the captured moment in plein air: john singer sargent’s watercolor paintings as simulacrum

Johnson

Susan Johnson

804 - Independent Study 2

Dr. Michael Smith

Final Draft

Spring 2014

The Captured Moment in Plein Air:

John Singer Sargent’s Watercolor Paintings as Simulacrum

Introduction

Early Modernist art critic Roger Fry declared John Singer

Sargent’s watercolor paintings to be crude, informal, and “failed

to capture the spirit, atmosphere, or poetry of place”, (Hirshler

29). Fry did not approve of Sargent’s juxtaposition of

complementary colors, and deemed Sargent’s scenes as “in keeping

with the most conventional views admired by any tourist” (28).

These statements are intriguing considering that Fry championed

Manet and the

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Post-Impressionists1. I will argue in this paper that Sargent’s

watercolors are simulacrum.

A Sargent watercolor is not a copy of reality: it is a

simulation. It is a reality constituted of reproducibility. As

such, it is the motif of juxtaposition in a Sargent watercolor

that is a model for boundaries within such a reality: dissimilar,

the different that is affirmation (Deleuze 299).

Fry’s critique was meant to position himself as Sargent’s

chief critical adversary,

but there is more at play here then a judgment about taste. What

is at stake is the discernment of what is real and what is

imaginary. Reality does not necessarily exist. Presented in the

form of

a moment captured in time, a Sargent watercolor is a simulation

that appears to be a copy of reality, but is in fact

hyperreality. In hyperreality, boundaries between physical and

1 Interestingly enough, Fry’s own watercolor paintings are

idealized scenes rendered within quite conservative pictorial

conventions (Hirshler 29).

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virtual reality are not distinct. As Fry inadvertently points

out, the scene depicted is not synonymous with how it is

depicted. Interestingly enough, Fry’s theory of aesthetics is

based on a doubling of reality.

In “An Essay in Aesthetics”, Fry suggests there are two

possibilities of life: the actual life and that of the

imagination (76). I will come back to this.

In the conclusion of this paper, I will summarize my

argument as a call for action.

The appeal and popularity of the exhibit John Singer Sargent:

Watercolors is a demonstration that technology has not yet

overtaken subjectivity. The simulacrum is an instrument for

freedom from manipulation, facilitating the continual

constitution of consciousness as a state of becoming through the

different communicating with the different.

Jean Baudrillard’s theories on simulation and the hyperreal

influence the notion of the simulacrum in this paper: the

difference between the real and imaginary is not distinct in

simulation (Simulacra and Simulation 5). The notion of boundaries in

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this paper is based upon Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s

metaphor of territory in the constitution of reality

(A Thousand Plateaus, 316). Territories are unstable, immaterial and

contingent. Incidences of difference constitute territory. As

such, the notions of boundary and territory are interchangeable.

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What constitutes a boundary between the real and the imaginary?

What constitutes a boundary between the real and the

imaginary? According to Baudrillard, reality is an illusion (The

Conspiracy of Art 68). Meaning is increasingly detached from

materiality. Signs and symbols do not exist. Signification

constitutes a hyperreality.

This is not a new revelation by any means, as exemplified by

Plato’s inquiry into the nature of ideas: is reality constituted

in the immateriality of ideas or materiality of existence? (Book

IX). In fact, one could say that the overtaking of abstract

immateriality over phenomenological materiality is the legacy of

the Enlightenment 2(Nietzsche 29). That argument is beyond the

scope of this paper, as is a discourse on mimesis,

reproducibility, and catharsis. Yet all those areas inform the

notion of the simulacrum. A discourse on the psychoanalytic

constitution of subjective consciousness and the biological

2 Nietzche Baudrillard, Deleuze and Guattari share a foundation

in Nietzche’s theories of reality as ethical and

phenomenological. Nietzche’s The Gay Science is particularly

insightful for disecerning possible influences.

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constitution of neuro-aesthetics3 are also beyond the scope of

this paper, but certainly subjective response, phenomenology, and

aesthetic response

are essential elements in this paper’s argument. Further, a

detailed discourse on purity, essence

and autonomy in early Modernist painting is beyond the scope of

this paper, yet a contextual relationship to Modernism must be

acknowledged in a critique of Sargent’s watercolors.

The exhibition John Singer Sargent: Watercolors consists of one

hundred watercolor paintings. Each painting acts as a simulacrum,

“a generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a

hyperreal” (Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation 1). Each painting

constitutes

3 Recommended reading: Starr, G. Gabrielle. Feeling Beauty: The

Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience, and Livingstone, Margaret S. Vision

and Art (Updated and Expanded Edition).

N.p.: Abrams, 2013. Print.

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a fragment of consciousness as hyperreality. These fragments of

consciousness are boundaried by an interruption that occurs as

one moves from one painting to the next. The viewer’s attention

is diverted from the hyperreality of a painting and directed to

reality of the surrounding physical room. An interruption thus

constitutes a boundary between the real and the hyperreal.

An interruption occurs again when the viewer approaches the next

painting in the exhibit, and

a new boundary is constituted between the reality of the room and

the hyperreality of a painting. Both actual time and the

simulation of time are therefore active components in the

constitution of a boundary between simulation and actual reality.

