Existing comment:
Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Little Blue Girl
James McNeill Whister, 1894-1903
Whistler described this female nude as "a figure to, in a way, hint at 'Spring.'" It held a special significance for both the artist and for Charles Lang Freer, who had commissioned -- and paid for -- the work in 1894 but did not take possession of it until the artist's death in 1903. When Whistler's wife Beatrix lay dying of cancer in 1896, the expatriate wrote to his patron in Detroit that he had continued to work on the painting, in part to ease his grief. "I write to you many letters on your canvas," he explained to Freer, and indeed, the multiple layers of paint around the model's face convey Whistler's almost obsessive reworking of the surface.
Whistler designed and painted the frame to harmonize with both the figure and the checkerboard pattern of the rug on which she stands. Whistler thought the frame was an important element in the overall design of a work of art. Here, he signed it with his trademark butterfly, ensuring that the frame and image would be understood as two parts of a whole. |