The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
M.0213
Scene from Bohemian life
Date
Scene from Bohemian life dates from 1855/1857.
Scene from Bohemian life, Art Institute of Chicago
It is fully catalogued in MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 213).
Images
Scene from Bohemian life, Art Institute of Chicago
Subject
Description
Scene from Bohemian life, Art Institute of Chicago
An idyll of Paris bohemian life: six young people lounge in a small, candle-lit room. At left, a seated woman is smoking, and a man, smoking, sits at her feet in the foreground. Two men are leaning closely over the other women. The couple at right are drinking wine. The room is crowded, with candles and bottles on a cabinet at left, food and wine on a table at front right, against which a slender stick leans, a picture, pipes, a broad brimmed straw hat and other objects hang on the wall.
Sitter
The sitters are unknown although the man at right looks a bit like James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
Technique
Technique
Scene from Bohemian life, Art Institute of Chicago
An intricately detailed work, employing many different shading, cross-hatching, scribbling and dotting marks. 1 Stephanie Strother comments on the uneven finish, lighting, and chiaroscuro:
' In some areas, his use of line and shading is tight and controlled, while in others it is loose and sketchy. Some passages—such as the rightmost male and female figures—are treated in a detailed, three-dimensional manner, while others—such as the bottom half of the female figure at left and her male companion—look incomplete, their forms described mainly by outlines. Near the center of the drawing, line and shading disappear from the composition almost entirely, leaving the centermost woman’s body undescribed from the chest down. … Chiaroscuro effects that seem to originate from multiple light sources are carefully represented in the silhouetted male figure in the foreground and in the shadow cast by another male figure on the wall in the background, as well as in the play of light across the faces of the two rightmost figures. These dramatic lighting effects are completely ignored, on the other hand, in other sections of the composition. Such disparities give the drawing a distinctly improvisational quality. ' 2
History
Provenance
- 1956: given by John F. O'Connell, Chicago, to the Art Institute of Chicago.
The earlier provenance is unknown.
Exhibitions
It was not, as far as is known, exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995 (cat. no. 211) as 'Scene from Bohemian life'.
Books, General
- MacDonald, Margaret F., 'James McNeill Whistler: An Artist on Artists', in: Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 16, Issue 2, 2015, pp. 200-22, Taylor and Francis Online, DOI: 10.1080/14714787.2015.1038437.
Websites
- Stephanie L. Strother, 'Scene from Bohemian Life', in Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website (cat. no. 6).
Notes:
1: See MacDonald 1995 (cat. rais.) [more] (cat. no. 211); see also Stephanie L. Strother, 'Scene from Bohemian life', in Clarke, in Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website (cat. no. 6).
2: Stephanie L. Strother, 'Scene from Bohemian Life', in Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website (cat. no. 6).