Art Institute of Chicago

Nocturne, from Venice, a Series of Twelve Etchings (the "First Venice Set")

James McNeill Whistler

Date

1879–80

Medium

Etching and drypoint in brown on cream laid paper

Culture

United States

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Whistler pursued the abstraction of conventional subjects like portraiture and landscape across a variety of media, including painting, drawing, etching, and lithography. In his etchings, perhaps especially those from his Venice period, he used the selective wiping of printing plates to create atmospheric effects while often obscuring the compositional elements. In this final state of Nocturne , Whistler depicted a wide stretch of water with the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in the distance at right and the domed roofline of Santa Maria della Salute at left. As in all printmaking processes, the image is reversed from how it was drawn on the plate. Whistler would have observed this view from the Riva degli Schiavoni.

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