Violet Fishing
John Singer Sargent·1889
Historical Context
Sargent's 'Violet Fishing' (1889) belongs to his plein air English period — works produced in the English countryside that engaged with figures in outdoor settings in the Impressionist manner he had been developing since the mid-1880s. The fishing subject, with its combination of figure in landscape and the reflective water surface, allowed him to explore the outdoor light effects he found so compelling. Sargent's English garden and landscape subjects from this period represent some of his most freely painted work — liberated from the social pressures of commissioned portraiture.
Technical Analysis
Sargent renders the fishing scene with the gestural confidence of his mature plein air work — the figure and water handled with the broad, decisive strokes that capture the sensation of outdoor light without laboring its literal description. His palette for outdoor water subjects engages the complex color relationships of reflected light on water, the figure casting reflections that interact with the water's own colors.
