Symphony in White, No. 3

Symphony in White, No. 3 shows two women in a restrained interior: Joanna Heffernan, the artist's lover and frequent model at the time, reclines on a white sofa, her head resting on her hand, while Milly Jones, the wife of an actor friend, sits on the floor beside it. The fan on the floor and the plant with white flowers at the right point to Japonisme, the vogue for Japanese art that attracted European painters of the period. The musical title reflects Whistler's belief in corresponding arts, an idea drawn from Baudelaire, in which painting could set aside anecdote and concentrate on composition and harmony of colour. He began the canvas in 1865 and did not consider it finished until 1867, when it was shown at the Royal Academy. Critics were divided: some felt the yellows, reds and greens clashed with the title, and Whistler answered with a biting letter. Years later Walter Sickert dismissed it as an example of the old manner, although Whistler saw it as something new. It is now held by the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham.

Painter

James McNeill Whistler

Date

1866

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

51 × 77 cm

Museum

Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

Genre

portrait

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