To Honor Old Masters - Watercolors by John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence 1856. His early interest in art was encouraged by his mother, and he kept sketchbooks with careful studies of animals, mountains, people, works of art seen in the great European museums, and various buildings and monuments that captured his imagination during the family's travels in England, France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy.
He received his first formal instruction in art in Rome 1868 from Carl Welsch, a German-American landscape painter. Two years later Sargent attended the Accademia Belle Arti in Florence.

'' Venetian Canal '', Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, Image Source

1870s in Paris the attention of the critics had been diverted by a group of independent painters, including Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Renoir, and others, who held their first group exhibition in the spring of 1874 and were given the derisive name ''impressionists''. Their works were influential in Sargents development, especially in the late 1880s when impressionism was at its height.

'' An Artist at His Easel '', watercolor over pencil on paper, Image Source

'' Bailleul, Tents '', watercolor and gouache over pencil on paper, Image Source

During his long career as a society portrait painter Sargent painted also more than 2,000 watercolors. It provided a form of relaxation and freedom from the restrictions imposed by commissioned portraits. Favourite spots for Sargent's sketching holidays included Venice, Florence, Rome and Spain. His favourite subjects were the mountains, chalets, streams and meadows of the Alps, the canals, streets and architecture of Venice, Italian and Spanish gardens, sculpture and architecture, motives to which he returned again and again.
Formal qualities, the study of light and colour, were Sargent's primary concern. Forms are reduced to essentials and defined with an economy of brush strokes for maximum expression. His watercolor technique varied. In some works the preliminary composition is sketched in pencil. He worked on wet or dry paper in transparent or opaque colors, with washes or a dry brush saturated with color. He used the white of the paper or added white for highlights. His works exhibit a complete and comprehensive command of the watercolor medium and virtually all of the technical possibilities that it offers the artist.

'' Mountain Stream '', Watercolor and graphite on off-white paper, Image Source

'' At Miami, Florida '', watercolor over pencil on paper, Image Source

'' Man with Red Drapery '', Watercolor and graphite on white paper, Image Source

'' Baalbak '', watercolor over pencil on paper, Image Source

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