Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
1866-ca. 1874
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of Charles Lang Freer
Accession Number
F1909.127a-b
Tags
American ArtCharles Lang Freer collectionUnited Statesnight
About this artwork
Whistler began this painting in Valparaiso, Chile, where he witnessed a Spanish fleet attack the city. Whistler probably started the painting as a daylight scene, transforming it into a night scene when he reworked the canvas in 1874. The high horizon and the powerful diagonal of the wharf create an arrangement of forms that has no European precedent, but recalls the late landscapes of the Japanese painter Utagawa Hiroshige (17971858).