Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Pérosquérie

Whistler's 'Violet and Blue: The Little Bathers, Pérosquérie' belongs to a series of small figure studies he made at the Breton coastal village of Pérosquérie during a visit to France in the mid-to-late 1880s. Small nude or semi-nude bather studies were a staple of his practice at this period, allowing him to explore the optical relationship between the human figure and water, sky, and sand in the intense northern seaside light. The Breton coast, with its dramatic Atlantic light and traditional fishing communities, attracted many French and British painters in this period.

The small format and fluid handling are characteristic of Whistler's seaside figure studies: wet-into-wet passages of violet, blue, and silver suggest both water and sky, the figures barely differentiated from their watery environment. The optical dissolution of form in reflected light is the subject as much as the bathers themselves.