The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

A Freshening Breeze dates from between 1884 and 1885. ¹

A Freshening Breeze, Terra Foundation

It is dated from the technique and butterfly signature.

Images

Subject

Titles

Whistler's original title is not known. Suggested titles include:

• 'A Freshening Breeze' (1905, ISSPG). ²
• 'A Coast Scene with shipping out at Sea, and Boats drawn up on the Shore' (1911, Christie's). ³
• 'A Freshening Breeze' (1980, YMSM). ⁴

'A Freshening Breeze' is the preferred title.

Description

A Freshening Breeze, Terra Foundation

A beach scene in vertical format. In the foreground at right is a breakwater stretching out to left into the sea. Several small rowing boats are drawn up on the shore and one is putting out through the choppy sea. In the middle distance at right is the end of a pier with a sailing ship moored beside it, and at sea, to left, are two small sailing boats and a sailing ship, moored. The sea is a deep grey/green and the sky grey.

Site

The Anchorage, Freer Gallery of Art

Southend: The Pleasure Yacht, Freer Gallery of Art

It may have been painted at Southend on the English Coast. It is closely related to several watercolours that were probably painted there, including The Anchorage m0887 and Southend: The Pleasure Yacht m0891.

The Terra Foundation website comments:

'A Freshening Breeze depicts the harbor of one of two English coastal sites – St. Ives in Cornwall or Southend-on-Sea in Essex – that ... Whistler visited in 1883. Rapidly painted in thin washes, this small work provides a lofty glimpse of beached boats along the strand, choppy gray water dotted with vessels ... A pier extending into the sea from the right edge and sewage pipes running from the beach into the water provide a horizontal counterpoint to the composition’s narrow verticality, a feature that recalls the Japanese woodblock prints Whistler greatly admired. ...

In the early 1880s he visited various coastal locations in England, France, and Holland and produced several small panel paintings on marine themes … In these works, Whistler experimented with extreme economy in the representation of objects and settings to create “impressions” – summary evocations of a scene that emphasize the decorative over the descriptive. Playing at the boundary between representation and abstraction, these paintings anticipated modernist developments in art at the turn of the century.' ⁵

Technique

Composition

A Freshening Breeze, Terra Foundation

The Anchorage, Freer Gallery of Art

There appear to be pentimenti in the form of additional ships to the left of the pier. A watercolour known as The Anchorage m0887, which may have been painted about the same time, shows approximately the same scene, but with more ships at the pier.

Technique

A Freshening Breeze, Terra Foundation

It is painted with vigorous, fairly broad brushstrokes. It marks quite a considerable change in Whistler's technique, with the figure and boats being outlined in black before the colour was added. The sky is very boldly and roughly painted, the brush jabbing roughly down over the clouds, changing into smoother, more flowing strokes above and below the horizon.

Conservation History

A Freshening Breeze, photograph, before 1980

A Freshening Breeze, Terra Foundation

There are areas of fine craquelure over much of the surface. The edges have been abraded by the frame, and there are places along the top that have either been abraded or scraped off or simply not painted.

Frame

39.2 x 29.2 x 2.5 cm (15 7/16 x 11 1/2 x 1").

History

Provenance

• By 1905: John G. Ure (1820-1901), Glasgow;
• 1911: sold by him at auction, Christie's, London, 29 April 1911 (lot 22);
• 1911: William Stephen Marchant (1868-1925), London, art dealer.
• Date unknown: private collection;
• 1985?: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York;
• 1985: Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996), Chicago;
• 1992: Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago.

It was lent by John G. Ure to the Whistler Memorial exhibition in London in 1905 (cat. no. 101). When sold by him at auction in 1911 it was bought by Marchant for 230 guineas.

Exhibitions

• 1905: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 101) as 'A Freshening Breeze'.

There is no record of an exhibition in Whistler's lifetime, although it is very likely that it was exhibited in the 1880s.

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. 275), plate 187, as 'A Freshening Breeze'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, Regent Street, London, 1905 (cat. no. 101) as 'A Freshening Breeze', repr. p. 112.

Journals 1855-1905

• None.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2, p. 178.

Books, General

• Atkinson, D. Scott et al., A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Chicago, Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987, repr. pl. T-36, p. 145.

Catalogues 1906-Present

EXHIBITIONS:

• A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987.
• An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1988.
• Whistler and His Circle, Minnesota Museum of Art, St Paul, Minnesota, 1989.
• Regard sur James Abbott McNeill Whistler (James Abbott McNeill Whistler at a Glance), Musée d'Art Américain, Giverny, 1994.
• Dorment, Richard, and Margaret F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Tate Gallery, London, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1994-1995 (cat. no. 141), repr.
• American Treasures: Chase, Whistler, and the Prendergasts, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1997.
• The Decorative Form: The Aesthetic Movement, Arts & Crafts and the Asian Influence in American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1999.
• Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, 2000.
• A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2002–2003.
• Modern Harmonies: Whistler Reflects on his Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2003.
• Studied Abroad: Painted Impressions from the Collection, , Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 2003-2004.
• Andreeva, Galina, and Margaret F. MacDonald, Whistler and Russia, State Tretyakow Gallery, Moscow, 2006, pp. 46, 283 (cat. no. 18), repr. p. 46.
• Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, (organizers). Venues: National Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Museum and Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, 2007; The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 2007; Guggenheim Bilbao, 2007–2008 (exhibited in Bilbao).
• The Orient Expressed: Japan's Influence on Western Art, 1854–1918, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Mississippi, 2011; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, 2011–2012 (cat. no. 198), p. 185 (checklist); repr. fig. 69, p. 53.
• Bourguignon, Katherine M., American Impressionism: a New Vision, 1880-1900 (Une nouvelle lumière: les américains face à l’impressionnisme/ Impresionismo Americano), Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2014-2015, repr. p. 122.

SALES:

• Christie's, London, 29 April 1911 (lot 22).

Journals 1906-Present

• None.

Websites

• Terra Foundation website at http://collection.terraamericanart.org.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 425).

Other

• None.