James Abbott McNeill Whistler
A pivotal work in Whistler's oeuvre, this painting stands between his fanciful costume works such as Caprice in Purple and Gold and the more fully realized synthesis of Japanese art evident in the Nocturnes of the 1870s. English models dressed in kimonos pose on a balcony overlooking the river Thames and the industrial neighborhood of Battersea on the opposite shore. The factory smokestacks are veiled in atmospheric mist, and the adjacent slag heap (a monument of industrial waste) evokes images of Mount Fuji by Japanese artists Utagawa Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai. Butterflies, a symbol of metamorphosis, link the foreground fantasy to the real world beyond the balcony. Beginning with this painting, Whistler signed his work with a butterfly instead of his name, thereby linking himself and Victorian London to imaginative visions of Japan.
We present today's marvelous piece of art thanks to the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, DC. : ) Have a great Monday everyone!
P.S. Here you will find everything you must know about the Victorians and here you can read about the most renowned Whistler painting, the portrait of his mother.