Corfu Lights and Shadows after Sargent Painting

Corfu Lights and Shadows after Sargent Painting

This is an original watercolor painting after Sargent by Tatyana Zen. Hand-painted replica of Corfu: Lights and Shadows by John Singer Sargent, c 1909, currently part of MFA Boston permanent collection. Signed by the Artist in front & back. Certificate of Authenticity provided. Free Shipping within the Continental US, arrives rolled in a tube.  Additionally, ships with full insurance. 100% Satisfaction, 7-day returns, 30-day exchange.

Sargent’s outdoor watercolor sketches are primarily play of light and shadows. While staying on Corfu in 1909, he painted this simple scene of a hut in the park of the royal villa, Monrepos.  This painting fascinates with the way the shadows from the branches of the olive tree cast intricate lace of  geometric shapes of the plain building.  Also, the colors are unnaturally vivid. The shadows cast on the hut are painted in violet and ochre, the doorway in emerald green and blue, and the roof in a bright blue. The background is merely suggested with a wash of purple, pink and yellow. By cropping the building and tree that casts the shadow at the top of the sheet, Sargent increased the impact of the structure.

Sargent painted original Corfu: Lights and Shadows John Singer Sargent around 1909. Three years later, in 1912, he sold it to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA Boston). Currently at MFA it is not on view. Sargent’s materials included: translucent and opaque watercolor, with wax resist, over graphite on paper. Measuring nearly 16 x 20″, this painting is a true masterpiece!

About John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation”. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. By the turn of the century Sargent was the most acclaimed international society portraitist. His  clientele was of the most affluent, aristocratic, and fashionable people of his time. Noted for his dazzling technical virtuosity and painterly technique, he influenced an entire generation of American portraitists.

However, Sargent resented the limitations of portraiture, and took every opportunity to paint a wide range of genre subjects. So, in 1906 he abandoned portraiture and worked primarily in watercolor, a perfect medium for his extraordinary talent. Sargent traveled throughout Europe and painted in Greece, Italy, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Syria and Florida. With his watercolors, Sargent was able to indulge his earliest artistic inclinations for nature, architecture, exotic peoples, and noble mountain landscapes. The subjects include scenes of Mediterranean sailing vessels, villa gardens, marble quarries, fountains, gondoliers at work, and buildings.

Sargent biographer, Evan Charteris wrote in 1927: To live with Sargent’s water-colours is to live with sunshine captured and held, with the luster of a bright and legible world. It’s obvious that Sargent painted watercolors purely for himself, executed with joyful freedom. Sargent first exhibited his watercolor works at the Carfax Gallery in London in 1905. In 1909, eighty-three were bought by the Brooklyn Museum and are still on display. You can see some of Sargent’s work at the Met Museum in New York; in London, you can visit National Gallery to take a closer look.

Inspiration

John Singer Sargent is one of the most admired watercolorists in the world. His oil and watercolor paintings are widely copied by contemporary artists. Making Sargent’s replicas is also a great way to loosen up your hand and feel more spontaneous and free. As a copyist at the National Gallery of Art, I have made hundreds of copies of Sargent’s masterpieces. As a result, I developed my own impressionistic style. I love painting outdoors!  This piece reminds me of my grandparents house in a small coastal town of Crimea, where I grew up. As a kid, I loved spending my summers on the Black Sea and soak up the warm summer rays.

About Tatyana Zen

Russian-born and California-based, Tatyana Zen is a classically trained artist. Tatyana’s background in technology, design and philosophy blends into colorful artistic voice, intricately reflecting different points of view.  In essence, her artwork draws inspiration from the human form, sci-fi, pop-culture, glamour, fashion,  Zen philosophy and everyday life.

Tatyana was fortunate to learn the secrets of Old Masters as a copyist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Furthermore, she has developed her own painting method to achieve luminosity and depth of color.  A nature lover, Tatyana often incorporates organic elements in her paintings from coffee and tobacco to diamonds and gold. Read Bio.