Nocturne: The Thames at Battersea,

1878

Whistler created this lithotint using a grain wash to achieve the atmospheric effects that obscure the Thames and its adjacent buildings. Visible from his residence in London’s Chelsea district were the warehouses in Battersea, distant chimneys, and the steeple of Saint Mary’s Church. By 1876 the city’s housing crisis of the early 1870s had taken a turn, and previously unoccupied buildings and rambling green fields were rapidly being developed to accommodate the growing population. By the time Whistler made this print in 1878, however, speculation had caused rent increases and another economic depression. Coupled with the setting’s fog and darkness, Whistler’s Battersea appears
precariously empty, its uncertain future reflected in the picture’s unyielding haze. These qualities are typical of the artist’s nighttime industrial scenes, wherein the atmospheric effects of his printing techniques imbue otherwise mundane buildings with a sense of poetry.