"Why should not I call my works 'symphonies', 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'?.. .The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell. My picture of 'Harmony in Grey and Gold' is an illustration of my meaning – as snow scene with a single black figure and lighted tavern. I care nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure, placed there because the black was wanted at that spot. All that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the basis of the picture, Now this is precisely what my friends cannot grasp."
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Quote in a letter to 'The World', London 22 Mai, 1878; as cited in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 186
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_McNeill_Whistler
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James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (10 July 1834 – 17 July 1903) was an American-born, British-based painter and etcher. Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings 'arrangements', 'harmonies', and 'nocturnes'.
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