The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler

Date

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea dates from September 1893. ¹

In the following January Whistler described two similar seascapes, 'Two paintings of mine - sea pieces … The pictures are quite new, having been painted only this autumn' (that is, in the autumn of 1893). ²

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea, Art Institute Of Chicago

Dark Blue and Silver, Hill-Stead Museum

These two, reproduced above, were then exhibited at the Grafton Galleries.

Images

Subject

Titles

The title is as follows:

• 'Violet and Silver – A Deep Sea' (1894, Grafton Galleries). ³
• 'Violet & Silver. The Deep Sea' (1894, Whistler). ⁴
• 'Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea' (1980, YMSM). ⁵
• Violet and Silver - The Deep Sea (2018, AIC). ⁶

'Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea' is the preferred title, based on the original published title.

Description

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea, Art Institute Of Chicago

A seascape in horizontal format. A deep blue-green sea with a few breaking waves is seen from a low, sea-level viewpoint. The pale green-blue sky darkens to turquoise blue; it is scattered with cream, grey and lilac/grey clouds.

Site

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea, Art Institute Of Chicago

Dark Blue and Silver, Hill-stead Museum

It was probably painted, with Dark Blue and Silver y412, on the north coast of Brittany in August 1893. Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) said Whistler 'a vu se mouvoir la mer, aux côtes de Bretagne, en été, sous des ciels bleu pale, des nuages mauves, des lueurs d'argent.' ⁷ However, according to the Art Journal, it was painted on the coast of Normandy. ⁸ Arthur Jerome Eddy (1859-1920) wrote that it was painted off-shore, while the boatman steadied the boat. ⁹

Comments

The website of the Art Institute of Chicago comments:

'After years of painting seascapes on a significantly smaller scale, Whistler returned briefly to the large-format canvas to capture the effects of a hot summer day on the coast of Brittany. According to the Chicago collector Arthur Jerome Eddy, the artist painted this seascape while boating off the coast as a crewman steadied their vessel. This could account for the unusually broad handling of paint and thick touches of pigment apparent throughout the composition, particularly in the clouds and gently cresting waves.' ¹⁰

Technique

Technique

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea, Art Institute Of Chicago

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea y411 and Dark Blue and Silver y412 are alike in scale and technique. The size of the canvas for Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea corresponds closely to the French 'toile de vingt' (50 x 73 cm) and it may have been acquired in France. Whistler had not painted seascapes this big for over twenty-five years, and was never to do so again. Kimberley Muir, who analysed the medium and technique, describes the canvas as having an open plain weave, the threads varying in density and thickness, prepared with a ground of deep-red over a grey layer. ¹¹ The pigments used for the painting include lead white, iron oxide or earth pigments, umber, cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, and bone black, and Whistler's brushes varied from very narrow to broader brushes 10 mm wide. ¹²

The colours in Dark Blue and Silver are vivid – a deep cobalt blue sea, with a thick worm of white paint for a breaking wave, under a dark turquoise sky with soft puffy clouds of dove-grey touched with cream, painted wet-in-wet with a large brush. Whistler rubbed down some of the paint while it was still wet, revealing the reddish ground, and in some case rubbing right down to the canvas. The canvas was painted broadly, but not completed in one session, for there are signs of alterations on the left, where there was originally a large white wave. It was probably touched up in the studio once Whistler returned from working either en plein air or en plein mer!

Conservation History

On 9 January 1894 Whistler wrote to his restorer, Stephen Richards (1844-1900):

'Two paintings of mine - sea pieces - I am sending to the Grafton Gallery. -

Indeed they went yesterday -

I have written to Mr Prange to say that I want you to have them on their arrival - And now I will tell you what I want you to do -

The pictures are quite new, having been painted only this autumn - I have put a thin coat of varnish on them about a month or six weeks ago - I don't think any harm can come to them because of it - for they are so simply and directly painted, One painting only - no second coat of any kind or retouching - so that there really is nothing to crack!

Now I just want you to take them out of their frames - and give them a beautiful coat of varnish - not too thick - but you know what pleases me - so that the surface shall be perfect -

… Clean well the glass, and frame perfectly the pictures again - after they have dried sufficiently - and paste the stre[t]cher into the frame at the back ...

You will notice that one of the pictures has been slightly torn - up in the right hand corner - by the scoundrel who stretched it - and there is the mark of a nail that the brute drove at the time into the stretcher -

However I don't think I would touch this at present. Wait till it comes out of the exhibition and we will see - You will find that the frame just covers the tiny hole of the nail.' ¹³

The conservation and condition of the painting are discussed by Kimberley Muir in the Art Institute of Chicago online catalogue, who states:

'The painting currently has an overall natural-resin varnish (estimated) layer (probably more than one layer), which is somewhat glossy, uneven, and yellowed. … Overall, the painting is in good condition. The lined canvas is stretched taut and in plane. The original canvas seems weak, due to the quality and open weave of the canvas.' ¹⁴

Frame

Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea, Art Institute Of Chicago

A Grau Whistler frame, possibly made for exhibition in 1894. ¹⁵

History

Provenance

• 1894: sold by Whistler to John A. Lynch (1853-1938), Chicago;
• 1898: bequeathed to his wife, Clara Margaret Schmall Lynch (1870-1954);
• 1955: given by Clara Margaret Lynch in memory of John A. Lynch to the Art Institute of Chicago.

