The Temple Of Denderah 1891

John Singer Sargent created this evocative painting of The Temple Of Denderah with oil on canvas. Sargent’s artistic practice typically involved working ‘alla prima,’ or wet-on-wet, applying paint in layers before the previous one had dried. This lends an immediacy to the canvas; each brushstroke visible. Looking closely, we can see where he built up the pigment to capture the worn surfaces of the ancient architecture. But it's interesting to consider the materiality of the temple itself – the very substance that Sargent sought to represent with his comparatively ephemeral medium. The massive columns and lintels of Denderah required vast quantities of quarried stone, not to mention the immense labor to transport and assemble them. By capturing a mere glimpse of the temple, Sargent directs our attention not just to the visible scene, but to the invisible, to the staggering amount of work involved in its making. His loose brushwork belies the dense history embedded in the stone.