Existing comment:
"Variations in Flesh Colour and Green: The Balcony," 1864-1870, by James McNeill Whistler, oil on canvas.
Whistler constructed this painting according to Japanese pictorial principles, with the floor of the balcony falling abruptly away from the figures, whose forms are cropped at the margin as an asymmetrical composition. A spray of azaleas floats across the foreground, and the rectangular cartouche carrying the artist's butterfly signature resembles a Japanese seal. Yet the setting is clearly European: English models dressed in Japanese costumes repose on the balcony of Whistler's London home, with the Thames and the factories of Battersea beyond them. |