Sea and Rain: Variations in Violet and Green / James McNeill Whistler

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Record Details

Accession Number
1955/1.89
Title
Sea and Rain: Variations in Violet and Green
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
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.
Rights
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Technical Details

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

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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 28, 2024.
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