I am borrowing the notion of the interruption from Paul

Virilio to demonstrate the affect of juxtaposition on the

constitution of subjectivity in relation to technology. A

painting allows for a prolonged pause between interruptions. This

allows for reflection. Virilio contends that consciousness is a

collage and not a continuous condition. Reality is a fragment of

subjectively constituted by reflection in the pause between

interruptions (Virilio, Lotringer 50). The occasion of the

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exhibit John Singer Sargent: Watercolors is an example of an increasing

rare opportunity to benefit from the aesthetic of art as a

fragment of subjectivity. I hesitate to say “to benefit from the

purpose of art”, keeping in mind Immanuel Kant’s definition of

art as purposeless 4. Technology has sped up interruptions and

decreased the pauses. Therefore, discernment of the dissimilar

and the different is not immediately apparent and must be sought.

Different relates to different by means of difference itself. The

simulacra are systems where difference communicates with

difference (Deleuze 299). A Sargent watercolor is constructed as

such a system through a repeating motif of juxtaposition: tension

created through definitive contrast of color, value, and form.

This is manifested in Sargent’s interest in painting white

dresses, Alpine landscapes, and Cararra marble quarries. These

subjects lend themselves well to sharp contrasts of localized

4 Kant’s Judgment of taste outlined in Critique of Judgement is

understood by this author to provide the foundation of

Nietzsche’s understanding of aesthetics, which is in turn

provides the foundation for Baudilliard and Deleuze notion of

aesthetics.

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blocks of value and color temperature. Carrara: In a Quarry is a good

example of this (see fig. 1). Further, Sargent uses perspective

to construct a model of perception that is a simulation of his

actual perspective as he painted the scene. This is evident in

all Sargent’s watercolors. An excellent introductory example is

The Bridge of Sighs (see fig. 2), in which the top of a gondola prowl

is in the center forefront of the composition. To the right, the

movement of two gondoliers in the peripheral of the viewer’s

vision range is represented by loose, gestural strokes of white

in their bodies and blank spaces for their heads and faces.

Surrounding them, and at the top of the composition, two-point

perspective situates the height of the viewer in relation

buildings on either side of the canal and the Bridge of Sighs.

Dark and blurry details on buildings on the right contrast with

crisp value lines on the left to evoke a slightly diagonal

direction of the viewer’s gondola as it progresses down the

canal, past the two gondoliers (with passengers) on the right and

towards the underside of the bridge and bright sun beyond.

A spatial measurement of time is intrinsic in the

construction of a simulation model. Sargent constructs a defined

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height and depth that approximates the vision range of a person.

Florence: Boboli Gardens (see fig. 3) is a particularly interesting

demonstration of this. Here, the viewer is located slightly

downhill from garden statues. All forms are scaled to conform to

this measurement. This construction is a simulation of an actual

range of vision - the viewer takes on the artist’s reality by

proxy. To step away from a Sargent watercolor becomes an

interruption in the viewer’s reality by proxy, and therefore

determines a boundary through difference between simulation and

the actual. The simulacrum quality of Sargent’s use of

perspective is demonstrated by a comparison with the strangely

flattened depth of field in a painting by Johannes Vermeer, and

with the atmospheric perspective of fellow plein air painter

Claude Monet5. Vermeer6 may have constructed perspective by using

an optical device such as camera obscura, while Monet was

5 Sargent was friends with Monet and visted Giverny. John Singer

Sargent: Watercolors exhibition includes “Val D’Aosta”, a 1907 oil

painting of a pool of water. The color and application of paint

is very reminescent of Monet’s waterlily series (Hirshler,

Carbone 162).

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interested in the expression of perception as abstract color

relationships.

My argument concerns the location of difference as the

determination of boundaries between simulation and the actual. I

want to contextualize my argument with Modernism’s concern with

autonomy as the manifestation of essence. I cannot say that

Sargent was inspired by the Modernist’s notion of essence, but

Sargent was certainly interested in the notion of difference

because he uses dramatic contrast as a repeating motif in just

about every aspect

of his watercolor painting. For example, Corfu: Lights and Shadows has

an uncomplicated formal layout, but the entire painting is

constructed of edges meeting edges (see fig. 4): warm against

cook, light against dark, brushy short strokes against solid

patches; spatial expanse meets the paper edges.

The fact that Sargent is chronologically situated in the

time frame of early Modernism is significant in that painting at

that time was understood in a certain way in relation to the

6 There is no documentation available at the tme of this writing

that definitively proves that Vermeer used an optic device.

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medium used, and this influences how paintings are understood

today. To demonstrate, I suggest that Maurice Merleau-Ponty

outlines an aesthetic of phenomenology as art theory that

exemplifies modernist concerns. Borrowing from both Kant and

Hegel, Merleau-Ponty suggests that painting originates through

the subjective experience of perception, yet transcends this to

constitute

a hyperreality. In this theory of art, Merleau-Ponty merges

Kant’s judgment of taste with Hegel’s dialectic of history7. As

we know understand through Hegel, history is an objectification

of memory. The subjectivity of perception is thus measured first

through memory, and then as history. The form measurement takes

in history is as a progression. Merleau-Ponty uses the paintings

of Cezanne to demonstrate his theory, and suggests that

“Cezanne’s doubt”8 was about whether painting could be imminence

and transcendent. This sounds, once again, like a discourse on

indistinct boundaries between what is real and what is imaginary.

