Titles

Several possible titles have been suggested:

• 'Nocturne in Grey and Gold' (1878, Grosvenor). 1
• 'Nocturne - Grey & gold Snow' (1886/1887, Whistler). 2
• 'Nachtstück in Grau und Gold' (1888, III. Internationale Kunst-Ausstellung, Munich). 3
• 'Nocturne Grey & Gold – snow piece' (1892, Whistler). 4
• 'Nocturne, Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' (1892, Goupil). 5
• 'Snow Nocturne' (1892, Whistler). 6
• 'Nocturne gris et or: – la neige à Chelsea' (1892, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts). 7
• 'Yellow and Grey – Chelsea Snow' (1894, A. A. Pope). 8
• 'Chelsea, Nocturne, Gold and Grey' (1901, Royal Scottish Academy). 9
• 'Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' (1980, YMSM). 10

'Nocturne: Grey and Gold – Chelsea Snow' is the preferred title.

This painting was chosen by Whistler to illustrate his aesthetic theories, as published in the World on 22 May 1878, under the title 'The Red Rag':

'Why should not I call my works "symphonies," "arrangements," "harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric." ...

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

My picture of a "Harmony in Grey and Gold" is an illustration of my meaning – a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture. Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp.

They say, "Why, not call it 'Trotty Veck' , and sell it for a round harmony of golden guineas?" – naively acknowledging that, without baptism, there is no . . . market! ... I should hold it a vulgar and meretricious trick to excite people about Trotty Veck when, if they really could care for pictorial art at all, they would know that the picture should have its own merit, and not depend upon dramatic, or legendary, or local interest. As music is the poetry of sound, so is painting the poetry of sight, and the subject-matter has nothing to do with harmony of sound or of colour.' 11

Description

A snowy street by night, painted in horizontal format. The snowy street stretches into the distance at right, bounded by dark buildings on each side. In the middle distance at left is a dark figure, and behind this, the ground-floor windows of a shop or pub jutting out into the street (Whistler called it 'a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern'). 12 A few street and house lights cast very little light.

Site

Chelsea, London.