Technique

Flower shop, Dieppe, Terra Foundation for the Arts

A geometrical composition, grey brush outlines, and washes of pale yellow ochre and grey painted very freely. The Terra Foundation website comments:

'The rectilinear forms of windows, door, and lintel create a flat grid interrupted by the voids of the interior spaces open to the street and by the forms of two women, one outside the window and another standing just inside the doorway. Flower Shop, Dieppe is vertical in orientation and—for Whistler—uncharacteristically symmetrical in its organization, but the spontaneous application of thin watercolor wash, which in places allows the white paper to appear like flashes of sunlight on the building’s façade, relieves the rigor of the composition. Whistler’s loose watercolor technique dissolves details, inviting the impression of the shop front as a pure abstract, geometric design on the smooth paper surface.' 1