The Red Jacket

Walton's The Red Jacket is typical of portrait painting after Whistler. Placed against an even, dark gray background, a clenching psychological tension radiates from the painting. The girl's personality reflects in her piercing, inquiring gaze. As such, her portrait pose takes on an extrapictorial dimension that reveals the tension between the person portrayed and the painter. Walton employed a sketchy technique that he applied especially in the jacket, the cane of the chair and the vase. The free bill also translated coloristically, especially in the red portion of the bodice. Whistlerian is the small space in which the scene takes place, with limited perspective deemed compositional necessity but not overpowering. Walton exhibited The Red Jacket at the 1902 Ghent Salon. Artists from Scotland were widely represented at the exhibition, which, according to the eminent Belgian critic Octave Maus, lent an aristocratic sophistication to the show. About The Red Jacket, the critic was formal: d'une couleur superbe.