From Jerusalem 1905 - 1906

John Singer Sargent, with his watercolour brushes, must have been standing somewhere high up to make this view From Jerusalem. The ochre-y land stretches out to the lavender-blue horizon, while above, clouds are scumbled together in shades of white, blue and mauve. I can almost feel Sargent dabbing at the paper, trying to capture the shimmering heat and light. Watercolour is notoriously difficult. You have to be so precise in the way you layer colour, and in the amount of water you mix with the pigment. It’s hard to control, like trying to hold smoke. He’s trying to fix something fleeting – not just a landscape, but a feeling, a moment in time. I see a conversation between the sky and the earth, a dialogue between cool and warm tones. It reminds me how artists, like writers, are always borrowing from and building upon each other’s ideas. We’re all just trying to make sense of the world, one brushstroke, or one word, at a time.