- Title
- Bridge, Amsterdam
- Date Made
- 1889
- Medium
- Etching and drypoint
- Dimensions
- 6 1/2 x 9 7/16 in. (16.51 x 23.97 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.90.190.7
- Collecting Area
- Prints and Drawings
- Curatorial Notes
From late August to mid-October 1889, Whistler and his wife Beatrix stayed in Amsterdam, where he produced fourteen etchings, including this view of the Boltensgrachtje (near the present-day passage to the IJtunnel). The etching is a mirror image of the orientation of the original view, which he captured first in his drawing on the plate. The bridge is heavily inked, and a frenzy of hatched lines insinuate the depths of the water, which in turn reflects the massive construction of the piers. A number of figures traverse the bridge, and two men idle against the rail at left. Deftly inked horizontal and vertical lines delineate the exterior elements of the building (demolished around 1930). On the right, Whistler used the white paper to suggest illumination: the solitary figure of a woman is offset by the white wall behind her, and the bridge rails have been eliminated here, as if they had disappeared under blinding light. The overall flatness, abstraction of form, and fusing of water, bridge, figures, and sky are hallmarks of Whistler’s debt to Japanese woodblock prints.
Claudine Dixon
2024
- Selected Bibliography
- Fine, Ruth E. Drawing Near: Whistler Etchings from the Zelman Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984.
