Nocturne: Blue and Gold, St Mark's, Venice. James McNeill Whistler. 1880. Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 59.7 cm. Collection: The Davies Sisters Collection, Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum of Wales), NMW A 210. Acquired: 1952; Bequest; Gwendoline Davies. Kindly provided by the museum, but not to be downloaded (right click disabled).
The museum's brief commentary explains, "Following his bankruptcy in 1879, Whistler spent a year in Venice where he concentrated on etchings and pastels. Only three oil paintings, produced largely from memory in the evenings, survive from this visit. This unconventional view includes the Torre' del Orologio at the left. The southernmost portal of St. Mark's is cut off at the right. The intense points of white light are gas lamps. Whistler once observed that this work was the best of his nocturnes. Gwendoline Davies purchased it in 1912." There were many, many Nocturnes, so this remark is worth noting.
At the time of writing, the work is on display in the Ashmolean's exhibition, Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design, and in the exhibition catalogue Madeline Hewitson writes that, in his anger towards John Ruskin for slighting his work, Whistler "used Nocturne: Blue and Gold to transform the Venice of Ruskin, and by extension Turner, from a space of brightly coloured architectural precision into his own vision of dissolving, atmospheric hues" (194). — Jacqueline Banerjee
Related Material
- Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket
- Nocturne: Blue and Gold — Old Battersea Bridge
- Nocturne: Blue and Silver — Chelsea
- Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Cremorne Lights
- Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion and Design (Review)
Bibliography
Hewitson, Madeline. "Object in Focus." Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design. Edited by Charlotte Ribeyrol, Matthew Winterbottom and Madeline Hewitson. Oxford: Ashmolean, 2023. 192-94.
Created 18 October 2023