John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925)
Venetian Glass Workers
INV-1107
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925)1880–82
Venetian Glass Workers
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925) →ImpressionismRealismModernismpaintingamerican arts
Date
1880–82
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
56.5 × 84.5 cm (22 1/4 × 33 1/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
Trained in Paris, John Singer Sargent traveled to Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy early in his career in order to study how painters such as Diego Velázquez and Frans Hals captured the effects of light and rendered figures in space. Venetian Glass Workers is one of several genre scenes featuring glass-bead workers that Sargent executed in the early 1880s. This backlit view of a shop in Venice is dark and atmospheric except for the brilliant strokes of light green and silvery white paint that describe the canes of glass as tradespeople prepare to cut them into bead-sized pieces, which will then be polished and strung into jewelry.
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