CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/14/2016

John Singer Sargent: Watercolors

"Mountain Fire" (circa 1906-7) is reproduced from MFA Boston and Brooklyn Museum's breathtaking survey of John Singer Sargent's watercolors, back in stock at last. "Yes, they are brilliant evocations of the natural world, scintillating studies of light and shadow, but they are not 'obvious,'" Sargent scholar and grand-nephew Richard Ormond writes in his introduction. "Rather, they are constructs that do not obey the rules of conventional composition. The odd angles and perspectives, the close-ups and croppings, the reductions and abstractions, the obsession with surface texture and the marks of the brush, all demonstrate a modern aesthetic as Sargent pushed out the boundaries of his art. His watercolors are not pretty pictures or holiday snaps. They are bold, original, and challenging works of art."