Detail from The Canal, Amsterdam, 1889, James McNeill Whistler, The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Nocturne en bleu et argent [duplicate]

Exhibitions

  • 1888: Exposition Brown, Boudin, Caillebotte, Lepine, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Whistler, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1888 (cat. nos. 39 and 42) as 'Nocturne en bleu et argent'.
Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor, Freer Gallery of Art
Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Bognor, Freer Gallery of Art
Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, Tate
Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, Tate

In addition to the two Nocturnes in Blue and Silver, Durand-Ruel also showed a Nocturne in Blue and Gold, that is, three blue Nocturnes in total. One was very likely Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Bognor [YMSM 100], 1 or Nocturne: The Solent [YMSM 071], and the other was almost certainly Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge [YMSM 140].

The writer for the Chronique des arts et de la curiosité pointed out the ‘fluidité’ (meaning both fluidity and fluency) of the nocturnes. 2 Albert Michel described them as ‘barely a scumble of colour and of imperceptible nuances’ (‘à peine un frottis de couleur et des nuances insaisissables’). 3

Notes:

1: See Alfred Chapman to Dowdeswell & Dowdeswells, 25 April 1888, GUW #00582.

2: Chronique des arts, 16 June 1888 [more].

3: La Société nouvelle, 16 June 1888 [more], at p. 561.

Last updated: 13th December 2020 by Margaret