Panorama Landscape of Nebi Samouel (from Sketchbook) 1904

This landscape of Nebi Samouel by Mary Newbold Sargent is a pencil drawing on paper. It's a simple sketch, really, capturing a broad vista with a winding path or wall in the foreground. You can almost feel Sargent standing there, quickly noting down the lay of the land. There’s a freedom in the loose lines, a sense of immediacy, like she’s trying to capture the essence of the place before the light changes. The mountains in the distance are just hinted at, soft lines against the sky, while the foreground has a bit more weight, more definition. I wonder what she was thinking as she made it; there’s something very intimate about sketchbook drawings like this. It is like a secret conversation between the artist and the world. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin's subtle landscapes, or maybe even some of the more pared-down works of Giorgio Morandi, artists who found so much in the simplest of forms. They knew, as I do, that painting is really a form of thinking.