Beach Scene with Rocks

Beach Scene with Rocks may be a record of James McNeill Whistler’s working visit in 1881 to Jersey, a British island in the English Channel. Deserted beach, rock outcroppings, ocean expanse, and cloud-filled sky are described in a loose, rapid technique ranging from the dry-brushed foreground grays to the liquid color of the sky, where drops of rain apparently speckled the paper after Whistler applied the watercolor, blurring the horizon line. Whistler evoked, more than he painted, the scene before him, but his spare use of the watercolor captures the cold, rain-soaked atmosphere he recorded in a letter from Jersey. His trip there was part of his effort to recover his fortunes and his reputation, both sacrificed in the libel suit he prosecuted against conservative English art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) in 1878, when Ruskin condemned his anti-representational and seemingly slap-dash execution as “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler made no aesthetic concessions to such criticism in his art, but he worked to produce small, quickly executed, and easily saleable works. Among these were several “slight sketches in water-colours” made in Jersey and the nearby island of Guernsey, of which Beach Scene with Rocks appears to be one. The economical scale of these watercolors is consistent with Whistler’s turn in the early 1880s toward small formats in his oil paintings on panel, a move he made not only for practical convenience but as an expression of his ideal of art as intimate, suggestive, and marked by the artist’s processes and persona.

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

Regard sur James Abbott McNeill Whistler (James Abbott McNeill Whistler at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 30, 1994.

D'une colonie à une collection: le Musée d'Art Américain Giverny fête ses dix ans (From a Colony to a Collection: Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 30–June 16, 2002.

The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context (L’atelier de la Nature, 1860-1910. Invitation à la Terra Collection). Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (organizers). Venue: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, France, September 12, 2020–January 3, 2021. [exh. cat. in French]

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-34, p. 143 (color).

MacDonald, Margaret F. James McNeill Whistler: Drawings, Pastels, and Watercolours; A Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press, 1995. Text no. 855, p. 322.Bourguignon, Katherine and Valerie Reis. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context. (exh. cat, Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny). Paris, France: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2020.  Text p. 44; Pl. 25, p. 90 (color).