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The Thames
James Abbott McNeill Whistler1896
University of Michigan Museum of Art
Ann Arbor, United States
Details
- Title: The Thames
- Creator: James McNeill Whistler
- Creator Lifespan: 1834/1903
- Creator Nationality: American
- Creator Gender: Male
- Creator Death Place: London, England
- Creator Birth Place: Lowell, Massachusetts
- Date Created: 1896
- Location: United States
- Physical Dimensions: w27.4 x h27.5 (sheet)
- Label Copy: The Thames is considered one of Whistler's most accomplished lithographs, and in many ways is a summation of ideas first explored in his printmaking two decades before. It was drawn on a lithographic stone with a prepared half-tint ground, the same process used in WhistlerÕs views of the Thames from the 1870s, and recalls the atmospheric nocturnes of London and Venice that he produced in those years. The bridges and buildings on the far bank of the river seem suspended in mist and the failing light of late winter. Whistler further dematerializes the scene by obscuring the roadway of the Embankment at the bottom of the image by visually breaking up the depiction of the road, replete with hansom cabs and pedestrians, with a screen of leafless tree trunks. The views of London executed during Whistler's wife's decline have a very private character, and they assume an elegiac poignancy. Whistler sought both treatments and new locations in an effort to make Beatrix more comfortable as her illness progressed, remaining by her side and sketching views from their balcony overlooking the sweeping curve of the Thames. When her condition permitted, Beatrix's bed was moved near the windows so that she, too, could take in the bustle and life of the city and river. Beatrix finally died in May of 1896; Whistler lived to see the new century, dying in 1903.
- Type: Print
- External Link: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-1954-sl-1.463/1954_1.463.JPG?lasttype=boolean;lastview=thumbnail;resnum=1;sel9=ic_exact;size=20;sort=relevance;start=1;subview=detail;view=entry;rgn1=musart_an;select1=starts;q1=1954%2F1.463
- Medium: Lithotint with scraping on a prepared half-tint ground on heavy wove paper
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