John Singer Sargent: Watercolors Book of Postcards

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925) was a dazzling watercolorist. His bold, experimental approach to the medium caused a sensation when his works were first displayed in the United States in 1909 and 1912, and they were quickly snapped up for purchase by the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Sargent made these watercolors between 1905 and 1911—a period when he was at the height of his artistic powers and internationally recognized as the greatest American painter of his age. Feeling that his portrait commissions no longer challenged him aesthetically, Sargent turned increasingly to landscape painting, seeking to reinvent his artistic reputation. Painting watercolors in Italy, Spain and Portugal, Greece, Switzerland and the Alps, Syria, and Palestine, Sargent avoided easy or obvious views, preferring to record lush garden shade and running water, sunlight on stone, and dazzling reflections. He experimented with the medium, using every technique—thin washes, dry brush, wax resist, scraping—to create brilliant effects. Instead of recording atmospheric panoramas, he tightly cropped his compositions and tipped up the perspective, making familiar subjects such as Venice and the Alps seem new again, reinvigorated with fresh energy. It is no wonder that one critic described his watercolors as “sunlight captured and held.” This book of postcards is being produced in conjunction with a show opening at the Brooklyn Museum in April 2013.