The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 37, no. 4

JOHN SINGER SARGENT The Escutcheon of Charles V of Spain, about 1912
JOHN SINGER SARGENT Spanish Fountain, about 1914
Sargent turned to watercolor for the
pleasures his portrait commissions denied:
spontaneity, informality, the color and
movement of outdoor light, and the
freedom of self-chosen subjects. After
1903, when he began to work extensively
in the medium, Sargent gave Impressionist
aesthetics their most dazzling realization in
though Sargent remained more illusionistic
and less interested in broken color, he
shared Monet's delight in pure visual
sensation. Both artists insisted that their
plein air subjects had no special meaning or
picturesqueness, and were selected at random,
or deliberately left uncomposed.
This risky objectivity was most successful
and coherence of architecture or sculpture
to control the fluid asymmetrical motion
of his color and brushwork. This method
organizes Spanish Fountain and The
Escutcheon of Charles V, where the
doorway has been plotted with ruler and
compass. Both works display the astonishing
mixture of swiftness and precision in