Barbier à Mayence

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) · 1858

Whistler's early interest in nocturnal genre scenes is evidenced here. However, the candlelit space recalls nighttime interiors by numerous earlier artists, rather than suggesting anything of the unconventional nocturnes Whistler would begin to execute a few years hence. Whistler used a similar approach to light in The Music Room, an etching which is roughly contemporary with this drawing. In both the drawing and the print, brightly lit passages form flat, abstract shapes while the rest of each figure emerges as a group of scribbled or cross-hatched lines.