Nocturne: Blue and Gold — Old Battersea Bridge, by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834

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Nocturne: Blue and Gold — Old Battersea Bridge

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

c.1872-75

Oil on canvas

Support: 683 x 512 mm; frame: 922 x 760 x 83 mm

Tate Britain, Accession N01959

Presented by the Art Fund, 1905

Kindly made available for non-commercial use on the CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) licence. Commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

The term "nocturne" originated not with Whistler himself, but with the Pre-Raphaelites' patron, Frederick Leyland, who sensed the musical associations of these moonlit scenes. [Mouse over the text for links. The commentary continues below.]

Whistler loved the idea, saying, "I can't thank you too much for the name 'Nocturne' as a title. You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics and consequent pleasure to me; besides, it is really so charming and does so poetically say all I want to say and no more than I wish" (qtd. in Pennell 162).

In this "nocturne," the fifth in the series that he painted, a portion of Battersea Bridge curves high (in fact, disproportionately high) above the river, carrying shadowy figures and forms. Behind it, a firework sends a shower of golden sparks down from the sky, while a rocket can be seen with the opposite trajectory, but still somehow like a shooting star. It must be on or around Guy Fawkes night in foggy November. The next bridge (the new Albert Bridge, only recently opened to traffic) can be seen vaguely in the distance. To the side on the bank of the Thames, is the tower of Chelsea Old Church, with a light shining in it. As Robin Spencer says, the composition had undoubtedly been inspired not by just one but by several of Hiroshige's famous woodcuts (see p. 82): in these can be found not only sections of curved bridges (as in Bamboo Yards, Kiyobashi Bridge, of 1857), but sometimes fireworks (as in Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge, of 1847-52). But Whistler was equally or more concerned, as he said in the trial for libel which he brought against Ruskin in 1878, with colour, or rather with the harmony of colour.

Frances Fowke explains that this nocturne was especially controversial at the time because it came up as evidence in the trial. It was nonsense for Ruskin's lawyer in the trial to ask how long it took him to "knock off" such a painting (which seemed to him and others, including Edward Burne-Jones) "unfinished"): many a night he was out on the Thames, taking in and sketching the scenes he saw, returning to his studio to try to capture them. It is terribly sad to think of him listening to Ruskin's attorney describing his paintings as "capital jests which had afforded much amusement to the public," and calling him "a mere pretender to the art of painting" (qtd. in Pennell 235-39). He adopted a characteristically cavalier air as he faced such mockery, and sometimes the court-room inquisition is presented as funny, but it is really painful and even heartbreaking to read, if you find Whistler original rather than eccentric or a "con-man." Edward Burne-Jones, despite having expressed the opinion that Whistler's apparently "unfinished" pictures set a dangerous precedent for art (see Pennell 240), was right to call it "a hateful affair" (qtd. in Pennell 242).

Technically, Whistler won the case, but the derisory damages awarded by the jury (a farthing) left him facing bankruptcy, and the lack of support for his artistic aims, even from those with whom he had been friendly, left him feeling disappointed: he "never felt completely at home in London again" (Lambourne 476). Ruskin's loss most likely exacerbated his mental instability, so it was a sad outcome all round.

Related Material

Kyôbashi Takegashi (by Hiroshige, from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue, repro. no. LC-DIG-jpd-02935)
Ryōgoku hanabi no zu (by Hiroshige, from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue, repro. no. LC-DIG-jpd-00839)
Contemporary Notes on Whistler vs. Ruskin (by Henry James)
Ruskin, Whistler and Abstraction in Art (a more detailed discussion of the trial, by Clive Wilmer)

Bibliography

Fowle, Frances. "James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl. Tate. Web. 31 January 2018.

Lambourne, Lionel. Victorian Painting. London and New York: Phaidon, 1999.

Pennell, Elizabeth Robins and Joseph. Life of James McNeill Whistler. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: Lippincott / London: Heinemann, 1908. Contributed by Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library. Web. 31 January 2018.

Spencer, Robin. Whistler. Rev. ed. London: Studio Editions, 1993.

Created 1 February 2018