Focus on Nocturne: Blue and Silver – Chelsea and analyze the The Nocturnes.
Blue and Silver - Chelsea is the first of 52 nighttime landscapes which Whistler began calling nocturnes after the suggestion of Frederick Richards Leyland. His process is described in detail by his biographers the Pennells: His method was to go out at night[...] stand before his subject and look at it, then turn his back on it and repeat to whoever was with him the arrangement, the scheme of colour, and as much of the detail as he wanted. The listener corrected errors when they occurred, and, after Whistler had looked long enough, he went to bed with nothing in his head but his subject. The next morning, if he could see upon the untouched canvas the picture, he painted it, if not he passed another night looking at the subject.All the nocturnes were painted with an extremely fluid "sauce" that allowed Whistler to build thin layers of luminous colour, sometimes painting over while the lower layer was still wet. The exact recipe of the mixture is unverified, but was reportedly so thin that the wet canvas sometimes had to be painted flat on the ground so the image would not slide off.
Frederick Richards Leyland Nocturnes nocturnes