Bologna Fountain 1906

John Singer Sargent made this watercolor of the Bologna fountain, and you can just imagine him there on location, trying to capture it, squinting in the Italian sunlight. Look at the way he’s layered light washes of brown, ochre, and cream to create depth and form. He suggests detail without actually rendering it, which is such a watercolor trick—suggesting what is there without getting too uptight about it. Sargent was a master of this kind of shorthand. He paints like a jazz musician riffs on a melody, improvising with brushstrokes and letting the white of the paper sing through. That dark stroke there, suggesting the underbelly of the fountain, is so confident it almost vibrates. He's thinking of the way the light bounces off the stone, how the water might reflect the sky. It makes me think of Turner, but with a bit more restraint. Painting is like a conversation across time, a sharing of ideas and techniques. You can almost feel the joy Sargent felt in capturing the fountain’s essence with such fluidity and grace.