7 Kant’s theories are the foundation for Hegel. One could say

Hegel’s attention to history is a direct response to Kant.

8 Cezanne’s Doubt is the title of an essay by Merleau-Ponty.

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In his notion of the image as a measurement of time as the

unfolding of the real into memory, Merleau-Ponty’s theory is

comparable to Henri Bergson’s notion of Duration. I will come

back to Bergson, Duration, and Merleau-Ponty.

As an art critic, Fry was a central figure in early

Modernism through his association with a collective of English

artists, writers, historians and philosophers called the

Bloomsbury Group.9 Fry’s status and his adversarial critiquing of

Sargent provide an ideal counterpoint to Sargent’s plein air

practice with the context of early Modernism. Fry advocated

emotional expression over imitation of nature in painting. He

disavowed the notion of a correct or incorrect likeness of

nature, calling instead for an uncovering of emotional elements

in natural form – “unless the emotional idea depends at any point

upon likeness, or completeness of representation“ (83). Fry was

stating that artists should reply on their subjective sensibility

to constitute a reality of the imagination within painting – a

reality separate from actual reality. Further, however, Fry

9 Others associated with the Bloomsbury Group included Virginia

Woolf, Bertand Russell.

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asserted that this reality of the imagination had an indefinitely

heightened impact when “emotional elements are combined with the

presentation of natural appearances, above all with the

appearance of the human body” (81).

It is indeed strange that Fry did not consider that a

Sargent watercolor contained all these qualities. It may be that

Fry did not find enough obvious emotional elements expressed

through Sargent’s limited palette and general likeness to nature.

Fry was most interested in accessing the supersensible through art,

which he adopted from Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics (80). The

supersensible is transcendent thought: the sensible thinking

about itself. This is, once again, the real and the imaginary.

Fry’s notion of the imaginative life can therefore be understood

as transcendently separate yet referring to actual life. To

demonstrate, Fry applied Kant’s notion of purposeless of art

versus the purpose of design in the determination of beauty.

Thus, ugliness in color and form is beautiful in painting because

the emotionally expressiveness transcends the material

appearance. It is the emotions aroused that constitute beauty.

But, there is a catch.

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Fry declares that there must be a unity within the work. There

must be a balance of pictorial elements that allows the viewer to

“ restfully contemplate the work of art as a whole” (80).

This notion of unity may be where Fry has issues with a Sargent

watercolor. A Sargent watercolor incorporates Fry’s five

elements required for the constitution of unity within a work of

art (gestural line, mass, space, color). While Sargent’s palette

shifts from earthy modulations within a limited palette of a warm

and cool to spots of brightness straight from the tube, it could

be what Sargent does “with the possibility of another element”

(81) that truly disrupts Fry’s restful contemplation of a Sargent

watercolor. Fry describes this possible element as

“the inclination to the eye of a plane, whether it is impending

or leaning away from us” (81). While Fry’s notion of the

imaginative life seems to be a kind of hyperreality, Sargent uses

perspective to engage the viewer by proxy into the hyperreality

of the work of art, therefore suggests a responsive action of

some kind. Further, tension through contrast is central to

Sargent’s constructions. This balance is not a holistic balance.

Rather, the eye travels from one point of tension to another, as

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dictated by juxtaposition of opposites. Simplon Pass: Mountain Brook

(see fig. 5) provides an excellent demonstration of this. On the

one hand, the composition consists of a horizon line dividing

earth from rock and sky. On the other hand, the eye is forced by

the patches of white to jump from rock to rock, like a mountain

goat.

While emotional elements are responsible for transcendence

into the supersensible, Fry asserts the imaginative life is

separated from actual life by the absence of responsive action

(76). This separation from responsive action is why art is the

“chef organ of the imaginative life; it is by art that it is

stimulated and controlled within us…the imaginative life is

distinguished by the greater clearness of its perception, and the

greater purity and freedom of its emotion” (77). Early modernist

painters were letting go of conventional pictorial standards of

illusion and figuration, and began to experiment with

compositional concepts that could visually represent subjectivity

as experienced through the ephemerality of daily life- a

phenomenological consciousness as experienced through time such

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as movement and sound. Well-known examples of this include

cubism, geometric and biomorphic abstractions.

French Impressionism had opened the door for this

experimentation, and plein air was

an important element of Impressionism. Painters such as Edgar

Degas, Édouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir chose social

scenes of daily life, including cafes, nightclubs, parks,

railroads and shops. Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet chose

landscapes in response to

the impact of the industrial revolution10. Mary Cassette and

Gustave Caillebotte evoked the subjective experience of

domesticity. Monet painted numerous series of a particular

landscape

at various times of day. Henri de Toulouse Lautrec used flattened

and cropped compositions influenced by Japanese prints,

commercial printing and photography. All of these experiments

10 Of particular interest are the areas on the outskirts of

Paris. The impact of the industrial revolution was very evident

as factories were built in these in between areas.

