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Tonalism and the "Nocturne"
Whistler's distinctive views of the river Thames in
London were made from memory, in his studio, after time had softened
his initial impression of the scene. To downplay the significance
of subject matter, he gave the paintings a musical name: "nocturnes,"
after instrumental compositions with a dreamy, pensive mood. In
Whistler's time, the Thames riverfront was considered an unattractive
scene of industrial blight. Here, Whistler's foggy, dark veil transforms
even an industrial scene into a poetic vision of London.
Raised in Detroit and having briefly pursued an
art career in New York, Theodore Scott Dabo moved to France in 1905
where he painted this dreamlike view of trees clustered on a riverbank,
reminiscent of Whistler's nocturnes. That autumn, in the
exhibition at the Paris Salon, his tonal landscapes garnered praise
from several French art critics, including one who went so far as
to describe Dabo's work as "the realization of what Whistler attempted."
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James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne
in Blue and Silver, 1872–1878, oil on canvas.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut.
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Theodore Scott Dabo, The River
Seine, 1905, oil on canvas. The Detroit Institute
of Arts. |
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