James Abbott McNeill Whistler

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A Freshening Breeze

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: c. 1883

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.152

Text Entries: Thought to depict a coastline in England, this work is executed with thin washes of paint and slight tonal variation that often characterize James McNeill Whistler's small seascapes of the period. Whistler's brushwork is almost imperceptible except in a few waves and the clouds overhead. These elements and the vertical masts and lone figure on the beach punctuate the horizontal bands of Whistler's composition. The boats that are cropped on the left and right edges of the work also lend a sense of captured motion, their partial inclusion suggesting that they were in Whistler's sight line when a "freshening breeze" stirred the scene.

Note in Red: The Siesta

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: by 1884

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1999.149

Text Entries: A brilliant portraitist known for his full-length canvases, James McNeill Whistler used this small panel to capture the lounging figure of his mistress, Maud Franklin. During her more than fifteen-year association with Whistler, Franklin often modeled for the artist. For this oil on panel, Whistler was less concerned with expressing Maud's identity than with capturing the languorous mood of the setting, which is wonderfully off-set by Whistler's expressive brushwork. Swirls of paint compose the forms, and a liberal use of red pigment further animates the scene. Such exuberance of mood and material is less obvious in Whistler's later works on panel, evidenced by the examples in this room.

Carlyle's Sweetstuff Shop

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: c. 1887

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.147

Text Entries: Although born in the United States, James McNeill Whistler made England his adopted home, and these two works depict shops in his London neighborhood. Architectural elements are the focus of these paintings: the windows and doorways become a study of shapes, colors, and composition. The ambiguity of the scenes further obscures any narrative. Are the figures in the doorways going in, coming out, or just relaxing? There is a suggestion of action yet observance of activity goes unfulfilled. The works present an unassuming image of a particular place and time observed by Whistler, with figures-as does the viewer-peering curiously in windows and doorways.

A Red Note: Fête on the Sands, Ostend

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: 1887

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.155

Text Entries: Beginning in the 1880s, Whistler painted nearly all of his outdoor scenes on small wood panels en plein air (outdoors). While traveling with his brother on holiday, Whistler created this atmospheric evocation of the Belgian seaport and popular resort of Ostend, in which a welcoming crowd presumably cheers the ship of King Leopold II into harbor. The individuals in the crowd merge to create a horizontal strip of color that forms a layer with the beach, water, and sky, while the two figures on the right in the foreground add depth to the otherwise flattened composition. As its title alludes, the painting contains "notes" of red-the Belgian flag, the British Red Ensign, and touches in the crowd-that serve as the "visual music" that Whistler sought in his work. A brownish wash melds the pictorial elements together and acts as a veil that undercuts the immediacy of subject. Shrouded in this misty layer, it becomes a scene of quiet contemplation rather than one of festive activity for the occasion. When exhibited in 1887, a critical review described this small seascape as "an impression merely, and those who can see the poetry of faint impressions of light and shadow will get something out of it."

The Beach at Marseille

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: c. 1901

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.143

Text Entries: Created when James McNeill Whistler spent a winter convalescing on the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France, this painting is marked by an unusual inclusion of colorful areas of paint that punctuate the tonal veil that envelopes this and so many of Whistler's small panels. Whistler's characteristic treatment of paint-thin washes applied in layers with small brushes-contrasts with the thick patches of whitish-aqua-blue, which still bear the trace of Whistler's brush in their unflattened state.

