Long Venice

Whistler developed in his etchings an aesthetic of highly individualized mark-making. Already in his “Thames Set” of 1859, he was starting to leave large expanses of his plates unmarked, allowing the white of the paper to play an active role in the composition of the print. He carried this strategy to the extreme in Long Venice, omitting any extraneous details in order to showcase an ethereal appreciation of the city’s beauty. Whistler sought to escape the conventions of tourist landscapes, instead focusing on lesser known scenes. The few lines scattered across the blank page are enough to engage the viewer’s imagination and transform the flat surface into an evocative seascape.