Impressionism

For this formal analysis I have chosen to write about is James boot McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold, The Falling Rocket on page 1,000. Impressionism is probably one of my favorite art styles (and artistic periods) so I had a hard time on deciding what painting to write about. But I've never seen any of Whistler's art before, so I figured that I would write about something new and fascinating to me.

Whistler's Nocturne was painted in 1875, is 22 ¾ x 18 3/8 in, and its medium is oil on panel. The first thing to notice about Whistler's painting is how dark the whole thing is. Aside from small bits of very bright yellow, red, and green fireworks there is very little color or light in the painting. The painting is very muted and has an almost haunting feel to it.

The different variants of blacks in the painting range from green to blue in color. On the left side of the painting the viewer can see a very large black shape taking up most of the length of the canvas. However near the bottom of this shape is a break, where one of the brightest shapes is located in the painting. This light shape is symmetrical (horizontally) and suggest where the lake starts and ends. The viewer can also tell where the lake starts because there is a line of horizontal brushstrokes all the way across the canvas. Though a lot of it is hard to see because the dark color of the strokes, blend in with the area above the lake. However there are a lot of very noticeable, long, vertical brushstrokes in the background, to help separate the different areas in the painting.

In the foreground you can see that several ghostly (transparent) figures of women are sitting on the curved lake bank watching the fireworks. Whistler loved to do abstract imagery in his paintings, but I wonder if these semi transparent figures look the way they do because of the smoke from the fireworks? Could the haze actually just be a lot of smoke causing the figures to look strange along the bank? There even just appears to be the shadow of a figure reflecting onto the bank and on the water in the lower right corner of the painting.

Nocturne, even though it is a very dark painting, has a good sense of scale and depth to it, for two reasons. One reason being that the painting is in a vertical format and that the figures in the foreground are so close to the bottom of the painting it focuses the viewer's attention on the very large landscape filled with shadows, smoke, and fireworks. The other reason being that, the viewer is not quite sure what objects are advancing or retreating in the painting. It gives a sense of mystery and I think it's up to the viewer to decide what exactly is in the background .

The limited color in Nocturne provides a strong contrast in the painting. With the wavy groups of light, gold, dots from the fireworks falling out of the sky towards the lake, surrounded by much darker areas. Some of these golden dots even get larger in the size the closer they get to the foreground in the painting. These gold dots work well with the vertical format of the painting because the viewer can see that they are falling from a pretty good distance. The viewer can also see that in contrast to the golden dots there is also smoke rising up towards the top of the painting around the falling dots.

Along with the golden bits of light, there is also a small grouping of much larger red, green and yellow lights at the very top of the painting. I think that these are supposed to be other fireworks off in the distance, but I'm not entirely sure. What I can say though is that Whistler illuminated them so that they look as if their insides are glowing, though they're not producing any light around them.