Symphony in White

James Abbott McNeill Whistler: White Girl (Symphony in White No 1), 1862

The White Girl is Joanna Heffernan. Whistler met her in London and felt in love: her beauty was great, her gold-red hair a marvel (The Whistler Journal).

The painting is now at the Washington National Gallery. It seems a bit strange, with this elongated form. You feel here the daybreak of modern approaches in painting. There is something abstract in the design of this work. Yet it communicates you a feeling of the voluptuous.



(Washington DC National Gallery of Art)