Lines and Colors art blog

Eye Candy for Today: John Singer Sargent landscape

Simplon Pass, John Singer Sargent landscape painting
Simplon Pass, John Singer Sargent landscape painting (details)

Simplon Pass, John Singer Sargent, oil on canvas, roughly 28 x 37 inches ( 72 x 93 cm), in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC, which has both a zoomable and downloadable version of the high resolution image.

The more I study John Singer Sargent’s paintings the more I’m knocked out by his astonishing level of mastery of the brush.

Look at the apparent simplicity of some of his marks — like those in the upper left middle ground (images above, second from bottom) — and how remarkable effective they are at suggesting verigated terrain.

And look at the details of texture and color within individual brush strokes — like those at the bottom right of the composition (images bove, bottom) — worthy of an entire abstract expressionist painting, yet harmoniously naturalistic within the landscape.

Mind boggling.