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reflect the realization that visual art constitutes its own

reality, even while tethered to the materiality of daily life.

As Fry asserts, a chef aspect of order in a work of art is

unity, “without this we cannot contemplate it in its entirety,

but we shall pass outside it to other things” (80). The unity is

due

to “the balancing of the attractions of the eye about the central

line of the picture. The result of this balance of attractions is

that the eye rests willingly within the bounds of the picture”

(80).

A painting should be bounded by it edges. Yet, early Modernist

design theory sought to break down barriers between art and life.

This paradox is evident in numerous fin de siècle art movements,

notably the Vienna secession, Aesthetic11, and Arts and Crafts

movements.

These movements linked industrial design to visual art, and thus

extended the two dimensional pictorial reality of the painting

into the actual world. In addition to subject matter and

11 Sargent knew the older fellow Massachusettes expatriate and

Aesthethic painter James McNeil Whistler.

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composition, Impressionism opened the doors to experimentation by

incorporating the process of art making into the aesthetic of

art. Marks on the surface of the picture plane introduced

abstraction as a representation of time as space. This all gives

some context to Sargent’s model of perceptual space as a window

aligned to the actual perspective of the viewer. Sargent

figuration is based on academic realism and so hints at idealism,

but his use of perspective suggests a tension dynamic similar to

the notion of the fourth wall in avant-garde theater of the time.

This is demonstrated in Gourds (see fig. 6), where the picture

plane opens directly in front of the viewer’s nose. In this

frontal plane, warm colors begin at the top of the paper with

sharply delineated patches of white, and modulate to green by the

bottom of the paper, with the burnt sienna stem of the plant

anchoring the frontal plane firmly forward. The stillness of the

warm colors are interspersed with patches of cool blue that

reveal the juxtaposition of front and with the rear planes, a

deep space roughly brushed with dark and cool shapes with soft

edges. The overall effect is of moving light and breeze moving

against the viewer’s face.

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The Captured Moment

It is known that Sargent used photography to refine poses,

particularly in his “reclining figures in repose” series. There

are photos that document this, as well as photos that Sargent

himself took to, apparently, frame a scene (Hirshler, Carbone

128). It is possible that he used

a camera to frame his compositions, but sketching from life was

very essential to his picture development. Gestural lines,

visible graphite under-drawing, and loose brushstrokes give

Sargent’s watercolors the quality of a sketch. Plein air has

traditionally been a sketching practice. Impressionism is based

on plein air, and the movement’s lasting legacy is the

aestheticization

of the sketch as a finished work of art. Fry did not have a

problem with gesture,

Plein air is a sketch. The sketch is derived from actual

life, but is detached from the original reference. A sketch is a

hyperreality that simulates a subjective experience. According to

Fry, the drawn line is the record of a gesture, and that gesture

is modified by the artist’s feeling which is thus communicated to

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us directly” (80). A sketch is can be understood as a model of

phenomenology, as described by Maurice Merleau-Ponty: we

experience perception through action, but we can only know it

through the contradiction of immanence and transcendence (13).

Therefore a sketch represents a moment of experience, but is

actually an interpretation of transcendence through form. Actual

experience is immanent in the world. It is always in a state of

being. With this in mind, Sargent’s series of figures in repose

seem a bit uncanny. The poses look candid, as if he was taking

advantage of friends in a moment of rest. However, it is known

that Sargent took great care in designing the arrangements of

poses for these works (Hirshler, Carbone 129).

The creation of a sketch occurs over time. As such, the

unfolding of time is implicit

in a sketch. Transparency, gesture, chiaroscuro, and loose

brushstrokes of watercolor technique convey the illusion of the

capture of a fleeting moment through brushy strokes with shapes

that evoke speed, and thus immediacy. A sketch catches

resemblance through gesture. The shape

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of a line, and looseness of form imply movement. This captured

moment is a simulation of time conveyed through the quality of

line. Sargent’s Venice canal series offer many fascinating

demonstrations of small movements in time and space suggested

with changes in opacity in the rendering of the prow of gondolas.

Sargent often painted from a gondola, and so incorporates

a simulation of his perception. For example, in both Venice: I

Gesuati (see fig. 7) and The Bridge of Sighs (see fig. 2), the prowl is

abruptly in the foreground. In Venice: I Gesuati, the prowl is almost

transparent to simulate Sargent’s experience of sitting in a

rocking boat. The building behind is visible through the paint.

The prowl is once again in the extreme forefront of Santa Maria

Della Salute (see fig. 8). Opaque in this work, the prowl and two

other boats are nonetheless blurry and with indistinct details in

contrast to the rendering of the church behind them. The prowl

has a thick slash of white to simulate Sargent’s experience of

strong sunlight directly in front of his seat on the gondola.

