Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl

The subject of the painting is white on white. Whistler set himself the challenge of painting a white figure against a white ground and making every part distinct, and he did it through subtle temperature shifts: the dress is a warm cream, the curtain a cooler white with hints of grey and blue, and the skin of her face and hands is warmer still. Look at the loose, almost rough handling of the dress and the flurry of small strokes in the curtain pattern. The wolf's head and the scattered flowers on the rug give the picture its only sharp notes of colour. Whistler added the musical title later, to insist that the painting should be enjoyed like music, for its arrangement, not for a story.

The painting was rejected by the Royal Academy in London in 1862 and by the Paris Salon in 1863, and it hung instead in the famous Salon des Refuses alongside Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, where it drew both mockery and admiration. Critics tried to read it as a bride, a ghost or a fallen woman; Whistler refused all of them. It came to the National Gallery in 1943 through Harris Whittemore, a Connecticut collector who had known the artist. Notice how the lily's stem leads your eye down to the wolf, a small tension between innocence and something wilder.

Did You Know? Rejected by both the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon, the painting hung at the 1863 Salon des Refuses beside Manet's Luncheon on the Grass.