John Singer Sargent
We present today's painting thanks to Terra Foundation of American Art, which owns this beautiful Sargent. Enjoy!
John Singer Sargent’s Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot shows a painter at work. Sargent painted this scene in the rapidly applied distinct strokes of strong color typical of impressionism. The surface of his painting, like the image it presents, is a tactile record of the open-air painting process that progressive American artists, following the example of Claude Monet, who was Sargent's friend were beginning to use in the 1880s.
Sargent painted this work at rural Calcot Mill, about an hour’s train ride west from London, in the summer of 1888. Dennis Miller Bunker was invited to stay with him in the English countryside. At Calcot, the two artists experimented with painting outdoors, working directly on the canvas to capture transient effects of natural light and color. On their painting excursions they were often accompanied by Sargent’s younger sister Violet, the woman depicted here, with whom Bunker may have formed a romantic attachment.