Lady and Child 1893 - 1896

James McNeill Whistler created 'Lady and Child' using graphite, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper. Whistler was very interested in printmaking and drawing, and he used these media to make quick, evocative studies of the world around him. In this work, you can see the directness of his hand. The lines are light and tentative, quickly capturing the pose of his sitters. The strokes are like a form of visual shorthand, rapidly fixing a fleeting impression on the page. Notice the texture of the paper, which comes through in the image and adds to the sense of immediacy. Whistler’s approach was considered radical at the time, but he was interested in conveying his subjective experience. His art was not about perfect realism but about capturing a mood and atmosphere. He had an interest in exploring the qualities of paper, graphite and pencil, that many academic artists would have considered merely preparatory. In Whistler’s hands, they become the very substance of the work.