{"id":1484,"date":"2016-10-14T08:43:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T12:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/?p=1484"},"modified":"2017-03-07T11:17:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T16:17:11","slug":"a-mule-in-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/2016\/10\/14\/a-mule-in-the-capitol\/","title":{"rendered":"A Mule in the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Colby Museum is a proud member of the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies<\/a>, a collection of institutions dedicated to nurturing, producing, and disseminating original scholarship and critical analysis of the artist James McNeill Whistler. Each summer, the consortium\u00a0provides a Colby student with\u00a0opportunity to intern at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C., another consortium member. While in the capitol, students interested in museum careers are able to apply what they have learned on campus and at the Colby Museum in a new context and continue their development\u00a0with the incredible staff and fantastic collections of the\u00a0Freer|Sackler<\/em>. This past summer, Lunder Intern Francesca Soriano ’16 analyzed a set of Whistler drawings\u00a0to better understand the artist’s choice of paper.\u00a0Francesca wrote a reflection of her experiences for the Freer|Sackler’s <\/em>Bento<\/a> and we’re pleased to be able to republish it here\u00a0on\u00a0<\/em>The Lantern.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Examining
Francesca wearing\u00a0a headband\u00a0magnifier to\u00a0examine Whistler’s drawings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 150 years ago, a twenty-four-year-old James McNeill Whistler set off on a summertime journey. He and his friend Ernest Delannoy\u2014both young, aspiring artists\u2014embarked on a road trip through the French and German countryside. Their goal was to visit Amsterdam and pay homage to the revered Dutch painter and etcher Rembrandt van Rijn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whistler and Delannoy never made it to Amsterdam; they ran out of money and were forced to return to Paris. But the sojourn gave Whistler an opportunity to observe new scenery and subjects and to develop his artistic style. Throughout the trip, the artist kept a notebook, a visual diary of sorts, which he filled with pencil sketches detailing scenes, people, and places along the way. He produced scores of drawings, some of which he later developed as etchings for his so-called <\/span>French Set<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This summer, I too traveled in pursuit of art. My journey took me from Colby College in Maine to Washington, DC, for an internship at the Freer|Sackler. When I arrived in June, just a few weeks after graduating with a degree in art history, I began surveying the collection of Whistler\u2019s drawings in media other than watercolor and pastel. The majority of the drawings I looked at were from Whistler\u2019s 1858 trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had extensive background knowledge from my previous experience studying Whistler\u2019s work at the Colby College Museum of Art, a fellow member of the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies. This project, however, gave me the new opportunity of handling the works. Emily Jacobson, the museum\u2019s paper conservator, showed me how to handle the art. She then let me work on my own with a headband magnifier and flashlight to conduct what was essentially a forensic examination of each sheet.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were trying to determine if Whistler favored particular types of paper for a given medium or if he mixed it up, using, for instance, watercolor blocks for pencil drawings. As I examined each drawing, I paid particular attention to the paper, noting its texture and whether it was \u201chot press\u201d (super smooth), \u201cnot hot\u201d (little bumps and grooves); or \u201crough press\u201d (lots of texture). I checked for watermarks; measured the paper\u2019s height, width, and thickness; and inspected the edges for remains of adhesive or fabric. Along the way, I noticed distinct similarities among the sketches, such as the thin, off-white woven paper, the graphite markings on the edges, and the occasional appearance of sewing holes\u2014evidence that papers were ripped or cut out of a sketchbook.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\"Promenade
James McNeill Whistler, Promenade \u00e0 Baden, 1858. Pencil on off-white wove paper, 6 in. x 7 11\/16 in., (15.3 cm x 19.5 cm). Freer Gallery of Art. <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

One sketch in particular stood out to me: <\/span>Promenade \u00e0 Baden<\/a>, which depicts a group of fashionable people standing near a portico facing a hill. The drawing is on two pieces of paper glued together side by side. The edges are uneven, and the two pieces do not properly align, making the bottom wider than the top. A vertical fold down the middle of the drawing contains three sewing holes, and like the other sketches from Whistler\u2019s 1858 trip, Promenade \u00e0 Baden<\/em> has graphite markings on the edges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though Whistler probably never meant it to be a finished work, Promenade \u00e0 Baden<\/em> fascinated me because it reveals some of the artist\u2019s process. Not only does this sketch provide us with a snapshot of Whistler\u2019s journey, but it also demonstrates how he experimented with cropping and cutting his drawings. The graphite along the edges was probably how he marked where the paper should be trimmed. Additional cut marks near the edges suggest that he considered cropping the drawing even more before ultimately deciding against it. One thin sheet of paper tells us a story of a young, broke artist who, to further his artistic development, drew on anything he could and made the most of each sheet of paper.<\/span><\/div>\n
For more information on summer opportunities for Colby students, visit the Museum’s website<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“One thin sheet of paper tells us a story of a young, broke artist who, to further his artistic development, drew on anything he could.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7103,"featured_media":1485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[305457,305458,101973,101965,101963,305456],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/files\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-13-at-9.11.31-PM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3U3TZ-nW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/thelantern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}