Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl
When Whistler submitted The White Girl to the Paris Salon in 1863, the tradition–bound jury refused to show the work. Napoleon III invited avant–garde artists who had been denied official space to show their paintings in a "Salon des Refusés," an exhibition that triggered enormous controversy. Whistler's work met with severe public derision, but a number of artists and critics praised his entry. In the Gazette des Beaux–Arts, Paul Manz referred to it as a "symphony in white," noting a musical correlation to Whistler's paintings that the artist himself would address in the early 1870s, when he retitled a number of works "Nocturne," "Arrangement," "Harmony," and "Symphony."
Whistler used variati...
1862
Oil on canvas
213.0 x 107.9cm
1943.6.2
Image and text © National Gallery of Art, 2020
Where you'll find this
Permanent collection
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Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl by James McNeill Whistler
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