An American in London Whistler's Whistler and the thames

In the 1860s and 1870s Whistler produced a body of work (paintings, prints and drawings) based on Battersea Bridge. Pivotal to his career, this beautiful group permits a detailed examination of his approach to composition, subject and technique.The very early paintings, notably Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge (Addison Collection), produced soon after his arrival in London, mark one of his most profound and successful challenges to the art establishment of the time and his influence on the aesthetics of the day. The one hundred and sixty illustrations here reproduced facilitate juxtapositions of paintings against prints and drawings of the Thames to reveal his artistic development allowing a detailed study of the evolution of an artist. They show the Thames in particular under dramatically different climatic conditions from Chelsea on Ice (a rarely seen work of 1864 in a private collection) to the noted Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights (1871-72) depicting the deep blue of warm summer evenings. The Nocturnes of the 1870s mark an important breakthrough in Whistler's art - his passage from French realism to sophisticated harmony, based on mood and atmosphere, but still rooted in a literal rendering of the Thames waterside. The famous Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge is the culmination of his bridge paintings; here the influence of Japanese prints already visible in the Addison painting reached its fullest form. This comprehensive and handsomely illustrated study presents the definitive examples of Whistler's radical new aesthetic approach to the time honoured subject of the city and river. In addition the works illustrate and bring to life Whistler's world, the personalities, the architecture, the style, the atmosphere which informs his art and root this American cosmopolitan securely in the ranks of noted artists inspired by London and the Thames.