liquid paint, using the brush lines to suggest the formation of clouds and waves. Look how the painting is split into three horizontal zones – sand, sea and sky. The people on the shore and the boats on the horizon provide visual breaks. Notice how Whistler used flecks of white paint to suggest clothes, waves and sails being whipped up by the wind. There are two types of boat on the water: large cargo vessels and smaller sail boats. Whistler may have wanted to contrast the worlds of work and leisure. The French Impressionists did this. Like Whistler, they worked outside in order to capture movement and light effectively.