John Singer Sargent -- American painter 1891 | Private collection | Watercolor on paper | 14.6 x 34.3 cm (5 3/4 x 13 1/2 in.) And center-right, through the masts of the fishing boats is the Hagia Sophia.
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John Singer Sargent January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was 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. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation; an early submission to the Paris Salon, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter, but it resulted in scandal instead.
From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.
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Mavi Boncuk |Santa Sofia
Artist:John Singer Sargent[1] (American, Florence 1856–1925 London)
Date:1891 (?)
Oil on canvas | 31 1/2 x 24 1/4 in. (80 x 61.6 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950 [2]
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Sketch of Santa Sophia |Painting of the interior and dome of the Hagia Sophia
1891| oil on canvas| Height: 32 in (81.3 cm); Width: 24.6 in (62.6 cm)
1891 (35 years old) January: he rents a studio in Cairo Egypt, paints the nude Egyptian Girl, and travels up the Nile to Luxor. April: finds him in Greece and he goes to Constantinople, Turkey.
"According to an account published in 1925, Sargent bribed an official to gain access to Hagia Sophia. He made this sketch in the early morning, just as warm, golden light began to fill the space. Although he worked rapidly, Sargent still was able to capture perfectly the grandeur and mystery of the building’s expansive interior." Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY
[1] "The family of John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) had deep roots in New England. His grandfather, Winthrop Sargent IV, descended from one of the oldest colonial families, had failed in the merchant-shipping business in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and had moved his family to Philadelphia. There, his son Fitzwilliam Sargent became a physician and in 1850 married Mary Newbold Singer, daughter of a successful local merchant. The couple left Philadelphia for Europe in late summer 1854, seeking a healthful climate and a distraction after the death a year earlier of their firstborn child. The Sargents’ stay in Europe was meant to be temporary, but they became expatriates, passing winters in Florence, Rome, or Nice and summers in the Alps or other cooler regions. Their son John was born in Florence in January 1856.
John Sargent was given little regular schooling. As a result of his “Baedeker education,” he learned Italian, French, and German. He studied geography, arithmetic, reading, and other disciplines under his father’s tutelage. He also became an accomplished pianist. His mother, an amateur artist, encouraged him to draw, and her wanderlust furnished him with subjects. He enrolled for his first-documented formal art training during the winter of 1873–74 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. In spring 1874, Fitzwilliam Sargent resolved to nourish his son’s talent in Paris, which had become the world’s most powerful magnet for art students.
In May 1874, Sargent entered the teaching atelier of a youthful, stylish painter, Carolus-Duran, a leading portraitist in Third Republic France who encouraged his students to paint immediately (rather than make preliminary drawings), to exploit broad planes of viscous pigment, and to preserve the freshness of the sketch in completed works. He also exhorted them to study artists who demonstrated painterly freedom: Frans Hals and Rembrandt; Sir Anthony van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds; and, above all others, the Spanish master Diego Velázquez. The young American moved close to his teacher stylistically and became his protégé. There is almost no work by Sargent, beginning with his successful submissions to the Paris Salons as early as 1877, that does not reflect the manner of Carolus-Duran or the old masters of the painterly tradition.
In May 1876, accompanied by his mother and his sister Emily, Sargent began his first trip to the United States, which would include visits to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and Niagara Falls. By autumn 1879, no longer attending classes regularly and concentrating on building his career, Sargent began a period of extensive travel to view works by the old masters and to gather ideas for pictures, visiting Spain, Holland, and Venice. Picturesque locales prompted Sargent to paint genre scenes, which he showed alongside his portraits as he built his reputation. Some of his sun-drenched canvases of the late 1870s bespeak the influence of Claude Monet, whom Sargent seems to have met in Paris as early as 1876 at the second Impressionist exhibition." H. Barbara Weinberg | The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art | October 2004 MORE...
[2] Provenance: the artist, until died 1925; his sister, Violet Sargent (Mrs. Francis Ormond), London, 1925–1950
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In a Levantine Port| ca. 1905-1906. Translucent watercolor and touches of opaque watercolor with graphite underdrawing, 12 1/16 x 18 1/8 in. (30.6 x 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum.
