Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834

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Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl

James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

1864

Oil on canvas

76.5 x 51.1

Tate Britain, Accession N03418

Bequeathed by Arthur Studd, 1919

Kindly made available for non-commercial use on the CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) licence. Commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

Originally entitled "The Little White Girl," this shows the same woman as Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl — for both, Whistler's model was his mistress, Joanna Hiffernan. This time the young woman in her white dress is gazing into a mirror over a fireplace, in which her reflection appears. Uncannily, the reflection captures something more than pensiveness or simple reverie — a sadness and weariness that the observer might not otherwise have detected. [Mouse over the text for links. The commentary continues below.]

There is plenty to think about here. Perhaps the young woman is recalling a romantic past: the mirror reflects an attractive seascape, complete with boats. Perhaps her wedding ring suggests a relationship in the present that has failed to live up to its early romantic promise. Several possible influences have been suggested here. At the time, Whistler was close to Rossetti: "The Little White Girl dates from the height of their friendship," says Robin Spencer, feeling that the work is "reminiscent" of such paintings by Rossetti as Beata Beatrix (62). As for the mirror, Frances Fowle suggests that the artist may have "intended to evoke Velasquez's Rokeby Venus (National Gallery, London), where the reflection of the woman's face is similarly at odds with her own idealised image." Or could it be that the artist took his cue from the mirror in Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, which went on show in the National Gallery in 1843, and attracted much attention from the Pre-Raphaelites?

Yet the composition itself, and the reflective mood it creates, are even more important than any hints of the woman's story, or the artist's sources of inspiration. There are several Japanese elements: the fan, the chinaware on the mantlepiece, the delicate sprays of pink blooms, the reflected pictures, "their frames creating a series of right angles which are echoed by the fireplace and the mirror itself, dividing and compartmentalising the picture like a Japanese print" (Fowle). The result is indeed another "symphony."

We are told that Whistler added that part of the title when he exhibited "Symphony in White, No. 3" at Birmingham University's Barber Institute of Fine Arts in 1887, intending us to see all three as evoking certain moods through the way he used colour. Significantly, Swinburne's response to this second painting took verse form in a ballad, "Before the Mirror," published in Poems and Ballads of 1866, in which he indicates that the young woman was sad at the passing of "all sweet life" which is inevitably transient. This clearly hit the mark: "Whistler was delighted with the poem and had it printed on gold paper and pasted onto the frame. In this way he hoped to reinforce the picture's theme of reverie and regret" (Fowle).

Related Material

Review of "Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites" (exhibition at the National Gallery)

Bibliography

Fowle, Frances. "James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl. Tate. Web. 31 January 2018.

Spencer, Robin. Whistler. Rev. ed. London: Studio Editions, 1993.

Created 30 January 2018