In January 1894 Whistler wrote to Algernon Graves (1845-1922):

'At the present moment I have in the Grafton Gallery three sea pieces - quite new - fresh and beautiful - I want four hundred apiece for them - Suppose you buy one and send me a cheque for two hundred - and deduct the other two hundred from your account.' ¹⁶

Whistler also urged David Croal Thomson (1855-1930) to go to the Grafton Gallery and see 'the two sea pieces that I showed you in their unvarnished and comparatively undressed state in the Studio - I hope you will like them - I do!!' ¹⁷ Later he asked Thomson if he wanted to buy them. ¹⁸ Meanwhile, not forgetting his American art dealers, he tempted Edward Guthrie Kennedy (1849-1932):

'I have two beautiful new sea pieces in the Grafton Gallery of the size of some of those you have seen in the Salon - 400 gs. each - I suppose you don't want to speculate!' ¹⁹

When it was sold, Whistler wrote on the verso: 'Exhibited in salon of the Champ de Mars. 1894 & bought in my Studio, Paris in October of that year by John A. Lynch, of Chicago.' A. J. Eddy reported to Whistler, 'Mr Lynch has his marine well hung and especially lighted at night. It is a superb thing for him and easily dwarfs the other pictures he purchased.' ²⁰ And later, he wrote, 'Mr Lynch ... finds great delight in the marine. I was down to see it the other evening - it is a beautiful thing - beautiful in its simplicity and truthfulness.' ²¹ On Lynch's death, 2 October 1938, the painting passed to his wife, Mrs Clara Margaret Lynch, and was given in memory of her husband to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

• 1894: Fair Women, Grafton Galleries, London, 1894 (cat. no. 56) as 'Violet and Silver – A Deep Sea'.
• 1894: Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1181).
• 1904: Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 33) as 'Violet and Silver – "Deep Sea" '.

The painting Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea and its companion seapieces, Dark Blue and Silver y412 and Violet and Blue: Among the Rollers y413, was admired in 1894, when it was shown, incongruously, with the Fair Women at the Grafton Gallery. 'They have that splendid distinction of high art which draws you from the other side of the room,' commented the Pall Mall Gazette. ²² By February of the same year, The Sketch mentioned Dark Blue and Silver and Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea as being on show at the Fine Art Society, but this may have been a mistake. ²³

Whistler described his exhibits at the Grafton as 'three sea pieces - quite new - fresh and beautiful.' ²⁴ It was listed by the artist among paintings to be sent to Antwerp in April 1894 as 'Deep Sea Silv[er]-Viol[e]t', but not sent. ²⁵

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. 411), plate 273, as 'Violet and Silver: A Deep Sea'.

Authored by Whistler

• None.

Catalogues 1855-1905

• Fair Women, Grafton Galleries, London, 1894 (cat. no. 56) as 'Violet and Silver – A Deep Sea'.
• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1894 (cat. no. 1181).
• Oil Paintings, Water Colors, Pastels and Drawings: Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Mr. J. McNeill Whistler, Copley Society, Boston, 1904 (cat. no. 33) as 'Violet and Silver – "Deep Sea" '.
• 100th Anniversary Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1905 (cat. no. 431) as 'Deep Sea'.

Newspapers 1855-1905

• Anon., Daily Telegraph & Courier (London), 20 January 1894, p. 6.
• Anon., 'The Grafton Gallery', Globe, London, 22 January 1894, p. 3.
• Anon., 'The Grafton Gallery', Pall Mall Gazette, London, 23 January 1894, p. 3.
• Anon., 'Art Notes', The Sketch, London, 7 February 1894, pp. 24-25.

Journals 1855-1905

• 'The Grafton Gallery Collection', The Art Journal, March 1894, pp. 88-89, at p. 89.
• Phillips, Claude, 'The Salons: Salon of the Champ de Mars’, Magazine of Art, vol. 17, 1894, pp. 379-84, at p. 381.
• Geffroy, Gustave, 'Salon de 1894', Vie Artistique, vol. 4, 1895, pp. 140-44, at pp. 140-4l.

Monographs

• None.

Books on Whistler

• Eddy, Arthur Jerome, Recollections and Impressions of James A. McNeill Whistler, Philadelphia and London, 1903, pp. 274-75.
• Cary, Elizabeth Luther, The Works of James McNeill Whistler: A Study, with a Tentative List of Artist’s Works, New York, 1907, p. 160 (cat. no. 33).

Books, General

• Barter, Judith A. et al, The Age of American Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2011, no. 18.

Catalogues 1906-Present

COLLECTION:

• Clarke, Jay, and Sarah Kelly Oehler (eds), Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2020.

EXHIBITION:

• Sweet, Frederick A., James McNeill Whistler, Art Institute of Chicago and Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, 1968 (cat. no. 40).
• Spink, Nesta, Whistler: The Later Years, University of Michigan Art Gallery, Ann Arbor, 1978 (cat. no. 41).
• 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. 153).
• Merrill, Linda, et al., After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2003, p. 93 (not exhibited).

Journals 1906-Present

• Myers, Kenneth John, 'Whistler the "Quintessencier: Violet and Blue: Among the Rollers" and the Importance of the Late Small Oils', Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Vol. 85, Nos 1-4, 2011, pp. 28-41, at p. 34. Online at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu.

Websites

• Art Institute of Chicago website at http://www.artic.edu (acc. 2019).
• Clarke, Jay A., and Sarah Kelly Oehler, eds., Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, website.

• Strother, Stephanie L., 'Cat. 34 Violet and Silver—The Deep Sea, 1893: Curatorial Entry,' in Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, URL.
• Muir, Kimberley, 'Cat. 34 Violet and Silver—The Deep Sea, 1893: Technical Summary,' in Whistler Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2020, URL.

Unpublished

• Revillon, Joseph Whistler, Draft Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of J. McN. Whistler, [ca 1945-1955], Glasgow University Library (cat. no. 403).

Other

• Parkerson, Sarah Lawrence, Variations in Gold: The Stylistic Development of the Picture Frames used by James McNeill Whistlers, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2007.