Shipping, Venice

In his etching Shipping, Venice, James McNeill Whistler used a minimum of wispy lines to suggest a cluster of sailboats, barges, and tall ships in the Giudecca Canal, Venice's main waterway, while the water itself is indicated simply by a nearly blank expanse in the left center of  the image. In the distance at the far left, Whistler sketched the outlines of the campanile (bell tower), Palladian-style façade, and prominent dome of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. A handful of scratchy lines barely indicate the dock that spreads across the foreground and stretches into the right distance, where three sketchy figures are just visible. Shipping, Venice demonstrates the economy of Whistler's evocative representation of objective reality, and his equal interest in the decorative arrangement of forms on the two-dimensional picture surface as an aesthetic goal in its own right.

Made during Whistler's fourteen-month sojourn in Venice in 1879–1880, this print was not selected for publication in either of his two "Venice Sets," the print portfolios the artist published after his return to London. This vertical, sketchy etching is one of several panoramic views of Venice in which Whistler focused on distant shipping; another is The Riva, No. 1 (TF 1992.156). Shipping, Venice is compositionally similar to the pastel The Zattere: Harmony in Blue and Brown (TF 1992.162), although it represents the opposite side of the Giudecca Canal.

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