The Artist Sketching
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Dwight Blaney (1865–1944) was an American landscape painter, naturalist, and important collector of American antiques. Sargent and Blaney met when the former was working on his murals for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Blaney invited Sargent to escape the city’s summer heat at his home on Ironbound Island, Maine. Sargent found the remoteness and solitude of the sparsely populated island conducive to painting.
Blaney is shown perched atop a rock outcropping poised to work at his easel. Sargent uses brilliant blue highlights throughout the composition to suggest effects of light and shadow. In this work, Sargent’s fluid handling of oil paint evokes his watercolor technique. The amazing gnarled fallen tree trunk compresses the painting’s depth and is a focal point of the composition.
Blaney is shown perched atop a rock outcropping poised to work at his easel. Sargent uses brilliant blue highlights throughout the composition to suggest effects of light and shadow. In this work, Sargent’s fluid handling of oil paint evokes his watercolor technique. The amazing gnarled fallen tree trunk compresses the painting’s depth and is a focal point of the composition.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Artist Sketching
- Artist: John Singer Sargent (American, Florence 1856–1925 London)
- Date: 1922
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 22 × 28 in. (55.9 × 71.1 cm)
- Credit Line: Lent by Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing