Drawing Articles: John Singer Sargent.
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In this issue of my drawing articles, I will be taking at look at the work of John Singer Sargent. Let's take a quick look at one of his drawings that he did in preparation for a painting so we can learn a bit about his technique.
John Singer Sargent was primarily a portrait artist, but he also did many landscapes, and while his portraits followed a formal classical style, his landscapes were more impressionistic. If we take a look at one of his studies, we can learn a bit about his art training.
The point of these drawing articles is to let you take some ideas from master artists and starting using them in your own work.
A look at the sketch...
Here is a sketch he did in preparation for his painting "Gassed" which featured soldiers walking down a battlefield. I'm not going to be talking about the subject matter or the history behind the painting. I just want to show a bit about how he worked.
In the drawing, you can see that he used a lot of straight lines. This is common practice in the classical style. This is especially apparent in the front of the chin and neck area of the faces. Notice also how he used minimal lines to show form. He used just enough lines so we could tell what was going on. Now, this is only a sketch. I don't know if I've even seen any works of Sargent that were finished and fully worked other than his paintings.
However, you can see that you only need a few well placed lines to show form. I will be talking a bit about a gesture approach that features sweeping curved lines in a later article for comparison. With the classical method, notice the emphasis on proportion, accuracy, and measuring. That's why the these works take so long. Most gesture drawings are quick and feature little measuring if any at all.
A look at the finished painting...
Okay, so here is the final painting he did. I will include a close-up as well so you can see the details. Most of his oil paintings were pretty large, so it's hard to see his technique on screen.
Here is the close-up detail. If you look carefully, you can see the use of straight lines around the figures like in the sketch. You don't see this kind of style as much anymore. Once impressionism came, artists started working more loosely with their strokes even in the finishing stages of a painting. I use it every now and then in my work. It just depends on what I'm doing.
I'll take a look at more master works in other drawing articles later on.
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