Twelve Etchings from Nature: En Plein Soleil

1858

James McNeill Whistler

(American, 1834–1903)

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Culture

America

Medium

etching on chine collé

Credit Line

Bequest of James Parmelee 1940.795.6

Catalogue raisonné

Kennedy 15; Mansfield 12

State

II/II

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Location

Not on view

Description

En plein air typifies the taste for French art and for the practice of executing landscapes out of doors. Whistler referred to the Twelve Etchings from Nature as the "French Set," so-called because the chief sources of inspiration were to be found in the avant-garde French art of the day. Working from a low vantage point, Whistler placed his model on the crest of a hill with a distant town and poplar tree behind her. The bright play of sun on her face, the veiled half-shadow cast by the parasol, the wind-whipped fringe and grasses all contribute to the immediacy of the scene and to the artist’s developing powers to capture nuances of his subject.