One of the most satisfying books on John Singer Sargent | Sargent's Venice

Sargent's Venice Paintings | Sargent's Venice | Richard Ormond, Warren Adelson

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	• Sargent's Venice Richard Ormond, Warren Adelson Yale University Press, 2006 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Another Venetian Master

SARGENT'S VENICE is a book that makes Sargent more than a great portrait painter. It reveals that he could be equally good at landscapes of the world's most beautiful city. His views of Venice are intimate, exploratory, perceptive, Venice seen from a gondola snaking its way through the canals. The prow of the gondola figures in many of his paintings. Venice has been the province of great painters since Tintoretto and Sargent now joins their company, thanks to this book.

One of the most satisfying books on John Singer Sargent

Richard Ormond has collected the watercolors and drawings and oil paintings that were John Singer Sargent's response to that most mystical and romantic of cities - Venice, Italy - from two separate periods of time in Sargent's prolific career. The selected works are from a fecund period from 1880 to 1882 and the second even larger body of works date from his visits there from 1900 to 1913. Comparing the two periods is illuminating on many levels, but despite the separation in time, Sargent's manner of capturing the magic that is Serenissima is unmatched in works of other artists.

That Sargent was influenced by his friend and colleague Henry James is patently obvious. Were the reader to read 'The Aspern Papers' along with this picture voyage through the canals and paths of Venice the feeling of actually being there in time and place would be unavoidable.

Sargent seems more comfortable in the aqueous métier of watercolor for the views and atmosphere of Venice. He manages to paint the fogs and mists that rise from this water city, to reflect the relaxed tranquility of the people within the island, and he is attuned to the alterations of light as it strikes and reflects off the water, altering the subject matter in a way only those who have been to Venice can appreciate fully.

Along with the mood of the works elegantly reproduced in this volume is Ormond's narrative. He has selected photographs of many of the places Sargent painted, allowing the reader to appreciate the interpretation Sargent achieved in his artist impression as well as in his keen observational skills. This is a book of languid beauty, one that will satisfy on many levels. Very Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, December 06

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Sargent's Venice Paintings

are a fresh antidote to the usual stale paintings by late 19th century artists. This book shows the range and depth of Mr. Sargent's Venice painitings, including those that show the seamy side of Venetian life that many contempory paintings largely ignored, either by romanticizing/sanitizing the working classes or ignoring them altogether, preferring to painting the familiar scenes such as the Doge's palace/St.Mark's church and carnivale.

Mr. Sargent is a storyteller in paintbrush. I recommend art lovers to read his book.

I'm dedicating this review to my late grandmother. May she rests in peace.

Stephanie B.

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Sargent's Venice

If you love Venice, and if you love Sargent--then you will love this book. There are a few new items in this book, but for the most part they are reapeated images from now all the numerous volumes of Sargents books that have flooded the market in the recent years. The text is intersting and the insightful written by Mr. Warren Adelsen and Mr. Richard Ormond two Sargent experts-- are worth reading, if you want to add to your knowlege of Sargent and Venice.

beautiful book

Thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition, and this book is a wonderful keepsake illustrated with abundant, good quality color reproductions. I would highly recommend this book. I appreciate Amazon's hassle free, speedy delivery as well.

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John Singer Sargent returned to Venice many times during his life, endlessly fascinated with this enchanting city. In paintings filled with vivid colors and dazzling light, he sought to capture its vitality and unique ambience, often working while afloat in a gondola. This gorgeously illustrated book presents nearly seventy of Sargent?s oil and watercolor paintings of Venice, many of them famous but others only rarely seen. The book also contains fascinating new photographs of actual sites depicted in Sargent?s paintings.
Sargent?s early works in Venice were created in 1880-1882, and he undertook a second, larger body of work in the city during visits from 1900 to 1913. His responses to Venice?its local figures, its buildings and waterways, its extraordinary light?reflect his changing interests over time as well as his lifelong ability to extend his own reach as a creative artist. The book considers various aspects of Sargent?s work and milieu in a series of informative essays by international scholars. They discuss the evolution of Sargent?s style, the topography of his work in Venice, his connections with Henry James and other Americans in Venice, Italian artists in Venice in the nineteenth century, and American artists in Venice in the nineteenth century.

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