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Title: Sargent and Italy |
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Sargent and Italy
John Singer Sargent was the most international of the American artists. Though his sophisticated views of late-nineteenth-century European and American scenery and manners have made him a favorite subject of many exhibitions, books, and dissertations, there remains a need to take a closer look at Sargent's special relationship with the land of his birth, Italy...
Sargent, the son of American parents, trained in France, lived in England, and worked in the United States. But across the span of his career, Italy was the country he repeatedly returned to for inspiration and refreshment.
In Italy, Sargent painted incessantly, every kind of subject, while managing to avoid the clichés of views and material worked over by every artist for centuries. His watercolors are miracles of fresh perception, his oil paintings tours of force of intervention and vigorous technique. No other American artist of his day, except perhaps his contemporary Winslow Homer, had Sargent's critical visual acquity, able to see and record the most oblique nuance.
Sargent's paintings are scattered all over the English speaking world. He was avidly pursued as a portrait painter on both sides of the Atlantic in his lifetime, but he was a prized as a watercolorist, muralist, and a landscape painter. This book represents a rare chance to bring together a major aspect of his large oeuvre.
