“Home Fields,” John Singer Sargent, ca. 1885, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts
The Painter’s Eye: September/October 2015
Featuring Home Fields by John Singer Sargent
The Detroit Institute of Art’s collection is among the top six in the U.S., comprising a multicultural and multinational survey of human creativity from prehistory through the 21st Century.
The museum covers 658,000 square feet and includes more than 100 galleries. It was founded in the year of this month’s painting, Home Fields, (1885, oil on canvas, 28.75” by 38”) by American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).
At this time, Sargent had left Paris behind because of the storm of scandal caused by his painting now known as Portrait of Madame X, which effectively ended his French portrait practice. At urging of his friends, American writer Henry James and artist Edwin Austin Abbey, Sargent found himself deep in countryside of the west of England. Here, Sargent would relax and recharge; some of his finest early landscape work dates from this time.
Home Fields has perhaps always been my favorite Sargent. He captures the light just before sunset; he is looking east and, thus, the painter’s shadow streaks off to the left of the picture.
Sargent’s technique, for all of its bravado and dazzling brushwork, is considered by some critics to be a bit too conservative, and not as experimental as that of his friend Claude Monet. But Sargent has his own little touches of daring and eccentricity.
For example, the first post of the fence comes charging out of the picture at almost dead center while, in the upper right, almost on the edge of the painting, is one of the stronger areas of color. He manages to hold it all together, but some critics found his rule-breaking to be an annoyance.
The business of portraiture is what Sargent pursued to support the whole Sargent family and, later, the extended family of spouses and nieces. His work in landscape and watercolor is where I think he found his greatest sense of freedom.
Nationally renowned local artist Michael McEwan teaches painting and drawing classes at his Clintonville area studio.
