Looking at the Masters: Whistler in Venice

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were Anna McNeill and George Washington Whistler.  At the request of Czar Nicholas of Russia, the family moved to St. Petersburg in 1842. George was a railroad engineer, and he became an engineer for the Saint Petersburg-Moscow Railroad. At the age of eleven, James began art lessons at the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg.

Whistler became famous as an artist. He also was a flamboyant character. He said, “Early in life I made the discovery that I was charming, and if one is delightful, one has to thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death.” He organized exhibitions of his work at his studio and observed, “Now my rooms are pictures in themselves.”

Whistler’s controversial style was at the heart of a public conflict with the well-respected art critic John Ruskin. He published harsh criticism of Whistler: “I never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Whistler sued for libel in November 1878. The jury agreed that Ruskin’s comments were libelous, but awarded Whistler just one farthing to show what they thought of the painting. Court costs were split. Whistler was forced to declare bankruptcy. He was saved by a commission from the Fine Arts Society in London to travel to Venice and make 12 etchings of the city.

Whistler arrived in Venice in September 1879 with financial backing to support him for three months. He stayed for fourteen months. The Two Doorways (1879-80) (8”x12”) (etching and dry-point in black ink on ivory paper) is one of 90 etchings.  He also made 50 to 100 pastels and about a dozen oil paintings. Whistler spoke of Venice as “a marvelous City–The Sapphire of the Seas!” He said, “I learned to know a ‘Venice in Venice’ that others never seem to have perceived…” While honoring the famous structures of Venice in his work, Whistler also depicted the unexplored canals, the many bridges, and the stacked houses with steps at the water’s edge. Barges, gondolas, and work boats supplied the city with goods. He preferred these subjects to the marble palaces along the Grand Canal. At the border of the print is Whistler’s trademark signature, a drawing of the butterfly.

The Riva (1878-80) (etching and dry-point) (8”x12”) is a depiction of the wide stone walkway, or Riva, that runs along the lagoon where boats were moored to sell their wares. Whistler rarely gave specific names to his prints, and researchers have difficulty identifying locations. Unnamed by Whistler, this print depicts the famous Riva degli Schiavoni, the more than half-mile stone walkway on the Grand Canal. In the scene, common people walk along the Riva. A large stone arch spans an interior canal, and Venetian houses stand close to each other. The scene across the Canal includes the bell tower and colonnaded façade of Palladio’s Church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

Venice was built on 126 islands surrounded by marsh land and lagoons. Rivas were built with dredged silt to create walkways and docks.  A workboat with canvas over the cargo, a small sail boat, a gondola, and several tall ships are included in the scene. When Whistler returned to London in 1880, he published the First Venice Set (1880). It consisted of 12 etchings, two of which have been included in this article. He did not choose to exhibit any of the oils, pastels, or other of the 90 etchings he had produced. He fulfilled his commission for 12 prints, but he not yet had his fill of Venice.

Whistler visited Venice only once, but the trip provided him with inspiration for paintings and prints for many years. He opened his exhibition “Arrangement in White and Yellow” in February 1883 at the Fine Art Society in London. He described it as, “Sparkling and dainty–and all so sharp–White walls of different whites, with painted moldings–not gilded! yellow velvet curtains–pale yellow matting–yellow sofas and little chairs–lovely little table yellow–own design–with yellow pot and Tiger Lily! Forty odd superb etchings…in their exquisite white frames with their little butterflies–white butterfly on yellow curtains and yellow butterfly on white wall…and finally servant in yellow livery.”

The Balcony (1879-80) (etching and dry-point) (12”x8”) (Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, Boston) was one of the etchings. These works could be reprinted multiple times, and Whistler used his butterfly signature to assure buyers that his hand had made each print. Whistler’s friendship with Isabella Stewart Gardner began in 1879 in London.  Henry James introduced them. Whistler drew a pastel portrait of her. Her purchase of several works by Whistler were among her first in a lifetime of collecting art that would become the collection of the Gardner Museum.

Etching was a well-established technique that allowed acid to do the hard work of cutting lines into the metal. Etchings were made on small metal plates coated with acid-resisting wax. Whistler carried these with him to various locations. He often sat on a Riva, stairsteps, or in a gondola. He drew through the wax surface with a variety of sharp objects. When he returned to the studio, he put the plate into an acid bath which then “bite” the exposed lines into the plate. When the plate was inked, the bites were filled with the ink that also covered the entire surface. The surface was then wiped clean, leaving the ink in the bites. Most of the drawing was then completed, but a sharp point could be used to create additional lines if desired. Wax could be reapplied in certain areas and the plate etched again to make further adjustments. Whistler developed new ways to elevate the technique. The remainder of Whistler’s prints were not published until 1886.