Contrary to the impression of gestural line and blurry

forms, time in plein air is not immediate. Paintings are

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constructed over a period of time. The illusion of captured

moment

is a model of the memory of an experience. That is, a simulation

of immediacy. This makes sense within the context of

representation as knowledge of an actual moment can only ever be

known through memory. Sargent’s “moving” prowls are

presuppositions. We expect boats to move (Merleau-Ponty 13), and

so Sargent’s watercolor sketches are transcendent to our

expectation. Recognition that immediacy has been experienced

occurs in retrospect a presupposition- interpretation is lead by

expectation. Simulation is constructed through measurements of

time because the viewer is both inside and outside the picture

frame. But only the actual reality is time. The simulation is an

interpretation of time as movement. Thus, the top of a prowl in

the abrupt fore space in a Sargent gondola watercolor painting

has everything to do with presupposition of movement as time,

even though nothing is actually moving. In a sketch, mass and

space are merged as movement within a gestural line. This is the

dimensional plane that Fry suggests might be the “other element”

of unity within a work of art.

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Bergson defines duration as an unfolding of a multiplicity

of intuitive time measurements: all in one continuous state.

Similar to Deleuze’s notion of difference12, Bergson sites a

continua flow of change as the constitution of consciousness (4).

Similar to Merleau-Ponty, Bergson suggests that the imminence of

experience can be measured in hindsight as

a transcendent image. Bergson’s duration can be therefore seen as

an image that implies the movement of time, such as a sketch.

This is well demonstrated in Sargent’s series of “reclining

figures/figures at rest”. In fact, Sargent almost always models

figures in a posture of repose. Caught between action and in

action, a figure in repose is a metaphor for change. An

interesting example of this is The Garden Wall (see fig. 9). Here,

two figures if women sit on either side of an open doorway. The

doorway is a passage to a garden courtyard: splashes of green in

a center of a palette of grayish purples and browns. The women

seem to be caught in a pause during

12 Deleuze was greatly influenced by Bergson’s theories, and wrote an important critique in1966, Bergonism. The English translation: Deleuze, Gilles. Bergsonism. New York: Zone, 1988. Print.

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a conversation. One woman is young, and the other is older. The

younger is clothed in white,

and her head is slightly transparent as if to suggest a light

manner or perhaps movement. The older woman is solid and dressed

in a dark grayish purple. She has an open book propped up

in her lap, her fingers marking pages. The background surrounding

then is filled with short brushy strokes of grey and white,

suggesting moving light through trees more then a static surface

texture of a stonewall.

A moment of repose is a moment of transition within time,

and thus represents an implied juxtaposition of action and

inaction. Time as a progression is implied with posture. Bergson

embodies duration. Duration is immanent. Consciousness is change

experienced as the body moves through time. Consciousness is the

uninterrupted action of change, so continual that there seems to

be no change (6). Yet, change is discernable as measurement

through images (304). Knowledge is memory expressed in an image.

As every moment is unique, and change is a continuous and

holistic condition, an image always signifies movement. Carrara:

Workmen demonstrate as past, present, and future co-exists as

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separate unfoldings within the pictorial plane. The rocks behind

the reclining figures unfold with a circular pattern towards the

viewer, as if a brook flowing down the hill. The figure on the

right is slightly removed from the other two, and appears to be

several years younger. The two on the left are also still engaged

in eating lunch, while the younger cradles his head with closed

eyes and a bottle precariously balanced against his leg. The

younger figure has a defined face, and the features of the other

two are barely dotted in. Sargent’s villa garden series shows

progression of time without human figures, by engaging the viewer

is a spatial progression with two-point perspective. The sight

line precisely locates the height and depth of the viewer’s

position. For example, Sargent often sat while he painted, and

thus his perspective reflects this.

Every moment contains memory of past moments. The present

thus is the past, but the past is never repeated, as each moment

is unique. To be in the present is to be in relation to the

fiction of the past (Bergson 5), an implicit juxtaposition of

time. Figuration in art is a simulation of material existence. A

landscape painted on canvas is a representation - it is a stand-

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in for a sensory experience and is not an actual landscape. This

is a fairly obvious observation. The nature of the simulacrum is

illusion, however. Complexity is invisible. A simulation is a

copy of the actual, and further- it pretends to be what it

copies. The copy thus possesses its own hyperreality constituted

by its reproducibility (Baudrillard The Conspiracy of Art 21). Thanks

to technology, this reality of reproducibility dominates every

aspect of daily life. We are surrounded by simulation in every

facet of daily life. We turn on smart phones rather then

converse. Within the hyperreality of reproducibility, one cannot

physically walk away. How can boundaries be constituted?

Sargent constructs models of difference through contrast in

just about every aspect of

a watercolor painting: strong back lighting creates dramatic

values and color temperatures are distinct in juxtaposition;

figuration is defined and gestural; pictorial window depth and

surface texture. Each picture is devised around a central tension

through the meeting of forces.

Value and color temperature are localized. Everything is one

thing or another. Forces meet and press against each other.

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Strokes explode across the picture plane, yet the illusion of

figuration

is stable. A picture palette is mixed from two complementary

colors, with daubs of accent direct from the tube. A dynamic

balance is created through strong contrasts of value and color

temperature. Warm and cool washes butt up again each other;

saturated accent lines and dark shadows create sharp light and

shadow contrast; brush strokes and texture simultaneously reach

back into space as gaps in shapes, and step forward from the

surface of the paper as gestural and abstract expressionism. In

composition, parallel lines anchor to the horizon; a shallow

space touches against the edges of the paper; Two-point

perspective creates odd angles resulting from

a sitting perspective in shallow space. Texture creates

atmospheric space through wax resist, scraping, blotting, and

stroking Gestural brushstrokes also flatten the space by drawing

the eye to the paper surface. Standing close, the materiality of

the works beckons the eye to linger.

