From the collection of Charles L. Freer, Esq.
NOCTURE—BOGNOR
By James A. McNeill Whistler.
intention of the artist. Reaching the essence of beauty to a degree still less alloyed is such a picture as “Bognor—Nocturne”: blue smooth water with shadowy shapes of trawlers gliding like dusky phantoms, and of figures standing in the shallow surf; blue sky and atmosphere, penetrated with silvery luminousness. It is a scene of exquisite refreshment to the spirit, mysteriously etherealized, the artist being so absorbed with the spiritual presence of the summer night that his own soul echoes its very heart-beats.
Once again, then, in all these pictures, it is the essence or innermost significance of the theme that Whistler treats; itself a quality so immaterial that he shrinks from expressing even matter in too distinct or tangible a form, enveloping it in a shrouded light, representing it as a concord of coloured masses with a preference for delicate monotony of hues and soft accentuations, seeking by all means to spiritualize the material. And this without loss of stateliness; he has learned the dignity of the great line from Velasquez, and from him, too, the magisterial use of blacks and grays. Nor with the wild irrelevance of the visionary; there are piquancy and virility in all his pictures, not of lively colour and rampageous brush work, but attained through subtle surprises of detail and decorative originality—qualities
From the collection of Charles L. Feer, Esq.