Analyse This:John Singer Sargent - The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati Italy

[Biki]

The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati Italy1907
Oil on canvas
28.11 x 22.24 inches / 71.4 x 56.5 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA
Added 10/15/2001

http://www.artrenewal.org/images/art...cati_Italy.jpg

LARGER photo found here - if this doesnt work, it is on Page 3 of ARC's Sargent site.

My sister just saw this in the National Gallery in Canberra, & sent me a postcard. The colours in the postcard are greener than ARCs' version. I wonder which is more true.

[dcorc]

At first glimpse it looks a surprisingly unbalanced composition.

Is it just me, or does it seem, somehow, a bit Freudian?

Dave

[Danny]

If I am not mistaken this is a painting of Mart Casset painting.

[David Brown]

Ahh Sargent, this painting is of a pair of his friends, you might be right about Casset. The composition is mildly disturbing slightly tipped to the left. His brush strokes are just amazing bold and seemingly disjointed up close but melding into wonderful detail from a distance. (Sorry I get carried away around Sargent.....LOL)
Unfortunately haven't seen this one IRL. Love the pallette in this one very Sargent...all blue greens.
Nice choice!
D-

[Classical Vince]

Hey danny, thanks for pointing her out as Cassat. I was struck with the composition as well but I think perhaps Sargent wanted it to lean to the left. With the primary subject centered on the canvas it would be static otherwise.

A painting in western art is often read left to right. The unbalancing feeling adds movement to Cassat that pushes against our instinctive reading of the work. She has just made a careful observation and is about to place a brushstroke.

I see the horizontal line of the stone fence as a stabilizer for the piece.

[artmom]

Yes, this is a bit unsettling, isn't it!

A sort of a mirror image of the way we usually look at composing paintings. The balustrade, the desk (?) and the dark shadows in the shrubbery all help to balance the artist, the onlooker, and the easel, but still gives an atmosphere of dissonance to what really should be a very calm, peaceful scene.

Art that touches a chord! Gawd, I love Sargent!

Lyn

[A Few Pigments]

John Singer Sargent: the artist who captured the shallowness of the elite. He was on a par with Homer, Tadema, Goya, and O'Keefe in that each of these artists found his or her own voice and put it on canvas.

The richness of color, the loose brush strokes, the forming of shapes with the direction of each brush stroke…genius.

The only thing I find a bit bothersome about this painting is the fountain coming out of the models head. And yet with the fountain such a prominent part of the painting one can not help but feel a mist from it’s cooling waters.

Like a knife on the edge of a table in a still life the legs of the folding chair lead the eye to the easel, to the face, to the fountain, back to the painter and it starts all over again. A tight composition with supporting elements. Sargent had a talent for making genius look easy.

[Olan]

Originally Posted by A Few Pigments

The only thing I find a bit bothersome about this painting is the fountain coming out of the models head.

Exactly. I wondered how it would work compositionally with the fountain on the other side behind Mary. So, I moved it roughly in P/S. I know, TO A SARGENT!, off with his head. Well, I like it, gives my eye a chance to explore the right half of the painting. OK, now on with the beheading.

[fmarsh]

Originally Posted by Danny

If I am not mistaken this is a painting of Mart Casset painting.

Close but it is not Mary Cassatt, but friends of his - the artist Jane de Glehn & her husband.

I dont think the fountain is so profound in the original, with Sargents wonderful use of tone pushing it into the background. He is certainly breaking conventional "rules" with the composition & perhaps he saw it as challenge to do this and succeed - which he certailny did in my opinion.

Fred

[A Few Pigments]

I knew I’d seen something similar to the Sargent in compositional principal and this is it. Jean Francois Millet, 1873, Autumn Landscape with a Flock of Turkeys. Oil on canvas, 31.875x39 inches. Here, Millet uses mass in a horizontal composition in a way similar to Sargent’s use of mass in a vertical composition.

In the Millet the mass of the figure and the circling turkeys is balanced by the mass of the tree and the haystack. In the Sargent the mass of the figures and fountain spray is balanced by the mass of the bridge and low marble or concrete wall. Also in the Millet the eye is directed back to the figure by the pointing branch (pointed out by the red arrow). In the Sargent the eye is directed back to the figures by the low wall. I should say at this point the Sargent is read from left to right and the Millet is read from right to left.

That’s the last thing I have to say about these paintings cus I have 10 paintings waiting for me to get off this dumb puter and get back to painting so I can finish them. Take care everybody and may you never run short of paint.

[WFMartin]

I'll bet that if I had painted that Sargent painting, I'd be verbally smacked up 'side the head for having both subjects looking out of the painting, rather than into it.

I guess he got by with that, though. I don't think I'd be quite so fortunate.

Bill

[A Few Pigments]

I'll bet that if I had painted that Sargent painting, I'd be verbally smacked up 'side the head for having both subjects looking out of the painting, rather than into it.

I guess he got by with that, though. I don't think I'd be quite so fortunate.

Bill

T’was ever thus…

[Biki]

I love listening to all of your comments. I post these things & then sit back & learn.

Thank you.