Perspective is a subtler juxtaposition, as the spatial

distance and height between the subjects and the artist is

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delineated. The precision is such that the viewer takes on the

artist’s place. Further, all the levels of difference catch

attention at different times. As with the juxtaposition of

blocks of warm and cool color in a painting, an interruption

occurs when the viewer steps away. The interruption constitutes

an actual moment as a juxtaposition of simulation with actual

surroundings. A boundary is thus determined through the

realization of difference. Exposure to these works in quantity

does not lesson the experience.

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Where, what and how to look for boundaries?

Where, what and how to look for boundaries? A simulation is

more then an imitation-

it is a reality by proxy. This means that the boundaries between

consciousnesses, i.e. people,

are blurred. Further, the reality experienced is a construction.

The potential problem with this situation is the question of

manipulation. Plato suggests the artist creates a copy that is

intentionally distorted to appear correct to viewers (Book IX).

A Sargent watercolor painting functions as a simulacrum- it

presents a simulation of reality that does not exist. Simulations

of landscape scenes with perspective, medium, and technique are

actually models that represent characteristics of a person’s

vision when standing

in a specific place at a specific time. Repeated motifs of

juxtaposition with the material and

the figuration of the scenes demonstrates that reality is

constructed through contrast. This message has great

significance. Technology extends into every aspect of life,

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invisibly blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality in

every conceivable relationship.

The classical notion of the simulacrum comes through Plato

is and associated with

the ideal (Book IX). As an early Modernist, Fry is particularly

interested in the ideal. Sargent disrupts the invisibility of

simulation with areas of pure color, clumps of paint, and

gestural under-drawing that call attention to the surface of the

paper. Even more, however, Sargent’s interpretation of the ideal

is a model based on phenomenology: the actual perspective of a

person in a physical space.

Figures in a Sargent watercolor are always in a defined

spatial relationship to the viewer. The front space tends to be

shallow because of this relationship. Backspace tends to be

defined with large unified areas of color, as the effect of

backlighting and atmospheric perspective.

A sharp contrast of light defines the form and space in the

center of the range of vision. Sargent will usually have one area

of very sharp contrast and long shadows, and then secondary light

relationships that are shadows with gestural and broken stokes,

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as is well demonstrated in Villa Di Marlia, Lucca (see fig. 10). This

is to imply the movement of time. This demonstrates duration as a

juxtaposition of two unfolding measurements of time.

Sargent uses perspective to scale all his figuration to the

viewer. This creates a pretense that the viewer is within the

pictorial plane. This places the viewer in a clearly defined

space amidst gestural lines, washes and loose brushstrokes.

Strong contrasts of value and color temperature depict light,

atmosphere represent time and mood. Sargent’s use of perspective

and juxtaposition can therefore be interpreted as a

representation of the subjectivity of duration. Plein air

painting, in principle, demonstrates time as memory and the

present as a simultaneous unfolding. All images are presumed to

be intuitive as the fleeting moment caught in paint.

A watercolor stroke demands a quick and confident touch.

Watercolor’s transparency adds to

a feeling of quickness, air, and absorption. Once applied, a

watercolor stroke is not easily removed or altered. Sargent was

able to rework watercolor, but this resulted in an opaque and

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textured surface areas. Watercolor uses transparency to generate

luminosity through reflection

of the paper through the paint. This is luminosity that is a

brightness of color inherent in the medium rather then a rendered

representation of light. This is not a reproducible quality. This

adds a very interesting dimension to the notion of simulation in

a Sargent watercolor.

Sargent is known to have the technique of sighting to

construct spatial relationships. Sighting is based upon pictorial

relationships rather then an outside measurement. This is why

everything is scaled to the viewer. It is doubtful that Sargent

constructed his paintings to function as simulacrum, but he

definitely was interested in manipulating the spatial

relationship of the viewer to the pictorial plane. This is

demonstrated in the Carrera Quarry series. Sargent purposely left

out or minimized clues that would reveal the scale of the white

blocks. Sargent’s interest in scale and the pictorial plane is

evident in his vegetation series. Sargent zooms in

as if with a macro lens of a camera. A central point of focus is

still evident, but very shallow space makes the viewer’s spatial

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relationship more ambiguous. The composition fills the picture

plane, and the blurriness on the edges implies the movement of

light and wind. The effectiveness of Sargent’s use of perspective

is demonstrated by a comparison with Monet and Vermeer.

The paintings of Vermeer are well known for dramatic,

directed light and a defined spatial relationship to the viewer.

Vermeer’s subjects are tranquil scenes of daily life. Vermeer’s

paintings have the same window, lighting, and room props.