John Singer Sargent January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was 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. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation; an early submission to the Paris Salon, his Portrait of Madame X, was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter, but it resulted in scandal instead.
From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism. In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.
Mavi Boncuk |Santa Sofia
Artist:John Singer Sargent[1] (American, Florence 1856–1925 London)
Date:1891 (?)
Oil on canvas | 31 1/2 x 24 1/4 in. (80 x 61.6 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950 [2]
Sketch of Santa Sophia |Painting of the interior and dome of the Hagia Sophia
1891| oil on canvas| Height: 32 in (81.3 cm); Width: 24.6 in (62.6 cm)
1891 (35 years old) January: he rents a studio in Cairo Egypt, paints the nude Egyptian Girl, and travels up the Nile to Luxor. April: finds him in Greece and he goes to Constantinople, Turkey.
"According to an account published in 1925, Sargent bribed an official to gain access to Hagia Sophia. He made this sketch in the early morning, just as warm, golden light began to fill the space. Although he worked rapidly, Sargent still was able to capture perfectly the grandeur and mystery of the building’s expansive interior." Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY
[1] "The family of John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) had deep roots in New England. His grandfather, Winthrop Sargent IV, descended from one of the oldest colonial families, had failed in the merchant-shipping business in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and had moved his family to Philadelphia. There, his son Fitzwilliam Sargent became a physician and in 1850 married Mary Newbold Singer, daughter of a successful local merchant. The couple left Philadelphia for Europe in late summer 1854, seeking a healthful climate and a distraction after the death a year earlier of their firstborn child. The Sargents’ stay in Europe was meant to be temporary, but they became expatriates, passing winters in Florence, Rome, or Nice and summers in the Alps or other cooler regions. Their son John was born in Florence in January 1856.
John Sargent was given little regular schooling. As a result of his “Baedeker education,” he learned Italian, French, and German. He studied geography, arithmetic, reading, and other disciplines under his father’s tutelage. He also became an accomplished pianist. His mother, an amateur artist, encouraged him to draw, and her wanderlust furnished him with subjects. He enrolled for his first-documented formal art training during the winter of 1873–74 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. In spring 1874, Fitzwilliam Sargent resolved to nourish his son’s talent in Paris, which had become the world’s most powerful magnet for art students.
In May 1874, Sargent entered the teaching atelier of a youthful, stylish painter, Carolus-Duran, a leading portraitist in Third Republic France who encouraged his students to paint immediately (rather than make preliminary drawings), to exploit broad planes of viscous pigment, and to preserve the freshness of the sketch in completed works. He also exhorted them to study artists who demonstrated painterly freedom: Frans Hals and Rembrandt; Sir Anthony van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds; and, above all others, the Spanish master Diego Velázquez. The young American moved close to his teacher stylistically and became his protégé. There is almost no work by Sargent, beginning with his successful submissions to the Paris Salons as early as 1877, that does not reflect the manner of Carolus-Duran or the old masters of the painterly tradition.
In May 1876, accompanied by his mother and his sister Emily, Sargent began his first trip to the United States, which would include visits to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and Niagara Falls. By autumn 1879, no longer attending classes regularly and concentrating on building his career, Sargent began a period of extensive travel to view works by the old masters and to gather ideas for pictures, visiting Spain, Holland, and Venice. Picturesque locales prompted Sargent to paint genre scenes, which he showed alongside his portraits as he built his reputation. Some of his sun-drenched canvases of the late 1870s bespeak the influence of Claude Monet, whom Sargent seems to have met in Paris as early as 1876 at the second Impressionist exhibition." H. Barbara Weinberg | The American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art | October 2004 MORE...
[2] Provenance: the artist, until died 1925; his sister, Violet Sargent (Mrs. Francis Ormond), London, 1925–1950
In a Levantine Port| ca. 1905-1906. Translucent watercolor and touches of opaque watercolor with graphite underdrawing, 12 1/16 x 18 1/8 in. (30.6 x 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum.