Grand Canal, Amsterdam; Nocturne

1. Curry: James McNeill Whistler at the Freer Gallery of Art, Pg. 191
The "Amsterdam Nocturnes" immediately bring to mind Whistler's series on Cremorne Gardens, executed in oil during the previous decade. These four watercolors bear strong compositional affinities to the earlier group. Once again, large blocks of murky color create abstract patterns broken by scattered sources of light and occasionally punctuated by dimly perceived figures. Margaret MacDonald has called these "the most extreme of his watercolors," pointing out that the artist "almost entirely rejects the qualities of the paper itself, and deluges it with wash over wash of dark colours to obtain effects nearly impossible to realise." The views of Amsterdam and Cremorne could be related by subject matter as well. The most active scene, Amsterdam in Winter (F1904.81), recalls public pleasures at Cremorne, for it depicts an urban crowd at leisure. This time the crowd is skating rather than dancing, but Whistler generates a sense of abandon through both the agitated, ominous atmosphere and the indecorous postures of the skaters. Black and Red: Back Canal, Holland (F1902.159), includes two figures, one clad in black, the other in white, probably a couple on the order of the one furtively leaving the London pleasure garden in Nocturne: Cremorne No. 3. Figures walking along the quays in Grand Canal (F1902.161) and Grey and Gold (F1902.160) are shrouded in the anonymity afforded by the fog and the night. An etching titled Nocturne: Dance-House [The Dance House: Nocturne, 1889, F1906.117] is clearly related to the Amsterdam watercolors and helps to substantiate this analogy with the Cremorne series. Although Whistler chose typical tourist views for some of his daylight etchings of the Dutch city, night seems to have found him once again the discreet observer of slightly unsavory scenes from modern life.

2. Morning Post, May 24, 1884
"...a 'Nocturne' not without picturesque effect, but in the absence of those schuyts, tjalks, &c., which give such bustle and animation to the present scene, the picture can hardly be said to represent a characteristic view. As well might Cheapside be painted without cabs and omnibuses."

3. Topical Times, May 24, 1884
"18, 'The Grand Canal at Amsterdam,' with luminous yellow lights and reflections."

4. Daily Express, January 12, 1885
"Whistler sent many of the paintings and drawings that did not sell at a spring 1884 exhibition at the Dowdeswells to a December, 1884 show at the Dublin Sketching Club: Silver and Gold, Chelsea [no. 25]; Grand Canal, Amsterdam; Grey and Gold, Piccadilly [no. 9] -- show a considerable range of effect, from the vaporous stillness (scene of twinkling lights) of quiet Dutch canals and the Thames at Chelsea to the gas illuminated, smoky atmosphere of Piccadilly..."