Mountain Study 1869

John Singer Sargent made this watercolor, Mountain Study, at some point in his career. But what does landscape painting mean in the modern period? We could see this as a depiction of nature untouched by man, but landscape in the 19th century had a lot to do with the institutions of art. Think about the rise of landscape painting as a genre, its connection to Romanticism, and the way national identity gets constructed through the representation of scenery. Sargent was an American expatriate, raised in Europe. In his landscapes he captured the visual experience of an international elite, who, enabled by new railway networks, were for the first time experiencing the sublime views of the Alps. To fully understand this work, we can research how the growth of tourism and the construction of railroads impacted the environment. We can study the aesthetic theories of the period, and the development of watercolor painting as a medium. The study of visual culture helps us understand the social context in which the work was made.