Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 131. Willem Witsen Amsterdam 1860 – 1923 Amsterdam Waterloo Bridge, London, c. 1888-1891 The Dutch painter, printmaker and photographer Willem Witsen lived in London for a couple of years between October 1888 and January 1891. There, he made a series of paintings, etchings and watercolours in which he depicted close-ups of monumental architecture, often in an ethereal, moody atmosphere inspired by the nocturnes of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). He was especially drawn to the light effects of modern gaslights in the foggy city streets. In this oil on board, we see Waterloo Bridge as a dark and mysterious silhouette at the moment of transition from dusk to darkness. The paint is applied thickly, and the artist suggested the boat at lower-left by reserving it in the deep brown of the background, with the ochre murky waters of the Thames touched in around it. A preliminary study for this work is in one of the artist’s sketchbooks preserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam,1 and Witsen also made an etching of the composition in reverse.2 1https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-T-1964-216-50. 2https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1922-672.
The Dutch painter, printmaker and photographer Willem Witsen lived in London for a couple of years between October 1888 and January 1891. There, he made a series of paintings, etchings and watercolours in which he depicted close-ups of monumental architecture, often in an ethereal, moody atmosphere inspired by the nocturnes of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). He was especially drawn to the light effects of modern gaslights in the foggy city streets. In this oil on board, we see Waterloo Bridge as a dark and mysterious silhouette at the moment of transition from dusk to darkness. The paint is applied thickly, and the artist suggested the boat at lower-left by reserving it in the deep brown of the background, with the ochre murky waters of the Thames touched in around it. A preliminary study for this work is in one of the artist’s sketchbooks preserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam,1 and Witsen also made an etching of the composition in reverse.2 1https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-T-1964-216-50. 2https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1922-672.