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Lot Essay
Whistler's first close encounters with bridges must have come through his father, one of the most prominent civil engineers of his day. In artistic terms, however, they first appear in the (second?) Thames set of 1860-61 when he made several studies of bridges, including Vauxhall and Old Hungerford. It is clear that he was more interested in the old bridges that spanned the Thames rather than the wonders of Victorian technology which were rapidly replacing them. His interest in the wooden bridge as a subject may have sprung from the same preservationist instinct which led him to record vanishing parts of dockland. Both Putney and Battersea bridges had disappeared by 1890.
But it is also apparent from the structure of his compositions that his interest in the shape and decorative possibilities of wooden bridges was stimulated by his contact with the woodcuts of Hokusai and Hiroshige. He would have undoubtedly known Hokusai's Unusual Views of Famous Bridges Throughout the Country. Lot XXX shows the Japanese influence in its clearest form, with the focus on a single section of the bridge, abruptly truncating it at the edge of the plate in the Japanese manner. He also employed a low vantage point, just as Hokusai had done, and used an arch of the bridge to frame a distant view. Pedestrian traffic is used to enliven the otherwise static view. In the present work, however, this Japanese approach is tempered by his experiments in flattening the picture plane and his developments in filling the surface with a fine mesh of lines in richly patterned decoration. Having two examples of the same subject affords a rare opportunity to see how Whistler developed the image, adding detail.
But it is also apparent from the structure of his compositions that his interest in the shape and decorative possibilities of wooden bridges was stimulated by his contact with the woodcuts of Hokusai and Hiroshige. He would have undoubtedly known Hokusai's Unusual Views of Famous Bridges Throughout the Country. Lot XXX shows the Japanese influence in its clearest form, with the focus on a single section of the bridge, abruptly truncating it at the edge of the plate in the Japanese manner. He also employed a low vantage point, just as Hokusai had done, and used an arch of the bridge to frame a distant view. Pedestrian traffic is used to enliven the otherwise static view. In the present work, however, this Japanese approach is tempered by his experiments in flattening the picture plane and his developments in filling the surface with a fine mesh of lines in richly patterned decoration. Having two examples of the same subject affords a rare opportunity to see how Whistler developed the image, adding detail.