1901, James McNeill Whistler, Gold and Orange: The Neighbours -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label:
Gold and Orange: The Neighbours shares part of its title with Henry W. Nevinson's Neighbours of Ours, a work of reform literature published in 1895, the year Whistler began working on this painting. Nevinson offered character sketches drawn from his experiences living among the disadvantaged in Whitechapel, writing about the East Enders he met as neither caricatures nor statistics but as men and women who were "almost as distinct and individual as in a village."
Whistler's figures, in contrast, are generalized. They wear the voluminous skirts and aprons of the laboring classes, but their features are nearly indistinguishable in this heavily reworked panel, and Whistler keeps his distance from harsh social realities. In typical fashion, the picture garnered praise for its "exceptional beauty" and "striking" color arrangement, while the figures in the doorway attracted little attention.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.
1901, James McNeill Whistler, Gold and Orange: The Neighbours -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label:
Gold and Orange: The Neighbours shares part of its title with Henry W. Nevinson's Neighbours of Ours, a work of reform literature published in 1895, the year Whistler began working on this painting. Nevinson offered character sketches drawn from his experiences living among the disadvantaged in Whitechapel, writing about the East Enders he met as neither caricatures nor statistics but as men and women who were "almost as distinct and individual as in a village."
Whistler's figures, in contrast, are generalized. They wear the voluminous skirts and aprons of the laboring classes, but their features are nearly indistinguishable in this heavily reworked panel, and Whistler keeps his distance from harsh social realities. In typical fashion, the picture garnered praise for its "exceptional beauty" and "striking" color arrangement, while the figures in the doorway attracted little attention.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.