James McNeill Whistler

Ariel

Date c.1884
Materials Oil on wood
Dimensions 21.5 cm x 12.2 cm
Marks Signed with a butterfly at the bottom right
Further information GLAHA 46344.
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 (318, plate 219).

Note Whistler used very diluted paint for this picture and painted wet on wet with soft brushes. You can see lines where the paint has run. Look how many different colours Whistler used. The flesh tones are made up of pink, cream and green. The yellow dabs of paint at the bottom, and the blue mid section, suggest that this is a beach scene. The yellow horizontal line seems to be a railing. However, the effect is highly decorative. The title comes from a character in Shakespeare's play The Tempest, who was a magical, will o’ the wisp creature, and was neither male nor female. It is one of only three paintings by Whistler that have a literary title (Annabel Lee is another), and it may have been inspired by one of a series of open-air plays attended by Whistler and organised by Lady Archibald Campbell and her husband at Coombe Woods, near their Surrey home.

Related works GLAHA 46378.