Grey and Silver: Old Battersea Reach

The Thames a decade before the Nocturnes, and still fully legible: barges, working men, smoking chimneys. Whistler painted this stretch of river repeatedly while living in London, and here he is interested in it as industry rather than atmosphere.

The thick paint and blunt realism come from Courbet, whose work Whistler had seen in Paris. The restricted browns and greys are already pointing at where he ended up. Signed and dated on the water, 1863.