Early Morning
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
American Art
James McNeill Whistler credited Japanese art with having a profound impact on his own artistic activities, which included painting, printmaking, and interior decoration. Indeed, the Japanese cultivation of beauty in all aspects of material life informed his own “art for art’s sake” philosophy. This sensibility led Whistler to shift from naturalistic representation in his pictures toward more abstract, evocative arrangements of color and form in the late 1860s. In this image of London’s Battersea district across the Thames, the asymmetrical composition and emphasis on the misty atmospheric effects of early light both reveals the artist’s debt to Japanese art and transforms the urban industrial landscape into a thing of poetic beauty.
MEDIUM
Lithograph (lithotint) on cream, moderately thick, smooth paper
DATES
1878
DIMENSIONS
Sheet: 6 3/4 x 10 1/4 in. (17.1 x 26 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Printed butterfly monogram, lower left.
COLLECTIONS
American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
15.374
CREDIT LINE
Gift of the Rembrandt Club
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834–1903). Early Morning, 1878. Lithograph (lithotint) on cream, moderately thick, smooth paper, Sheet: 6 3/4 x 10 1/4 in. (17.1 x 26 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Rembrandt Club, 15.374 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 15.374_PS1.jpg)
STATE
State 4/4
IMAGE
overall, 15.374_PS1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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RIGHTS STATEMENT
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