John Singer Sargent
1586-1925
John Singer Sargent
1586-1925
John Singer Sargent was
the most successful portrait painter of his era, as well as a gifted landscape
painter and watercolorist. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy to American
parents. As an American artist, considered the "leading portrait
painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era
luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than
2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. Sargent's
best portraits reveal the individuality and personality of the sitters; his
most ardent admirers think he is matched in this only by Velázquez, who was one
of Sargent's great influences. the subject Sargent selected may initially seem
odd or even inappropriate. In its own time, however, Sargent's approach
to religion was quintessentially modern, democratic, and American.
Religion's triumph, according to the artist, was precisely the privacy of
modern belief. Sargent grounded his mural cycle in an ideal fundamental
to American religious liberty: the conviction that religion is an interior
matter, to be determined solely and freely by the individual. Moving from
materialist superstition in the "pagan gods" on the north-ceiling
vault, to fossilized dogma in the medievalizing images on the south wall, to an
enlightened spirituality of the heart, the artist recast contemporary religion,
linking it not with such external factors as institutions or creeds but with
personal subjectivity. For Sargent this ideal was a sign of Western,
especially American, progress.
Artist techniques:
-
John Singer Sargent would do a lot of sketches of a subject,
either in pencil or watercolors, before he started an oil painting. These
sketches helped him learn about the subject matter and served as a tool to
practice his wrist movements for later brush strokes.
-
When it comes to painting, Sargent
would use a lot of thick paint
with a large paintbrush.
- Sargent worked mostly with half tones before finishing a painting
with the dark tones and highlights.
-
It was important to accurately draw the masses of the painting in the right place -before
putting in any fine features or details.
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