James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black no. 1, 1871

This single room exhibition of Whistler's works from the Frick, together with the masterpieces owned by the Musée d'Orsay is breathtaking and surprising. The small, but rich exhibition includes three pastels and twelve prints of Venice. The three pastels are among the most exquisite works in the Frick collection. With what seems to be a single sweep of sky-blue pastel across brown woven paper, Whistler captures the light flickering on the waterways, apparently seen from his gondola's approach to the island of the San Michele Cemetery. Most magnificent of all is the austerity and darkness hanging around the island, a mood captured in a few rubs of black pastel. In an more sketchy pastel, the quiet and lazy afternoon along a back canal is brought to life in Venetian Canal, with atmospheric window shutters, gondolas rocking on shadowy water created through more rubbing of pastels. From these Venetian drawings, I have the feeling that Whistler was as interested in time as it is measured by the sun, as he was in the surface of water, buildings, boats.

James Abbott McNeil Whistler, The Cemetery: Venice, 1879

Equally as insightful and filled with the secrets of Whistler's preoccupations in the late nineteenth-century—the same reasons for which he was so criticized by the Paris Salon—were the ocean paintings. Included here is Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean (1866)

James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Venetian Canal, 1880

In this painting from Whistler's time in Chile, we see him dragging his brush horizontally across the canvas to create movement and light on a calm sea. The visibility of the brush strokes produce wispy clouds and sea waves, much to the outrage of the keepers of acceptability in art in the nineteenth century. Most striking of all is the flatness of the painting with sky and sea distinct, yet without depth. The only indication of perspective comes from the branches in the foreground which were apparently painted in at a later date. With this flatness comes a timelessness. Therefore, while the canvas may show the sea at a particular moment in the day, it is also placeless and ahistorical. 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in Grey and Green: The Ocean, 1866

The same can be said of the Musée d'Orsay's Variations in Violet and Green, 1871. The stamp on the right hand side reminds us of Whistler's debt to the Impressionists' and theirs to Japonisme. Indeed, we can see the compositional dynamics of Hokusai and Hiroshige in Whistler's otherwise natural world. The composition on the vertical, the separation of spaces making the painting appear without perspective, enabling it to engage multiple narratives. Taking pride of place in the exhibition is Whistler's portrait of his mother. For all of the beauty and risk of the sea paintings, the insight into what was most important to Whistler in the Venice pastels, the Arrangement in Grey and Black no. 1 is still the masterpiece in Whistler's oeuvre. At least, it is the most exciting piece on display in this exhibition. The three portrait paintings as symphonies in colour from the Frick collection, said to be in the tradition of Velazquez and Gainsborough, are impressive for their balance between naturalism and modernism. But Whistler's portrait of his mother is the most exciting work, if only for its audacity in breaking all the laws of painting from the period.