Bead Stringers

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) · 1880

Here, as in most of his Venice pastels, Whistler sketched the outlines of his drawing with dark chalk, then added firm strokes of color to fill in the details of the figures, windows, drying clothes, and sky. Framed by the warm orange-brown of the lightly worked building walls, Whistler used cool whites, grays, and blues to establish the central subject and the regress to the background, before locking the harmonies into place with the dark greens of the shutters, the blacks of the women's shawls, and the deep browns that define the shadowy interior of the distant building.