Green and Blue: The Fields, Loches

In 1888 Whistler married Beatrice Philip Godwin, the widow of his good friend the architect E.W. Godwin. An artist in her own right, Beatrice designed decorative panels for furniture as well as jewelry. Embarking on a three-month honeymoon, the couple traveled first to Boulogne and Paris and then spent most of the month of October in Loches, a small town southeast of Tours, where Whistler made a series of etchings and taught his wife to etch as well. “Green and Blue” shows the green fields and low wooded hills of Touraine. With great delicacy, Whistler depicts the scene with a myriad of subtle shades that delineate the rolling hills and the cows pastured in the background. When the watercolors from this trip were exhibited at Wunderlich’s in New York, one reviewer noted, “The beautiful color-effects he so frequently produces are quite marvelous — ‘stunning’ — is perhaps the most appropriate word.” (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)