James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

In September of 1879, Whistler traveled to Venice to begin work on a set of a dozen etchings depicting the fabled city. The etchings were commissioned by the Fine Art Society in London, which also provided the artist with a stipend to support him for a planned three-month visit. He stayed for over a year, producing some fifty etchings, seven or eight paintings, and a hundred pastels. They were, as noted by one art historian, "some of the most innovative things he had ever done." (R. Dorment and M. F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, London, England, 1984, p. 179)

For his subject matter, Whistler all but ignored the famous canal views and attractions of Venice, preferring instead to depict lesser-known corners of the city, as he does here with Corte del Paridiso, which is highly representative of Whistler's best Venice pastels. It exemplifies his signature style, using a dark paper to provide a foil for his deft color notes of blues, whites, oranges and greens. To emphasize the narrowness of the courtyard, Whistler selected a paper with a strong vertical format. He renders details with a fine black line, sketching in the most telling architectural elements and a few figures. Above the courtyard, clothing hangs banner-like from the windows, enlivening the scene with added color.

As noted by Margaret F. MacDonald, the location of this pastel "lies off the Ruga Ciuffa just east of a busy market square, the Campo Santa Maria Formosa (and, incidentally, of the Galleria and Bibliotecca Querini-Stampalia, a treasure-house of Venetian art). It is not far from the Riva degli Schiavoni, and yet quite off the tourist track." She adds that "the drawing is a beauty. A spot of vibrant red in the doorway provides a point of focus. It is on the usual auburn-brown paper, with a slight orange tinge and a fine vertical grain." (M. F. MacDonald, James McNeill Whistler, Drawings Pastels and Watercolors, a Catalogue Raisonn, New Haven, Connecticut, 1995, p. 292).

As noted elsewhere, the locale chosen by Whistler was a working-class area, busy with small shops and markets, but the Corte del Pardiso was also an oasis of calm where Whistler could work undisturbed. (James McNeill Whistler, p. 190).

In its simplicity and depiction of an unfashionable quarter, Corte del Paridiso represents a dramatic departure from the grand evocations of Venice characteristic of earlier artists such as Canaletto, Guardi, and Turner. "By contrast" writes Richard Dormont, "Whistler's vision of Venice was essentially new. He was the first major artist to stray off the Grand Canal along the stagnant backwater canals, the first to penetrate the secret cortiles and high bare salons of impoverished palazzos. He set out to depict the lagoon on hot moonless nights, when the only light gleams from riding lamps swaying on the prows of silent gondolas. 'I have learned to know a Venice in Venice' he wrote, 'that the others seem never to have perceived.'" (James McNeill Whistler, p. 179)