Tate Britain Museum Assignment

Tate Britain

John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose

1885, American Impressionism/Realism

 Sargent uses an array of colors to capture the fleeting light of dusk on a summer night. While he uses warm colors such as a deep red and soft pink for the flowers, they, along with the grass and trees, seem to have a cool blue/green overlay. This cool veil gives the sense of the imminent night. Sargent contrasts the cool, more subdued colors with the warm, almost florescent oranges and yellows of the Japanese lanterns. The lines are quite realistic and pay particular attention to detail.

I think that this might be celebrating the carefree spirit of children and their appreciation with life’s simple pleasures. It allows the viewers to think back to their own childhoods and perhaps to contemplate what was most important to them at that age. The artist may also have painted these two sisters to emphasize the importance of family and spending time together.

Sargent met Claude Monet in France and used his open-air technique to create this painting. I was surprised to find out that Sargent carefully planned out and staged the subject matter before actually painting it. The two girls, who are the daughters of the illustrator Frederick Barnard, were given specially designed dresses to wear as they posed. Sargent also brought in many real and fake flowers to the scene to add more color.