WASHINGTON, D.C.- For the first time in 25 years, the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art will open the shutters of James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room for public view on the third Thursday of each month, beginning Aug. 18, 12-5:30 p.m. Visitors to the room will have a chance to experience the tonal subtleties and decorative variations of Whistler’s “harmony in blue and gold” visible only in natural sunlight. The museum installed ultraviolet- and visible-light-filtering film on the windows, allowing visitors to see the beauty of the room in natural light while minimizing the effects of light fading. Peacock motifs that would ordinarily blend into the background, along with the glazed surfaces and complex textures of ceramics on display, are clearly visible. In the light-filled interior, the ghostly presence of the embossed patterns of the room’s leather wall hangings, which