Translocal Artistry: James McNeill Whistler’s Wapping

After Paris’s international exposition of 1855, continental Europe’s attitude toward Victorian British art changed dramatically. The exposition featured the world’s first international art exhibition, and English works on display showed an originality and quality that led many reviewers to compliment the nation’s art, which had previously been deemed dull or derivative. From this point on, in the eyes of Europe, Victorians could hold their heads high regarding their artistic production; indeed, many claimed it possessed unique qualities because it remained uninfluenced by major continental traditions, specifically those of the French. Quintessentially Victorian styles of painting, such as Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism, emerged from this pseudo-isolation; however, to view Victorian painting, or any form of Victorian media, as occurring in a vacuum robs the period of its cosmopolitan characteristics. James McNeill Whistler’s painting Wapping (1860–64) encapsulates the diversity and exchange of ideas that the translocal artistic community contributed to the age

James McNeill Whistler. Wapping. 1860–1864. Oil on canvas. 72cm × 101.8cm.

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, d.c.

At first glance, the subject and style of Wapping may appear insignificant. Whistler presents two men and a woman seated on a balcony overlooking the bustling Thames across from Wapping, in East London. In spite of his inscription of “’61” in the corner, he revised Wapping from 1860, when he began sketches on the balcony at Angel Inn, until its official exhibition in 1864 at the Royal Academy. Whistler composed the scene with harmonious tones that leave the foreground figures’ muddy russets, browns, and ochres to be echoed by the crisper, brighter activity of the industrious river. This congruent colouring foreshadows the full-blown Aestheticism to which Whistler, and many Victorian artists, would turn in the 1870s. The men of the painting are portrayed as sailors or dock workers and the woman as a prostitute. Whistler intentionally positioned himself, and consequently the viewer, as a part of the company of these lower-class individuals in an everyday moment, as opposed to a scene of high drama or moral anecdote.

Whistler’s translocality affected both his artistic production and his reception. His chosen subject and manner of execution are typical both of Realism, a style that gained ground in mid-century with Gustave Courbet in France, and of the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Essentially, Realism sought to portray life as it was: replete with grit, details, and monotony. While living in Paris in the 1850s, Whistler drew influence from Courbet and his often controversial works, which focused primarily on the French peasantry. In London, he befriended many associates of the Pre-Raphaelites, whose brand of Realism concentrated on meticulous detail; undoubtedly, this affected Whistler’s decision to create Wapping’s exhaustively detailed setting. In this painting, Whistler’s dark palette and technique resemble Courbet’s more than his English colleagues’, and perhaps this obvious foreign influence, coupled with the fact that Whistler was American-born, explains why most reviewers had reservations about his final product.

Some critics of the Royal Academy’s ninety-sixth exhibition praised Wapping’s technical skill, but they often focused on the background instead of the disreputable characters. Others, such as a writer for the Times, considered it somewhat vulgar and not up to the standard of which Whistler was capable (Stephenson 140):

There are no pictures in the Exhibition showing more unquestionable power, accompanied by an almost defiant eccentricity, than the two by Mr. Whistler .… The painting of the Thames and its various river craft … could hardly be surpassed for force and truth…. But even such power as Mr. Whistler’s does not excuse his defiance of taste and propriety. He should learn that eccentricity is not originality .… Mr. Whistler has so much power, that it is a thousand pities to see it marred by fantastic tricks, such as have led him to … unite an ostentatious slovenliness of execution with the most carefully calculated choice and arrangement of hues; or when he can draw so well when he chooses, to give us … figures as...