The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler
YMSM 380
The Blue Sea
Date
The Blue Sea dates from the 1890s, probably between 1893 and 1900.
The Blue Sea, Pushkin State Museum of Art
A date of about 1888 was suggested in 1980, based on a photograph. 1 This date was later revised to ca 1890. 2 However, further consideration of the butterfly signature and technique indicates a slightly later date, 1893/1900.
Images
The Blue Sea, Pushkin State Museum of Art
The Blue Sea, photograph, 1969
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum
Violet and Silver: Low Tide, Belle-Isle-en-mer, The Hunterian
Subject
Titles
Suggested titles include:
- 'Goluboe more' (1921, Pertsev). 3
- 'The Blue Sea' (1980, YMSM). 4
The English title 'The Blue Sea' is preferred for this catalogue.
Description
The Blue Sea, Pushkin State Museum of Art
A beach scene, in horizontal format, with a deep green and blue sea breaking on a broad expanse of pale brownish beach. Two figures are walking on the beach at left. Some green leaves are visible along the lower edge of the panel, in the near foreground.
nd.
Site
Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec, Fogg Art Museum
Violet and Silver: Low Tide, Belle-Isle-en-mer, The Hunterian
This is similar in technique to paintings of the French coast such as Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Perros-Guirec y382 and the rich colour is comparable to that in a watercolour, r.: Violet and Silver: Low Tide, Belle-Isle-en-mer; v.: Head of a woman with a Breton head-dress m1597 but the site cannot be identified with certainty.
Technique
Technique
The Blue Sea, Pushkin State Museum of Art
It is painted thinly, with fluid, expressive brush strokes, sea and sky merging at the horizon. The colour of the sea is a rich deep blue, accentuated by the bright white lines of the breakers.
Conservation History
The Blue Sea, photograph, 1969
The Blue Sea, Pushkin State Museum of Art
Unknown. Photographs show no radical changes.
Frame
n/a
History
Provenance
- 1900: bought by Sergei Shchukin (1854-1936), Moscow;
- 1918: acquired by the Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow;
- 1948: transferred to the Pushkin State Museum of Art.
It was bought by Sergei Shchukin with The Sea Coast y274 and Orange Woman y310, in Paris. His collection was nationalised by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov alias Lenin (1870-1924) in 1918. As a result this oil was acquired by the Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow, in that year.
Exhibitions
- No record of an exhibition in Whistler's lifetime has been located.
Bibliography
Catalogues Raisonnés
- Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer, and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980 (cat. no. 380), plate 240, as 'The Blue Sea'.
Authored by Whistler
- None.
Catalogues 1855-1905
- None.
Journals 1855-1905
- None.
Monographs
- None.
Books on Whistler
- MacDonald, Margaret F., 'James McNeill Whistler', in: Andreeva, Galina and Margaret F. MacDonald (eds), Whistler and Russia, Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 16-57, at pp. 46-47 (cat. no. 24).
Books, General
- Pertsev, P. P., Shchukinskoe sobranie frantsuzskoi zhxvopisi, Moscow, 1921, p. 116, p. 116 as 'Goluboe more'.
Catalogues 1906-Present
- Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 46-47, 184 (cat. no. 24), repr. p. 47.
Journals 1906-Present
- None.
Websites
- None.
Unpublished
- None.
Other
- None.
Notes:
1: 'Probably painted about 1888' in YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 380).
2: MacDonald 2006 [more], at pp. 46-47 (cat. no. 23).
3: Pertsev, P. P., Shchukinskoe sobranie frantsuzskoi zhxvopisi, Moscow, 1921, p. 116.
4: YMSM 1980 [more] (cat. no. 380).