Sea and Rain: Variations in Violet and Green / James McNeill Whistler
Access to this resource is restricted.
About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 1955/1.89
- Title
- Sea and Rain: Variations in Violet and Green
- Artist
- James McNeill Whistler
- Artist Nationality
- American
- Artist Life Dates
- 1834-1903
- Medium and Support
- oil on canvas
- Object Creation Date
- 1865
- Object Creation Place
- Europe (continent)
- France (nation)
- Normandy (historical region)
- Trouville
- Creation Place 1
- Europe (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- France (nation)
- Creation Place 3
- Normandy (historical region)
- Creation Place 4
- Trouville
- Credit Line
- Bequest of Margaret Watson Parker
- Style/Group/Movement
- Impressionist
- Inscription
- Inscribed l.r.: Whistler. 65.
- Dimensions
- 77.4 cm x 100.3 cm x 6.5 cm (30 1/2 in. x 39 1/2 in. x 2 9/16 in.)
- Century
- 20th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Painting
- Primary Object Type
- seascape
- Physical Description
- Painting depicts a solitary male figure standing along the shore. The thin layers of paint evoke a misty, overcast day with the figure standing perhaps on a tidal flat.
- Subject Matter
- Whistler accompanied the Realist painter Gustave Courbet in a late summer painting campaign along the Normandy coast, in the resort town of Trouville. Although Whistler had embraced the tenets of Realism early in his career, by 1865 he had begun to evolve his own painting style that departed from the vigorous brushwork and heavy impasto of Courbet's example. This work, painted in the older artist's company, exhibits Whistler's characteristic thin veils of paint that evoke the atmosphere along the coastline rather than minutely describe it. The presence of the man implies no narrative story but is a precisely placed accent within the composition. Whistler's credo of "art for art's sake" has already shaped how he portrays a cloudy day at a summer retreat.
- Primary Keywords
- beach
- beaches
- coastlines
- figures
- impressionism
- sea
- seas
- seascapes
- shores
- standing
- water
- Secondary Keywords
- relation to water
- bodies of water
- bodies of water and components of bodies of water
- bodies of water by size
- buildings and the land
- geography
- landforms
- landforms and landform components
- landforms by position
- landforms by shape or position
- landscapes (environments)
- marine bodies
- movement
- natural landscapes
- people and occupations
- settlements and landscapes
- shores (landforms)
- the natural world
- waterscapes
- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 4941 x 3375
- File Size
- 227 KB
- Record
- 1955/1.89
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1955-sl-1.89/1955_1.89.stdrez.jpg
Rights and Permissions
Related Links
Portfolios
- In public portfolios
Cite this Item
View the Help Guide for more information.
- Full citation
-
"Sea and Rain: Variations in Violet and Green; James McNeill Whistler." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1955-sl-1.89/1955_1.89.stdrez.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 29, 2024.