Sketchbook ("1869"): Travel Sketches and Copies after the Antique 1869

Editor: This is John Singer Sargent's "Sketchbook ('1869'): Travel Sketches and Copies after the Antique," housed at the Harvard Art Museums. It looks like a well-loved object. What can we learn from Sargent's early sketches? Curator: A sketchbook is such an intimate object. It’s interesting to consider how travel and classical art informed Sargent's perspective, particularly as he navigated a complex identity as an expatriate. How might these sketches reflect the power structures inherent in travel and artistic training at that time? Editor: That's a great point. I never considered the social implications of studying the antique. Curator: It’s about questioning whose stories are being told and how artistic traditions are shaped by cultural exchange and, sometimes, cultural appropriation. Editor: This gives me a whole new way of looking at sketchbooks. Thanks!