Frascati, Architectural Study c. 1907

John Singer Sargent made this architectural study, "Frascati," with watercolor, probably en plein air, and I can just picture him, floppy hat on, squinting a little at the light. There's a lot of pale yellows, greens, and browns, the colors of classical ruins in the Italian sunlight. The paint is thin, washy, and the strokes are loose and suggestive. I can imagine him dabbing at the paper, trying to capture the way the light hits those columns, how it makes the stone glow. He's not being super precise or detailed, but he’s focused on getting the essence of the scene down. You can see that he’s interested in the play of light and shadow, and how it defines the forms. It reminds me of some of my own painting studies, capturing fleeting impressions. Painters have always learned from each other, riffing on the same themes and ideas, and here we are, still looking, still learning, still riffing.