Distance between artist and subject

is consistently the same. There is no juxtaposition in Vermeer’s

painting - no contrasting measurements of time and therefore no

representation of duration. Vermeer’s forms are flattened even

though they are set in a space defined through perspective. Color

temperature is even overall. All areas of the composition have

the same focus. The light is still and diffuse. Everything seems

frozen in time. It may be that this flatness within perspective

may be the result of an optical device. It was not unusual for

artists in Vermeer’s time to use such a device. Copying a

reflection from a mirrored lens would result in a flattened

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quality rather then quality of depth that a perceptual model

presents

The technique of sighting shapes space through the

relationship of forms to each other.

A mirror has interior relationship among form. Through sighting,

perspective is constructed

as a perceptual model that is scaled to the height and visual

range of a person. Sargent’s perspective is consistently clear –

he places the viewer in the artist’s footsteps. Sargent’s spatial

relationship to the subjects is always evident and it is

different in each watercolor painting.

A comparison with a typical Monet landscapes demonstrates the

affect. Monet flattens form

and scale is not specific. The viewer is not located at a

specific place and time. Space has atmospheric depth, but is not

aligned to a spatially defined point of view. The viewer is

placed outside of the pictorial plane. There is no confusion

between the real and imaginary. Monet presents a clearly mediated

reality. A Monet painting is most certainly hyperreality, but is

it

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a simulacrum?

Is it a Simulacrum?

Time, memory, and phenomenology are significant elements in

simulacrum. Duration

is time as a multiplicity of subjective measurements, thus the

notion of duration is an effective way to describe how a

simulacrum is constructed. Bergson was actually a contemporary of

Sargent. Bergson’s 1907 text Creative Evolution introduced the notion

of duration as an unfolding of time that can only be represented

with an image. Although probably inadvertent, Sargent’s various

methods of building perspective correspond to this concept of

duration as time as image. Sargent uses perspective to suggest an

unfolding of memory and contemporaneity

as space. This unfolding is scaled to the artist and viewer. This

gives the work a subjectivity

of scale. This can be applied to Sargent’s figures within the

pictorial space- the observer and observed within the frame and

the viewer outside of the frame. Walking through the body of work

in the exhibit John Singer Sargent: Watercolors, it become evident that

Sargent keeps

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the sight line at a consistent level, but moves the horizon line

to represent an increasing shallow front space, even as he paints

deeper backgrounds with mountains and granite quarries.

Sargent does not dispense with the conventions of

figuration. He introduces radical concepts in the use of

perspective within conventional figuration. Sargent uses

perspective

to engage the viewer’s empathy by aligning the pictorial plane

with the viewer’s range of vision.

The affect of this use perspective can therefore be interpreted

as psychoanalytic, especially

as Sargent retains a conventional aesthetic of figuration.

Sargent’s sight line becomes the viewer through his consistent

use of the comparison measurement technique of “sighting” to set

his scale, and viewer’s entry in. Sargent’s sight point is the

perspective of the artist inside the pictorial plane, and looking

onto the scene represented. Indeed, figures represented

acknowledge the artist’s presence by their return gaze. This is

the reality by proxy hyperreality of simulation: the function of

the simulacrum.

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Sargent’s sight line consistently set at sitting level. As

photographs indicate, Sargent sat while painting plein air.

“Sighting” sets scale through relationships. There must be an

anchor that sets the scale, to which all other elements must

relate. Rather then using an object, Sargent uses the sight line

to set his scale. For this reason, Sargent’s composition

resembles that of a photograph. Just as with a photograph, the

view into the pictorial plane aligns with the viewer’s sight

line. Sargent often used graphite to block in his composition,

but just as often did not hold to the lines. Perspective is

consistently aligned to Sargent’s eye level, whether sitting on

the ground or in a gondola. Sargent did occasionally take

reference photographs of his scenes,

and some of these photographs indicate that Sargent posed his

models.

Space anchored to the picture plane is autonomous. The space

references the painting. Although this is space as defined by

Modernist theory, Sargent’s perceptional perspective reaches out

to actual space by engaging the viewer’s empathy. The view Fry

deems conventional and lacking the spirit of a place is

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emblematic of Sargent’s aesthetic of subjective space. Sargent

sets perspective to a particular eye level, a sitting

perspective. This is indicated by a site-line that is set lower

then the horizon lines. The site-line is the perceptual line of

the eyes. To heighten this affect, Sargent chooses a shallow

space over a panorama, and every picture has a focus point. This

is an area of greater delineation a point of tension. Looser

strokes radiate off this point, as if to mimic peripheral vision.

As such, pictorial space seems to include the viewer.

It is this spatial intimacy that invisibly attracts the eye.

Composition may be closer to perception as images, as

suggested by Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s link of phenomenological

orientation of consciousness to the use of perspective in

painting. For example, Sargent‘s rectangular paper dimensions

approximate the range of vision.

Sargent’s paintings extend beyond the frame to engage with a

multiplicity of time. That is to say, Sargent’s particular use of

perspective and his aesthetic as expressed with the medium of

watercolor engages the viewer with an unending variety of space,

in which time runs at varying speeds. Some examples could be the

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actual space of the object; the process space of the artist

signified through striking brush strokes; a symbolic space of

figuration; the indicated space of perspective; the implied space

that extends beyond the composition; the space of strong, direct

and unmoving light that enters the plane with high contrast

shadows; the fast moving strong light signified by vigorous short

brush strokes- some stabbed on and dragged across with thick

opaque gouache, other bright, thin and nervous strokes that dance

on the landscape.

