Interpretive Resource

Although John Singer Sargent worked in watercolor from childhood, his concentrated interest in the medium occurred late in his career. In 1907 he decided to retire from his lucrative but demanding work as a society portraitist. Freedom from regular commissions allowed him to indulge even more frequently in his passion for travel. Born in Italy to American parents who continually moved from city to city in Europe, Sargent was a veteran traveler, fluent in four languages and able to adapt to new situations with ease. Once released from his professional obligations, he embarked on an annual schedule of painting expeditions: summer in the Alps, September in Venice, and a sojourn in a favorite Italian resort area. Watercolor proved to be the perfect medium for the touring artist. Not only was it portable—requiring little more than a palette, a block of paper, and box of paints—but it also allowed Sargent to compose quickly in color, working rapidly in response to his subject.

Workmen at Carrara displays Sargent’s mature technique. Using a limited palette—silver gray, with washes of mauve and rose-brown, accents of cobalt blue, and a single dash of red—Sargent created a frieze-like procession. There is nothing extraneous in his composition, and the figures have the monumental presence of an ancient relief sculpture. Indeed, the site is associated with the art of carving: Carrara, on the northwest coast of Italy, is Europe’s most renowned marble quarry and the source of the blocks used by sculptors such as Michelangelo. In Workmen at Carrara, Sargent presented the dignity of the quarrymens’ labor, perhaps suggesting a parallel between their work and that of the artist or artisan.