James McNeill Whistler

Nocturne

Date c. 1875-1877
Materials Oil on canvas
Dimensions 55.5 cm x 39.4 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly at the centre right.
Further information GLAHA 46361.
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 (170, plate 153).

Note The beauty in this work lies in the thinness and suggestiveness of the paint. Look how Whistler made the ships on the river Thames appear spectral and ghostly. You can see right through them. Notice how he deliberately blurred their shapes. Spots of golden paint represent the distant lights of buildings on the shore and their reflections in the water. However, this painting was not intended to be an exact portrayal of the river and city. The subdued tones and mysterious forms were intended to evoke a quiet, poetic beauty. The sharp angle of the river bank at the bottom left is similar to arrangements in Japanese prints in which the foreground seems to tilt up towards the spectator. Interestingly, Whistler also painted the frame with a Japanese-inspired fish-scale pattern. For Whistler, picture and frame were tightly linked.