On Viewing Whistler’s Nocturne in Blue and Silver​, by Maureen Sauvain O’Connor

Nocturne in Blue and Silver, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (USA) 1872

On Viewing Whistler’s  Nocturne in Blue and Silver

​for John
 
The New York Times “challenge” was to look at a painting for ten minutes, not the three hours that a Harvard art professor expects of her students. I try it.
 
The paintings rotate but today is Nocturne in Blue and Silver by Whistler. Within the first minute, I feel oppressed by the mist that blankets the harbor. Then I am back at the harbor on Gabriola Island with my friend, John. He helps steady me on the slippery granite rocks. The ochre sea stars, in different hues of purple, seem iridescent and fill every crevice between the rocks. We end our day with a `dive into the cool Pacific waters.
 
That's what I want to do now—escape the fog and plunge under the water as the blast of the harbor master’s foghorn pierces the air. 
 
It was on that same camping trip, with John, that I brought Pascal's Pensées with me.
​
A friend, aware of my flagging belief in God, recommended the mathematician-philosopher’s attempt to prove that a God exists.  
 
While John and I walked through a wide-open field, I explained to my atheistic-mathematician friend, about Pascal's thoughts. John was not impressed. “Find me a four-leaf clover,” he said. I reached down without thinking and immediately pulled one from the ground. I held it up, stunned. We looked for other four-leaf clovers but there were none to be found. He interpreted the event as a coincidence. I saw mystery. 
 
A different kind of mystery surrounds the Whistler painting—some critics speculate that Whistler may have painted an original under this newer version, one that mirrored the structures on the shore. It may be that, over the decades, the buildings began to reappear and mimic reflections in the water.  It’s called pentimento. "A change to a piece of art that emerges slowly over time."
 
John's changes have not been slow. In a matter of months, he loses the ability to analyze, to remember the past, to talk easily. Underneath the loss, he is still the same gentle John.  With the same contagious laughter. 
 
I am in Gabriola to see him and I bring my laptop because art has been one of John’s loves. I pull up the paintings from the NYTimes website. I begin with Whistler’s Nocturne. I can see John’s pleasure, as his eyes roam the painting. “Have I ever been there?” he asks. “I’m not sure,” I say, “does it look familiar?” He smiles and nods yes, pointing to the water dappled with streaks of soft pink and yellow. 
 
John moves his hands slowly over the water, and I notice how thin and graceful they have become. Then, it’s as if  he is filling his palms with the mist-filled  air, and turning, offers his open palms to me.
 
Maureen Sauvain O’Connor
 
Maureen Sauvain O’Connor is a poet, flash fiction writer and psychotherapist. Her clients have brought meaning and depth to her life and the work has helped to create a space for her own  self-exploration and writing. She is grateful, too, for the inspiration provided by the magical gardens, outside her writing window, tended by her husband and daughter.