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John Singer Sargent, Violet Sargent, his youngest sister,
1881, Oil on Canvas
27.5 x 22 in., Private Collection
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| John Singer Sargent, Rose-Marie Ormond, the artist's niece, 1912, Oil on Canvas, 31 ½ x 23 in., Private Collection |
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| John Singer Sargent, Corner of the Church of San Stae, Venice, 1913, Oil on Canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| John Singer Sargent, Trout Stream in the Tyrol, 1914, Oil on Canvas, 22 x 28 in., Museum of Fine Art, San Francisco |
I’ve always thought there was something second rate about many
realist oil painters who paint thinly. You
might as well paint with watercolors if you don’t care about the exciting
physicality of the oil medium. I think
the reason why John Singer Sargent stands atop the list of bravura portrait painters
is because he wasn’t afraid to paint with a “fully loaded brush.” Of course, you have to draw as well as
Sargent to really pull it off. But we
can dream, can’t we? Sargent was such a wizard with the brush that
even his watercolors have the full-bodied look of oils.
Whenever I’m painting, some of Sargent’s words to a student
pop into my head. One time he said, “The
thicker you paint, the more color flows.”
And he always tells me when I’m painting glassware that, “If you see a
thing transparent, paint it transparent; don't get the effect by a thin stain
showing the canvas through. That's a mere trick.”
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| Hendrick Ter Brugghen (1588-1629), A Jovial Violinist Holding a Glass of Wine (circa 1627), Oil on Canvas, 41 ¾ by 33 7/8 in., Private Collection |
And while I’m painting, that admonition sets me to thinking
of all those paintings of glassware we’ve seen where the vessel is merely
indicated over a dark background by strokes of lighter paint to indicate the
rim and base, and a crisp window highlight.
You know it’s a drinking glass, but you don’t get the weight of the
glass in space by doing it that way. You
have to observe and interpret the three-dimensional form of the glass and the
volume of whatever liquid it contains, if any, by accurately representing the
variety of tones that distinguish the object from the background color.
There are probably dozens of other considerations that go
through my head as I push the paint back and forth between a drinking glass and
the background to get the glass to seem as real as it actually is in the
atmospheric space in front of me. I
dislike discussing lost and found edges.
They are such an obvious cliché for most realist painters. So is the observation that there are no lines
in nature. Both are very important considerations,
however, when attempting to achieve the illusion of reality on canvas. But if they are exaggerated, or manufactured
by the artist, it looks like a gimmick and the illusion of reality is lost.
Richard Schmid’s people do a lot of that lost and found kind
of painting today. They get some punchy,
high-keyed, decorative paintings with that technique. Collectors and many painters seem to love their work. You don’t see any real truth to nature in
that approach. But I guess many artists
and art lovers today think creating an alternate universe is more important
than being true to nature. I’d say, “to
each his own,” but I don’t really believe that when it comes to contemporary
realism. There’s still enough beauty of
form and color to be found in nature with your own eyes, without resorting to
stylistic gimmicks that are eagerly passed around from painter to painter. Impressionists and expressionists can do
whatever they want, as far as I’m concerned, to make an exciting painting. And I love a lot of different styles of
representational art, just not obvious brush-handling gimmicks exploited by
their creators for whatever their reasons might be. I personally can’t fathom why one painter
would want another painter to handle the paint just like he does -- in his own
peculiar but effective way, that is. But I guess you can’t write instruction books,
create videos and lead workshops without selling a bit of your soul in the process.
When I started painting and saw Sargent's work for the first time, I was bowled over by the way he handled his edges.
The background tones might have been almost identical to the foreground
object, but the subtle separation was often obtained by a solid stroke of a
slightly different tone, whether it was a sitter’s cheek or a Venetian
column. The effect from a distance was a
palpable realism.
Today’s “lost and found” edge painters owe a great debt to Anders
Zorn, a much earthier human being than Sargent, who creates the same palpable
realism on canvas over a wider range of figurative subjects with a comparable
bravura technique in both oils and watercolors, without using a lot of paint to
get the job done. Some of his incredibly
well-modeled female nudes seem to be merely stained with gorgeous flesh color,
but the modeling of the form is still perfection itself.
Zorn’s female nudes are unmatched in the
history of painting for their naturalistic, physical presence. He seems to have done hundreds in his
lifetime, the envy of all figurative painters, to be sure. Some earlier painters, like Rubens, Boucher
and Fragonard, for example, give him a good run for his money. But we know that the charming nudes created
by those earlier painters were a few steps removed from reality. Not so with Zorn’s nudes -- front, back, sideways,
horizontal, bending over, reclining or whatever. Just between you and me, nobody ever painted
more naturalistic, volumetric female derrieres than the great Swede.
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| Anders Zorn, One of his Swedish Sauna Paintings |
While Zorn quite obviously delighted in painting the female form
divine, I’m saddled with painting drinking glasses. My mind races around with thoughts on
painting as I continue slogging away, trying to get my drinking glass to seem
every bit as real as a Zorn painting of a derriere. “What a revoltin’ Development!” When it’s all over, I forget everything until I
paint another picture with a drinking glass in the setup. And all I’ve painted is one damn drinking
glass. Now I’ve got all the other stuff
in the still life setup to paint in order to bring them up to some degree of finish
in harmony with that one glass. In
addition, I’m obliged to continue my incidental musings about all the
encounters I’ve had with all the fascinating thoughts and daunting images from
all the other great painters I admire.
A painter’s life isn’t easy, especially if you are hearing
voices and following Sargent’s commandments!
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William Orpen, The Studio, 1910, Oil on Canvas, 38 x 31.5
in.
Leeds Museums
and Galleries, UK
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But I have to let the great Irish master Sir William Orpen
have the last word on thick or thin painting.
Like Sargent and other terrific painters in those days, Orpen didn’t seem
to have much interest in talking about technique. Those painters all learned a way to paint and
that was that. According to his devoted
student Sean Keating, a wonderful Irish painter in his own right, “Orpen taught
that sufficient paint to create the illusion of light and shade, of tone and color
was enough.” Keating said Orpen laughed
at talk about “touch,” “impasto,” and other paint-handling techniques, calling
it, “all that sort of tosh.”
When I came across that quote a couple of years ago, I was
set free from the oppression of Sargent’s words. Unfortunately, this freedom only lasts until I stand once
more in front of a Sargent painting.
Then I start to dream again.
