Technique

One of the few reviews offering technical observations can be found in The Echo:

'The process of painting one of these pictures seems, at first sight, to be a simple one enough. One or two broad sweeps of monotint cover the canvas from end to end, certain small streaks of light and dark paint being touched on here and there, apparently at random. The pictures of which the component parts are so few and simple, are placed in frames which are ordinarily decorated with little crescent-shaped lines of colour resembling the pervading tint of the picture, and which are further embellished with a small ornament still of the same hue, and, perhaps, intended for a moth or a dragon-fly, at the side. Something like this appears to be the process by which is turned out one of the works which Mr. Whistler, in pursuance of his eccentric policy, describes in the catalogue as a Symphony or Nocturne, or by some other application more usually applied to musical pieces than to works of pictorial art.' 1