Sargent’s watercolors are objects, but their aesthetic of

engagement is powered through signification. However, the medium

of these works engages aesthetically as material and

signification. This is manifested in Sargent’s choice of plein

air figuration with watercolor.

The medium of watercolor signifies an experience of time by the

very nature of its material. Sargent paints with a semi-

transparent aesthetic: that these works are constructions is

evident yet his figuration is fully believable. Viewers can thus

engage with the artist’s process

by seeing how the brushstrokes converge into a representation of

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subjectivity that looks back at the viewer. Sargent must generate

empathy to make this return gaze believable, as it is ultimately

the viewer’s subjectivity gazing back at the viewer. The viewer

is not confronted with a face,

but a constitution of subjectivity through multiplicity of time.

The materiality of Sargent’s use

of the medium of watercolor on paper engages the viewer with the

sensation of pleasure through the combination of texture and

modeling. Sargent’s subject is sunlight denotes time and space.

The aesthetic of a painting unfolds through the transcendent

materiality of the medium,

i.e. brushstrokes. This unfolding adds to the time of the

suspended moment. This is most evident when in actual physical

communion with the painting. According to Paul Virilio in his

text Pure War, reflection required in the presence of an original

artwork increases the time in between “interruptions”. This

quality is the key to the aesthetic of engagement in general, for

Sargent’s watercolors in particular.

Conclusion

An interruption is the constitution of subjective

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consciousness in a fragment that is constrained by the intake of

knowledge. Virilio suggests that human consciousness is not

a continuous state, but a collage of fragments. Within each

fragment, subjectivity is constituted through immediate

consciousness (Virilio Pure War 50). Autonomy of subjective

identity

is realized within the act of reflection. Technology gives us

progressively faster interruptions,

sped up blinks, with accordingly smaller and smaller fragments of

time within which to reflect.

The appeal and popularity of the exhibit John Singer Sargent:

Watercolors is a demonstration that technology has not yet

overtaken subjectivity. The simulacrum is an instrument for

freedom from manipulation, facilitating the continual

constitution of consciousness as a state of becoming through the

different communicating with the different.

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Figures

Fig. 1. Carrara: In a Quarry. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler,

Teresa A. Carbone, Janet Chen, Connie H. Choi, Annette Manick,

Antoinette Owen, and Karen A. Sherry. John Singer Sargent Watercolors.

Boston: MFA Publications, 2012. 122. Print.

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Fig. 2. The Bridge of Sighs. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler,




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Fig. 3. Florence: Boboli Gardens. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E.

Hirshler, Teresa A. Carbone, Janet Chen, Connie H. Choi, Annette

Manick, Antoinette Owen, and Karen A. Sherry. John Singer Sargent

Watercolors. Boston: MFA Publications, 2012. 91. Print.

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Fig. 4. Corfu: Lights and Shadow. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E.




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Fig. 5. Simplon Pass: Mountain Brook. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E.




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Fig.6. Gourds. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler, Teresa A.

Carbone, Janet Chen, Connie H. Choi, Annette Manick, Antoinette

Owen, and Karen A. Sherry. John Singer Sargent Watercolors. Boston: MFA

Publications, 2012. 97. Print.

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Fig. 7. Venice: I Gesuati. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler, Teresa A. Carbone, Janet Chen, Connie H. Choi, Annette Manick, Antoinette Owen, and Karen A. Sherry. John Singer Sargent Watercolors. Boston: MFA Publications, 2012. 60. Print.

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Fig. 8. Santa Maria Della Salute. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E.




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Fig. 9. The Garden Wall. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler,




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Fig. 10. Villa Di Marlia, Lucca. Sargent, John Singer, Erica E.




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Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. The Conspiracy of Art: Manifestos, Interviews, Essays. Ed.

Sylvère Lotringer. Trans. Ames Hodges. Cambridge: Semiotext(e),

2005. Print.

---. Simulacra and Simulation. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser.

Ann Arbor: U of Michigan, 1994. Print.

Bergson, Henri. Creative Evolution. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1998. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Trans. Paul Patton.

New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and

Schizophrenia.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1983. Print.

---. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1987. Print.

Fry, Roger. "An Essay on Aesthetics." Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An

Anthology of Changing Ideas. Ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood.

Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2003. 75-82. Print.

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Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on

Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics. Ed.

James M. Edie. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1989. Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German

Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Ed. Bernard Williams. Trans.

Josefine Nauckhoff and

Adrian Del Caro. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print.

Plato. The Republic. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Mineola, NY: Dover

Publications, 2000.

Book IX.eBook.

Sargent, John Singer, Erica E. Hirshler, Teresa A. Carbone, Janet

Chen, Connie H. Choi, Annette Manick, Antoinette Owen, and

Karen A. Sherry. John Singer Sargent Watercolors. Boston: MFA

Publications, 2012. Print.

Virilio, Paul, and Sylvère Lotringer. Pure War: Twenty-five Years Later.

Los Angeles, Calif.: Semiotext(e), 2008. Print.

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the captured moment in plein air: john singer sargent’s watercolor paintings as simulacrum

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