In Austrian Tyrol
1911
Although Sargent’s career was defined by his portraits of high-society patrons, privately he painted landscapes in watercolor and oil throughout his career. After the turn of the century, assured of his reputation, Sargent produced more landscapes than any other kind of painting. Alpine views were among his favorite subjects, but he avoided associating them with the rhetoric of the sublime. Instead, mountain views such as In Austrian Tyrol were closely cropped, often rendered from a low vantage point. The visual relationship between the shapes of the foreground rocks and the mountains themselves was what captured his attention.
- Medium
- watercolor with traces of graphite
- Location
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
More by John Singer Sargent
Spotted works by John Singer Sargent
Artists in conversation
Winslow Homer
American · b. 1836
Homer mastered watercolor landscapes with loose expressive brushwork and closely observed natural settings, particularly favoring rugged outdoor environments rendered with spontaneous wet techniques that closely parallel Sargent's intimate alpine approach in this piece.
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon
British · b. 1821
Brabazon produced freely painted watercolor landscapes with a sketchy immediacy and atmospheric luminosity that strongly resembles Sargent's cropped, informal treatment of natural scenery, and the two artists were personal acquaintances who mutually admired each other's watercolor technique.
Edward Lear
British · b. 1812
Lear created intimate watercolor landscapes of rugged mountainous terrain across Europe and the Mediterranean, employing close cropped compositions and graphite underdrawing beneath fluid watercolor washes in a manner directly comparable to Sargent's process in this Austrian alpine study.
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