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Lot Essay
John Singer Sargent painted Olive Trunk in 1908 during one of his frequent trips to the Mediterranean. Throughout his extensive travels across southern Europe and northern Africa, the artist executed a variety of watercolors en plein air. A number of these works, including Olive Trunk, exhibit virtuoso brushwork and luminous color, qualities which have come to define Sargent's finest work in the medium.
The Sargent scholar Trevor Fairbrother has observed that "color and its effects were central concerns of his watercolors. In direct contrast to the conventions and routines accepted in his portraits, Sargent's watercolors emphasize the sparkle of outdoor light, the exuberance of color for its own sake, and forms and spaces that make composition an expressive element." (John Singer Sargent, New York, 1994, p. 107)
Olive Trunk depicts the roots of a centuries-old olive tree clinging to the side of a rocky hill. With its wizened textures and silvery-gray color, the massive tree evokes a sense of timelessness. Additionally, this watercolor exhibits a lustrous mixture of translucent washes and opaque gouache, and the combination of the two types of aqueous media lends a richness and depth to the surface of the paper. Sargent has chosen to use a restrained palette of purples, mauves and browns, making for a subtle color combination that is offset with occasional touches of emerald green.
Although Olive Trunk traditionally has been said to have been painted in Corfu, it was shown in the watercolor exhibition devoted exclusively to Sargent's work (comprised of eighty-three works chosen by the artist) at Knoedler's, New York, in February 1909, several months before Sargent first traveled to Corfu. It is more likely, therfore, that this watercolor was painted in Majorca (as suggested by David McKibben in 1968), where Sargent made a number of watercolors of olive and ilex trees. Such watercolors were generally made when the artist was on holiday--there is an exuberance and freshness about them that expresses his joy both in the occasion and in his mastery of the fluid medium. "They flow from his hand with the turbulence of water from a mill race," wrote Evan Charteris (John S. Sargent, New York, 1927, p. 225). Bizarre shapes, when they appeared in nature's forms, fascinated the artist. It is not without significance that he never drew simple people buffeted by life's storms, while trees and rock forms beaten, bent or broken by nature's forces found a sympathetic, even transforming recorder in the gifted artist. This particular gnarled old trunk and root writhes with such life that it almost suggests a giant human form.
This work will be included as no. 1486 in the forthcoming Volume VIII (Landscapes and Figures, 1908-1913) of the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, in collaboration with Warren Adelson and Elizabeth Oustinoff.
The Sargent scholar Trevor Fairbrother has observed that "color and its effects were central concerns of his watercolors. In direct contrast to the conventions and routines accepted in his portraits, Sargent's watercolors emphasize the sparkle of outdoor light, the exuberance of color for its own sake, and forms and spaces that make composition an expressive element." (John Singer Sargent, New York, 1994, p. 107)
Olive Trunk depicts the roots of a centuries-old olive tree clinging to the side of a rocky hill. With its wizened textures and silvery-gray color, the massive tree evokes a sense of timelessness. Additionally, this watercolor exhibits a lustrous mixture of translucent washes and opaque gouache, and the combination of the two types of aqueous media lends a richness and depth to the surface of the paper. Sargent has chosen to use a restrained palette of purples, mauves and browns, making for a subtle color combination that is offset with occasional touches of emerald green.
Although Olive Trunk traditionally has been said to have been painted in Corfu, it was shown in the watercolor exhibition devoted exclusively to Sargent's work (comprised of eighty-three works chosen by the artist) at Knoedler's, New York, in February 1909, several months before Sargent first traveled to Corfu. It is more likely, therfore, that this watercolor was painted in Majorca (as suggested by David McKibben in 1968), where Sargent made a number of watercolors of olive and ilex trees. Such watercolors were generally made when the artist was on holiday--there is an exuberance and freshness about them that expresses his joy both in the occasion and in his mastery of the fluid medium. "They flow from his hand with the turbulence of water from a mill race," wrote Evan Charteris (John S. Sargent, New York, 1927, p. 225). Bizarre shapes, when they appeared in nature's forms, fascinated the artist. It is not without significance that he never drew simple people buffeted by life's storms, while trees and rock forms beaten, bent or broken by nature's forces found a sympathetic, even transforming recorder in the gifted artist. This particular gnarled old trunk and root writhes with such life that it almost suggests a giant human form.
This work will be included as no. 1486 in the forthcoming Volume VIII (Landscapes and Figures, 1908-1913) of the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonné by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, in collaboration with Warren Adelson and Elizabeth Oustinoff.