Sea Change: Uncovering Whistler’s Violet and Silver
James McNeill Whistler, Violet and Silver—The Deep Sea, 1893, Art Institute of Chicago.
The Massachusetts-born artist spent most of his life and career abroad, traveling to Paris in 1855 and settling in London a few years later. Whistler ardently pursued atmospheric effects and color harmonies in his compositions, using subject matter not for its own sake, but as a means to an end. This especially unnerved the art world in the early 1870s when he debuted his Nocturnes—urban river scenes pared down to their material essences—evoking form and mood by means of thinly stained canvases and gradations of color.
Over the years, the sea likewise captured Whistler’s attention as an ever-changing aspect of nature enabling such aesthetic explorations. Along the coast of Brittany, France, in the summer of 1893, Whistler painted Violet and Silver—The Deep Sea, a striking and spare arrangement of water, sky, and clouds.
This informative presentation of the recent conservation of this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago describes the recent conservation of this painting and the ‘sea change’ in the appearance of the colours that gave the paintings it’s title. The site includes a slider where you can see the change across the whole surface of the canvas.