John Singer Sargent, Young Girl Wearing a White Muslin Blouse, oil on canvas, 19.5x 15 inches.
There's an exhibition of over 40 rarely seen original oils and watercolors by John Singer Sargent at the Michael Altman gallery in New York City. The show continues through December 6.
I'm a huge Sargent fan and greedily lap up every tidbit of information on him that I can find. So I'm kind of surprised to see something in one of his paintings that bugs me: It's that hard line on (our) left side of the face. I find it distracting and the contour it makes seems a bit awkward and, actually, uncharacteristic of Sargent.
@tom hart The space suit the girl is wearing is more of an eye catch for me than the left-side contour. Yet, I see the painting as probably just a study where high refinement was not even an issue at hand.
There's a couple of edges there that seem a little hard. The left side of the face, the shoulder on the left.....maybe the painting process was interrupted and never returned to. Great color though. Wouldn't re-gift it if someone gifted it to me!
Oh, yes, this is a beautiful painting despite my quibble. To be clear, that edge only stands out to me because in all the many Sargent paintings, including studies, that I've seen, I can't recall ever being bothered by anything else. I'm sure that edge wouldn't botther me so much if this wasn't a Sargent. That edge seems so intentional but yet, to my eyes, wrong.
I'm a huge Sargent fan and greedily lap up every tidbit of information on him that I can find. So I'm kind of surprised to see something in one of his paintings that bugs me: It's that hard line on (our) left side of the face. I find it distracting and the contour it makes seems a bit awkward and, actually, uncharacteristic of Sargent.
ReplyDelete@tom hart
ReplyDeleteThe space suit the girl is wearing is more of an eye catch for me than the left-side contour. Yet, I see the painting as probably just a study where high refinement was not even an issue at hand.
There's a couple of edges there that seem a little hard. The left side of the face, the shoulder on the left.....maybe the painting process was interrupted and never returned to. Great color though. Wouldn't re-gift it if someone gifted it to me!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, this is a beautiful painting despite my quibble. To be clear, that edge only stands out to me because in all the many Sargent paintings, including studies, that I've seen, I can't recall ever being bothered by anything else. I'm sure that edge wouldn't botther me so much if this wasn't a Sargent. That edge seems so intentional but yet, to my eyes, wrong.
ReplyDelete