Mountain Fire
John Singer Sargent
American Art
Although Mountain Fire presents an expansive Alpine view, Sargent’s attention to the enveloping effects of smoke and steam makes it one of his most abstracted watercolors. With this work he clearly offered a farewell nod to the British watercolor tradition as exemplified by Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Alpine subjects of a century before, in which deep perspectives were articulated with transparent washes. Sargent evoked dense haze and smoke by adding opaque white to his washes and by freely allowing the bleeding edges of wet washes to suggest vaporous effects.
MEDIUM
Opaque and translucent watercolor
DATES
ca. 1906–1907
DIMENSIONS
14 1/16 x 20in. (35.7 x 50.8cm)
frame: 23 7/8 x 29 13/16 x 1 3/8 in. (60.6 x 75.7 x 3.5 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
unsigned
COLLECTIONS
American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
09.831
CREDIT LINE
Purchased by Special Subscription
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
John Singer Sargent (American, born Italy, 1856–1925). Mountain Fire, ca. 1906–1907. Opaque and translucent watercolor, 14 1/16 x 20in. (35.7 x 50.8cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by Special Subscription, 09.831 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 09.831_PS6.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 09.831_PS6.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2012
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