Techniques

Whistler constantly experimented with technique. In his early Realist years he worked with a very thick paint which he applied in heavy layers with a palette knife as well as a brush. He was inspired in this by the method of the French Realist painter Gustave Courbet. This technique gave his paintings an earthy, peasant quality.

In the 1870s, influenced by the techniques of the English watercolourists and by the thin glazes of Thomas Gainsborough, Whistler developed a very liquid oil paint, diluted by turpentine, that was runny like watercolour paint. He called this his ?sauce? and applied it in very thin layers, wet-in-wet. Sometimes the paint only stained the canvas, at other times it created an enamel-like effect. The weave of the canvas and the colour of the ground played an important part in the final appearance of his paintings. The fluidity of his paint gave his pictures a look of spontaneity and freshness. It also made them appear ghostly and poetic, appropriate since he wanted his paintings to be like music.

Whistler varied the way he applied the paint in order to give different effects. He sometimes left areas of the canvas bare except for an undercoat of paint in order to suggest a shadowy object. Sometimes he made his brushstrokes visible. He used different sized brushes to give differing effects. At other times he allowed the paint to run. If he was unhappy with an area of a painting, he would scrape the whole canvas bare and begin again. Although he could work swiftly, it sometimes took years for him to complete a painting because he was constantly scraping off and starting again.