John Singer Sargent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

(C) 2015 Photograph Dale DiMauro

On Friday, my wife and I spent a very full day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. We did not leave the museum until it closed at nine in the evening. We particularly liked the special exhibit on John Singer Sargent titled Portraits of Artists and Friends, which runs through October 4, 2015.

Sargent painted this scene of his sister Emily, a skilled watercolorist herself, accompanied by her friend Eliza Wedgewood in Majorca, Spain, in 1908. Emily is focused on her work with a paintbrush in her mouth, while Eliza looks toward the viewer.

Sargent would paint his watercolors as if working in oil with a very direct approach, wasting little time. His painterly approach often can be seen when he paints the folds of fabric for example, where he dabs a dark brushstroke to strengthen the form but does not fuss with it again.

This and other watercolors on exhibit were a sharp contrast from the demands of his formal oil portrait work, which required much of his time. Some of his oil portraits, however, were done in as little as an hour because of time constraints from the sitter. These quick portraits were not the high priced commissions, though.

The above Sargent watercolor includes gouache, an opaque pigment on paper. In person you can see thick white pigment not unlike a glob of oil paint by Eliza's lap. I typically just use the white of the paper, but there are many impressive artists, such as Sargent, who have used white gouache successfully.

This painting was bequeathed by William Newell in 1922 to the Tate Museum in the United Kingdom. It is currently on loan to the Met for this exhibit.