ARRANGEMENT IN GRAY AND YELLOW
by James Abbott McNeill Whistler


A woman standing, depicted in profile in subtle tints of bluish-grey, brown, ochre and yellow. Whistler painted this work around 1876-'78. His lover, Maud Franklin, was the artist's model. Whistler painted her full-length, set against a neutral background, evidently applying the paint with brisk strokes of the brush. For Whistler it was not so much a question of accurately portraying his models, as of creating a balanced composition of colors and forms. He would often call his paintings a 'Harmony' or — as here — an 'Arrangement'. The subtitle Whistler gave to the work is a reference to the tragic heroine created by Walter Scott: Effie Deans. The artist incorporated an appropriate quotation from the book in the painting, bottom left.