The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Symphony in Green and Violet, one of the 'Six Projects', dates from 1868. ¹

Symphony in Green and Violet, Freer Gallery of Art

The 'Six Projects' comprise Venus y082, Symphony in Green and Violet y083, Variations in Blue and Green y084, Symphony in White and Red y085 and Symphony in Blue and Pink y086 and The White Symphony: Three Girls y087. This group of paintings was mentioned by William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) in his diary for 28 July 1868, when he wrote that Whistler was 'doing on a largish scale for Leyland the subject of women and flowers.' ²

Images

Subject

Titles

Suggested titles are as follows:

• 'Symphony in Green and Violet' (1905, Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Paris). ³
• 'Symphony in Green and Violet' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

'Symphony in Green and Violet' is the correct title.

It was not shown in the Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 7th exhibition, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champs de Mars, Paris, 1897 (cat. no. 1257) as 'Vert et violet', as suggested in the 1980 catalogue. ⁵ The work exhibited in 1897 was Green and Gold: A Shop in Calais y474.

Description

Symphony in Green and Violet, Freer Gallery of Art

An upright figure composition, with two women, one in pale blue robes at left, and the other in pale cream, lean on a railing, looking to left. The sea is just visible in the distance. There are white blossoms at the lower left edge. There are considerable signs of pentimenti.

Sitter

Unknown.

Technique

Composition

r.: A group of figures, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute

r.: A group of figures; v.: Figure m0341, one of many figure studies for the 'Six Projects', may relate to this oil.

Technique

Symphony in Green and Violet, Freer Gallery of Art

It was painted quickly, with bold, flowing strokes of a broad brush, on a dark grey ground. The paint is fairly thin, and sometimes the brush was almost dry of paint. Many changes to the figures were indicated by pentimenti. The end of the brush or palette knife was used to draw lines through the paint on the robes of the figure at right. An area between the heads appears to have been scraped down. The white blossom is indicated by curious blob-like shapes, possibly done with the square tip of a bristle brush.

Conservation History

For some time Whistler had five of the 'Six Projects' hanging in his dining room in Cheyne Walk. In June 1892 they were cleaned and varnished by Stephen Richards (1844-1900), his picture restorer in London. Whistler then asked David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) to retrieve them from Richards and send them to him in Paris, 'I want my small pictures that you gave him to clean and varnish ... the sketches that used to hang in the dining room, Cheyne Walk.' ⁶

However, when they arrived he wrote to Richards from Paris:

'I have just received the five small paintings on millboard - (sketches of figures & sea) - that you have cleaned & varnished for me. They look pure and brilliant as on the day they were painted! -

But while you were about it, I wish enough you had seen to the condition of their backs - They were put down upon other cardboards some time ago, and they are all loose and bent about now … Also how is it that they come back to me without their frames? ...

This is so unlike your usual thoughtfulness and great care! I was horrified! However happily they are unharmed.' ⁷

Frame

Symphony in Green and Violet, Freer Gallery of Art, frame

Symphony in Green and Violet, frame, detail

For some time between 1890 and 1892 Whistler had the so-called 'Six Projects' (actually five!) hanging in his house in Cheyne Walk, although they were not exhibited. The five ' Projects' were certainly framed by 1892, when they were cleaned and varnished by Stephen Richards (1844-1900), but returned to the artist, as he complained 'without their frames.' ⁸

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston, 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/21

The current Grau-style frame dates from after the painting was bought by C. L. Freer in 1903. It is of similar construction to the frames on the other 'Projects'. It was certainly on the frame by 1904, as seen in the photograph above. ⁹

History

Provenance

• 1879: probably acquired by Thomas Way (1837-1915), London, at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy, and returned in the 1880s;
• 1903: bought from the artist by Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit, in July;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

Exhibitions

• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 22).
• 1905: Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 13) as 'Symphony in Green and Violet'.

It was not shown in the Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 7th exhibition, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champs de Mars, Paris, 1897 (cat. no. 1257) as 'Vert et violet', which was Green and Gold: A Shop in Calais y474.

Whistler Memorial Exhibition, Boston, 1904, GUL Whistler PH6/21

C. L. Freer lent the painting to the Boston exhibition of 1904, where the 'Projects' were exhibited together, as shown in the photograph reproduced above. By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot now be lent to any other venue.

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. 83), plate 47, as 'Symphony in Green and Violet'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 22).
• Œuvres de James McNeill Whistler, Palais de l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1905 (cat. no. 13) as 'Symphony in Green and Violet'.

Journals 1855-1905

• Matsuki, Bumkio (ed.), 'Whistler Memorial Exhibition', Lotus, vol. 1, no. 1, (Special Holiday Number in Memoriam: James A. McNeill Whistler), December 1903, pp. 7-9, at p. 9.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Merrill, Linda, The Peacock Room. A Cultural Biography, New Haven and London, 1998, pp. 67, 95-98, 137, 338.
• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 1, pp. 148-50, 258, vol. 2, p. 26.

Books, General

• Robertson, W. Graham, Time Was: the Reminiscences of W. Graham Robertson, London and New York, 1931, p. 192.
• Rossetti, William Michael (ed.), Rossetti Papers, 1862-1870, London, 1903, p. 320.
• Swinburne, Algernon C., Essays and Studies, London, 1875, p. 360.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Curry, David Park, James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, New York and London, 1984, pp. 107-10, 291-92, pl. 12, repr. p. 110.
• Stubbs, Burns A., Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, Prints and Copper Plates by and attributed to American and European Artists, together with a List of Original Whistleriana in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1948, p. 12 (03.176).

EXHIBITION:

• Glazer, Lee, The Lost Symphony: Whistler and the Perfection of Art, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2016.

Journals 1906-Present

• Blanche, Jacques-Émile, 'James McNeill Whistler', Renaissance Latine, vol. 4, no. 6, 15 June 1905, pp. 353-78, p. 358.
• Fenellosa, Ernest F., 'The Collection of Mr Charles L. Freer', Pacific Era, vol. 1, November 1907, pp. 57-66, repr. f.p. 58.
• Hobbs, Susan, 'A Connoisseur's Vision: The American Collection of Charles Lang Freer', American Art Review, vol. 4, August 1977, pp. 76-101, at p. 90.

Websites

• Freer Gallery of Art website at https://asia.si.edu/object/F1903.176a-b

Unpublished

• None.

Other

• Chisaburo, Yamada, (ed.), Japonisme in Art: An International Symposium, (Committee for the Year 2001), Tokyo 1980.
• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.