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Low Tide
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)
1883-1884
- Medium
- Oil on wood panel
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W: 13.8 × 23.5 cm (5 7/16 × 9 1/4 in)
- Culture
- Americans
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Almost certainly painted in St. Ives, Cornwall, in December 1883 or January 1884, this is probably the painting titled Sands: Blue Note that Whistler exhibited in London in May 1884. Whistler covered the grain of the wood support more completely than in Wortley: Note in Green, but at the right he used the uncovered gray ground to establish tonal variations and texture. The broadly painted beach takes up both the foreground and the middle ground, setting off the intricate color harmonies of the multihued boats, houses, people, and chimneys that fill the background.