Rose et Vert, l'Iris: Portrait of Miss Kinsella

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: begun 1894

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1987.32

Text Entries: Hamel, Maurice. "Les Salons de 1904, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts." Les Arts 29 (May 1904): 12–23. Text p. 16; ill. p. 19. Athenaeum (May 7, 1904): 598. Text p. 598. An Illustrated Catalog of the Whistler Memorial Exhibition. (exh. cat., New Gallery). London, England: New Gallery, 1905. Ill. p. 99. Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Joseph Pennell. The Life of James McNeill Whistler. 2 vols. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1908. Vol. 2: text pp. 157–58, 187, 279. Sickert, Bernhard. Whistler. London, England: Duckworth & Company, 1908. Text pp. 34-35, 39–40, no. 127, p. 168. Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Joseph Pennell. The Life of James McNeill Whistler. 2 vols. Rev. ed. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1911. Vol. 1: text pp. 321–22. Vol. 2: ill. p. 19. Cary, Elisabeth Luther. The Works of James McNeill Whistler. New York: Moffat Yard & Company, 1913. Text p. 215. Pousette-Dart, Nathaniel. James McNeill Whistler. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1924. Ill. n.p. Rothenstein, William. Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein. 3 Vol. London, England: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1931–1939. Text pp. 79–80. Sutton, Denys. Nocturne: The Art of James McNeill Whistler. London, England: Country Life, Ltd., 1963. Text p. 128. The Aesthetic Movement and Cult of Japan. (exh. cat., The Fine Art Society). London, England: The Fine Art Society, 1972. Ill. no. 67, p. 19. Dunstan, Bernard. "Whistler Portrait of Miss Louise Kinsella." The Artist 84 (January 1973): 158. American Painting. (exh. cat., Davis & Long Company, Inc.). New York: Davis & Long Company, Inc., 1974. Ill. no. 34 (color). Gathorne-Hardy, Robert, ed. Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell 1915–1918. London, England: Faber, 1974. Text p. 264. Wattenmaker, Richard J. Puvis de Chavannes and the Modern Tradition. (exh. cat., Art Gallery of Ontario). Toronto, Canada: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1975. Ill. pp. 151–52. Bulletin of Chrysler Museum at Norfolk 4:6 (June 1975): n.p. Ill. n.p. Dunstan, Bernard. Painting Techniques of the Impressionists. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976. Ill. p. 99. Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, and Robin Spencer with the assistance of Hamish Miles. The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1980. No. 420, p. 187; pl. 258 (black & white). New York Times (October 23, 1983). Ill. (black & white). Nochlin, Linda. Woman. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Evanston, Illinois: Terra Museum of American Art, 1984. Text p. 7; ill. no. 19, p. 21 (color). 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-41, p. 150 (color). Spencer, Robin, ed. Whistler: A Retrospective. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. Text p. 344; pl. 101, p. 312 (color). Reymond, Nathalie. Un regard américain sur Paris (An American Glance at Paris). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 99; ill. p. 96 (color). Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. Faces of America: Portraits of the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, 1770–1940. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text pp. 17, 34 (checklist); ill. p. 55 (color). Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. Visages de l'Amérique: le portrait dans la collection de la Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1770–1940. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text pp. 17, 34 (checklist); ill. p. 55 (color). Lévy, Sophie, et al. Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940/Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940. (exh. cat. International Cultural Center). Cracow, Poland: International Cultural Center, 2006. Text pp. 24–25, 78; ill. p. 79 (color). Lecomte, Vanessa, editor. Portrait of a Lady : peinture et photographies américains (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny and Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2008. Text (checklist) p. 95.

A Chelsea Shop

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: c. 1894–95

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.148

The Sea, Pourville

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Date: 1899

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.158

Text Entries: Horizontal bands of color and barely perceptible brushstrokes-as in "A Red Note: Fête on the Sands, Ostend"-characterize this composition. One in a series of panel paintings executed in Pourville-sur-Mer in France, this work reflects only a mild disturbance of serenity created by its layered paint of the white-capped waves and peopled beach. By the year this painting was executed, James McNeill Whistler had been creating small works, most measuring less than 12 inches and many around 5 x 8 inches, for more than a decade. This format became a trademark following an 1884 London exhibition of sixty-one small oils, watercolors, pastels, drawings, and prints. Prominent art patron Charles Lang Freer explained that Whistler's small pictures were "superficially, the size of your hand, but, artistically, the size of a continent." Whistler would continue to create and exhibit these diminutive works throughout his career. He once explained, "A perfect thing is a perfect thing, whether large or small."