1884, Chelsea Shops: Yellow and Grey -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Whistler's most formally advanced shop fronts and streetscapes feature strict geometries, suppressed detail, flattened spaces, and close cropping. Here, only a few figures dot the sidewalk; the artist set out early to paint in a city notorious for its traffic. One critic at the time described this panel as "a precious little gem," while another scorned "Mr. Whistler's rapid, suggestive studies of low-browed houses, shops, and the picturesque of drabs, yellows, dirty brick, and dropping plaster." The two comments illustrate the range of reactions to urban decay in the British capital.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.
1884, Chelsea Shops: Yellow and Grey -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Whistler's most formally advanced shop fronts and streetscapes feature strict geometries, suppressed detail, flattened spaces, and close cropping. Here, only a few figures dot the sidewalk; the artist set out early to paint in a city notorious for its traffic. One critic at the time described this panel as "a precious little gem," while another scorned "Mr. Whistler's rapid, suggestive studies of low-browed houses, shops, and the picturesque of drabs, yellows, dirty brick, and dropping plaster." The two comments illustrate the range of reactions to urban decay in the British capital.
Link to other paintings from the exhibition Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change.
Link to other Whistler paintings.