Nocturne

The publication of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's popular "French Set" in 1858 placed him at the forefront of the etching revival that swept France and Britain in the 1850s. Whistler went on to publish the "Thames Set" in 1871 and the two "Venice Sets" in 1880 and 1886.

The story behind the 1880 Venice set begins with Whistler's 1878 libel suit against John Ruskin, who had accused Whistler of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face” with his painting "Nocturne in Black and Gold." Despite Whistler's winning the suit, the legal fees - along with his extravagant lifestyle - drove Whistler into bankruptcy. However, in the following year the London Fine Art Society commissioned him to travel to Venice, where he was to produce a series of twelve etchings in three months. Whistler’s Venice did not encompass the popular views of his eighteenth-century predecessors Canaletto and Guardi. Instead he captured anonymous doorways, back canals, palace façades, and picturesque piazzas.
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Of all Whistler’s Venice subjects, his evocative and poetic "Nocturne" shows the most dramatic variation among impressions. The first etched state was executed directly from nature. Because the plate was never steelfaced - a process that makes the printing plate durable - the drypoint lines wore down quickly. In the fourth and final state, this impression was printed in brown with a film of ink left on the plate. By manipulating this film, Whistler suggested distinctive qualities of light and made allusions to weather at various times of day.

Whistler stayed in Venice until 1880, completing fifty etchings. The twelve etchings selected for the first "Venice Set" were shown at the Fine Art Society in December 1880. Whistler’s contemporaries viewed his Venetian work as modern and revolutionary. Whistler's Venice etchings, mysterious and magical, were a logical outgrowth of his painted nocturnes of the late 1870s. His printmaking set the course for future radical experimentation and influenced a generation of artists.