Whistler often chose to use musical terms to name his work: nocturnes, symphonies, and harmonies. Nocturne, Palaces (1881) (etching and dry-point) (12”x8”) (Metropolitan Museum), like most of Whistler’s prints, was made into a finished print after he returned to London for the 1883 exhibition. A gas lantern is depicted with a white center and streak of light.  One of Whistler’s techniques is the hazy effect across the top of the print. It was achieved by applying ink and wiping it down for printing. Whistler’s genius was doing just what was necessary, and no more.

Whistler first exhibited his pastel drawings in 1881 at the Fine Art Society. He had them framed in three shades of gold. Pastels are powdered color pigment combined with a binder to make them into sticks. They are pure colors. Whistler drew on brown paper that had a tooth, a texture or slight roughness on the surface of the paper so the pastel would adhere.  Note in Pink and Brown (1880) (12”x7”) (pastel) (Metropolitan Museum), one of this writer’s favorites, is a simple portrayal of the common people in Venice. A mother holding a baby stands in the doorway of a canal house. Her other children sit on the walkway.  Wet laundry hangs from an upper window. Simple and pleasing.

Nocturne, Blue and Gold, St. Mark’s, Venice (1879-80) (oil) (18”x24”) was considered by Whistler to be the best of all his nocturnes.  He depicts in rich gold tones the Basilica of Saint Mark on the plaza, and at the left a suggestion of the clock tower. White dots of distant gas lights pierce the gold. The sky behind is a subtle blue-gray which adds to the mystical atmosphere of the scene.

All of London was in love with Venice. A production of “The Merchant of Venice” opened on November 1, 1879, and ran for an unprecedented 250 performances. Whistler’s new-found popularity also would continue. The Society of American Painters in Pastel was formed in 1882. Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), founder of the Freer Museum in Washington, DC, bought the entire Second Venice Set of 26 etchings in 1887. He drew upon his fortune from manufacturing railroad cars in Detroit to purchase works by American artists for his collection. Not a fan of Whistler, he asked, “Why should anyone in the world make any fuss over Whistler as an artist?” He and Whistler became friends

Joseph Mallard William Turner, the English artist featured in the 7-23-26 SPY article, wrote a review of Whistler’s work in 1880. The image contains two of Whistler’s pastel Venetian works.

Top: The Giudecca (1879-80) (6”x10”) (pastel) is a depiction of a single boat on the Grand Canal, several tall ships, and a distant view of Venice at sunset. Whistler’s use of pink, orange, and blue pastels is excellent. The rough tooth of the paper contributes texture to the shadow of the boat on the surface of the water.

Bottom: Nocturne: San Giorgio, (1880) (8”x12”) (pastel) is a depiction of a flotilla of gondolas and other boats moored in the lagoon. The Church of San Giorgio can be seen in the distance.

Left Side: “Mr. Whistler’s Venice Pastels : “Mr. Whistler has added to his etching of Venice, which we recently noticed were exhibited at the Gallery of the Fine Arts Society in Bond-street, a number of sketches it pleased him to call “pastels,” but which be more correctly described as sketches in black chalk touched with color in crayons. Without attaching much importance to a name an artist may choose to his method, it is as well to understand that in true pastel the ground of the picture is entirely covered with the colored chalk employed, this being generally obtained by making it rough like a surface of fine sand, somewhat as the fresco painter proceeds, the use of this being to enable the artist to blend the crude, powdery color of his crayons, and thus give the soft gradations in light and shade and  color without any distinct outline. The transparent effects which painters get with their oil mediums in richness of depth and general tone and harmony are therefore denied to the pastel artist, beautiful as his work is in its way. But Mr. Whistler, with his artistic instinct and his ingenuity in the adaption of his materials succeeds in combining something of the brilliancy and purity of the pastelist with the general effect of tone of the oil and water-color painter.  He finds his tone and general effect in the brown-tones paper upon which he sketches so rapidly, and with all the charming suggestiveness of the expert etcher that he is, the picturesque forms and colors which Venice, in all her varied beauties, lavishes before the artist’s eye. This then is precisely the reverse of pastel. Yet, nevertheless, we must own it is a far more artistic and interesting mode of artistic expression; and conveys to us the feeling and perception of transient beauties which are too often missed in the more deliberate and less impulsive efforts of the orthodox student. Turner”