Sargent and Italy [Anglais] [Relié]

This handsome volume explores, for the first time, the intimate link between American artist John Singer Sargent and Italy, the country of his birth. Born to American parents in 1856, Sargent traveled extensively throughout Europe. From childhood on, he was entranced with the Italian Renaissance, and, by age 12, he was sketching the artistic and scenic wonders of Italy, which became "the country he repeatedly returned to for inspiration and refreshment." Contrary to earlier studies that dismissed or minimized its influence, Robertson and his contributors view Italy as the foundation upon which Sargent built his magnificent oeuvre. In a series of groundbreaking essays, contributors explore the painter's early studies of Venetian scenes, his portraits and murals, landscapes and garden paintings, and what are referred to as his Alpine paintings. The book also details Sargent's relationships with such influential writers and artists as Henry James, Edith Wharton, and James Whistler. Extremely well written and filled with magnificent reproductions, this beautiful volume offers the first in-depth and original study of this great artist in many years. Lauren Roberts
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The attraction of this appealing book . . . is the . . . scholarly focus on a key aspect of Sargent's career.

[Sargent's] synthesis of the classic and the contemporary plays with light and shadow to create a shimmering sensuality. . . . [He] seemed to revel in the freedom, which watercolors provide, and it is tempting to see these later Italian works as a release of sorts from the murals and high-toned portraits. . . . [T]hese paintings, of gardens, quarries, cypresses, and of his family and friends on holiday convey a powerful sense of that liberation.

This extravagantly illustrated catalogue--published in association with a major exhibition--evokes the romantic fascination with Italy that glimmers in the work of John Singer Sargent.

Sargent, heralded on both sides of the Atlantic, was one of the most creative American artists of the late nineteenth century. Born in Florence to American parents living abroad, he retained a deep and lifelong connection to the country famed for its ability to get "ineradicably in one's blood." Sargent vacationed frequently in Italy, and most of the works he created there were painted not for commission but out of his artistic passion for Italy's people, land, and culture. Often hauntingly powerful, they range from dramatically painted genre scenes of Italian peasants and saturated landscapes that celebrate the beauty of the Italian countryside to portraits of other Anglo-American expatriates and tourists, including Henry James and Edith Wharton.

The majority of works are of Italian sites, including well-known tourist spots but also the quieter, more isolated locales that Sargent sought out. His subjects include magnificent Italian gardens with their ancient and Baroque statuary, Rome's Neoclassical and Renaissance buildings, urban street scenes, the Italian Alps, and, of course, Venetian canals. Sargent found Venice particularly alluring, and the city well suited the watercolor medium in which he worked most often in Italy. His use of vivid colors, brushwork that varied from soft and fluid to bold and dashing, and an overwhelming sense of light and air characterize his Italian scenes--and rank Sargent as one of the finest watercolorists of all time. His later Italian works, some in watercolor and others in oil, reveal an artist who relished his materials and made art purely for art's sake. Both beautiful and informative, this lavish volume includes eighty-five color and fifty black-and-white images. It adds a new dimension to our appreciation of Sargent's art and will delight anyone who loves Italy, as Sargent so passionately did.

June 28-September 21, 2003

Bruce Robertson is Chief Curator of the Center for American Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is author of books on Winslow Homer and Marsden Hartley. Jane Dini is the Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at California State University, Los Angeles. Ilene Susan Fort is Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Stephanie L. Herdrich is Research Associate of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. R.W.B. Lewis Retired Professor of English and American Studies at Yale University and Master of the Residential College of Calhoun. He is author of the Pulitzer prize-winning "Edith Wharton: A Biography" and "The City of Florence: Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings". Richard Ormond is Sargent's grand nephew and current project director of the John S. Sargent catalogue raisonné, as well as one-time director of the National Maritime Museum and ex-Deputy Director of the National Portrait Gallery. He is author of numerous books on Sargent including "John Singer Sargent" (Princeton).