# Nocturne (painting)

In art, a 'nocturne' its broader sense distinguishes paintings of a night scene, or night-piece, such as Rembrandt's The Night Watch, or the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich's Two Men Contemplating the Moon of 1819.
In America, James Abbott McNeill Whistler titled works thus to distinguish those paintings with a "dreamy, pensive mood" by applying the musical term, and likewise also titled (and retitled) works using other music expressions, such as a "symphony", "harmony", "study" or "arrangement", to emphasize the tonal qualities and the composition and to de-emphasize the narrative content. The use of the term "nocturne" can be associated with the Tonalist movement of the American of the late 19th century and early 20th century which is "characterized by soft, diffused light, muted tones and hazy outlined objects, all of which imbue the works with a strong sense of mood." Along with winter scenes, nocturnes were a common Tonalist theme. Frederic Remington used the term as well for his nocturne scenes of the American Old West.

## Rembrandt

In northern Europe, Dutch Golden Age painting produced some nocturnes, though Rembrandt's (1606–1669) only real work in the genre is his Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1647, National Gallery of Ireland), which is set within a nocturnal landscape. His large group portrait, The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642), is popularly known as The Night Watch, although it is not a night scene.

### Night scenes by Rembrandt

* The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633, a dark sea storm
* Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1647
* Christ and the Woman of Samaria, 1659
* The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

## Nocturnes by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

"Nocturne" was a term that was normally applied to certain types of musical compositions before James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), inspired by the language of music, began using the word within the titles of many of his works, such as Nocturne in Blue and Silver (1871), in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom.
* Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay, 1866
* Nocturne in Gray and Gold, Westminster Bridge, c. 1871–1874
* Nocturne Trafalgar Square Chelsea Snow, 1876
* Nocturne in Pink and Grey, Portrait of Lady Meux, 1881–1882

## Frederic Remington's nocturnes

Frederic Remington (1861–1909) is so identified for his nocturne scenes of the American Old West that they were celebrated in 2003–2004 with an exhibition, Frederic Remington: The Color of Night, co-organized and shown in turn by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The exhibition also generated a colorful book of the same title and travelled to the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado. Remington painted many of his nocturnes in the last years of his life, when he was transitioning from a career as an illustrator to that of a fine artist and had chosen Impressionism as the style in which he worked at the time. One example of his work is The Stampede (also known as The Stampede by Lightning, 1908).

### Nocturnes by Frederic Remington

The paintings pictured in the gallery below are in order of date completed, left to right:
* Pretty Mother of the Night—White Otter is No Longer a Boy c. 1900, private collection
* The End of the Day c. 1904, Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, New York
* Shotgun Hospitality 1908, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
* The Hunters' Supper c. 1909, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
* Moonlight Wolf c. 1909, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts

## Night scenes by American Impressionists and other American Realists

* Thomas Cole (1801–1848), Moonlight (1833–34)
* George Inness (1825–1894), Pool in the Woods, 1892, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts
* John Henry Twachtman (1853–1902), Canal Venice c. 1878, private collection
* John Henry Twachtman (1853–1902), L'Etang c. 1884, private collection
* Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917), Death on a Pale Horse (The Race Track) c. 1910, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
* Frank Tenney Johnson (1874–1939), Rough Riding Rancheros c. 1933
* Edward Hopper (1882–1967), Nighthawks, 1942, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

### Night scenes by American Impressionism and American realism

* John Singer Sargent, Spanish Dancer, 1879–1880, The Hispanic Society of America, New York
* Childe Hassam, Winter, Midnight, 1894
* Willard Metcalf, May Night 1906, Corcoran Gallery of Art
* J. Alden Weir, The Bridge Nocturne aka Nocturne Queensboro Bridge, 1910, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

## Night scenes by artists of other movements

Other artists who also created nocturne scenes are:
* Jacob van Ruisdael (1628–1682), Landscape with Church (circa 1660)]
* Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape (circa 1665)
* Augustus Leopold Egg (1816–1863), Past and Present Number Three (circa 1853)
* John LaFarge (1835–1920), The Lady of Shalott (1862)
* Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Interior (nicknamed The Rape) (1868–69), Philadelphia Museum of Art
* Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888)