A most admired painter in art history is John Singer Sargent. One clue to Sargent's universal appeal is his mastery of the economy principle. Rather than meticulously define every little snippet with tiny brushes, Sargent developed his brushstroke skills so that a single stroke with an appropriately large brush or a minimal of massing or gradation communicated an entire
idea.
I invite you to suspend any aversion you might have to 19th century décor and fashion and let's examine a few passages from Sargent's portrait of Lady Agnew.
Here's an isolated passage from Lady Agnew. Notice the effortless blending of values in close range, then those five little spontaneous strokes of violet.
Look at two more examples where his brush is doing the same thing. In the example on the left, you can detect how little he actually moved the brush
around. A single stroke followed by a minimal blend, perhaps just dragging his finger along the edge, is all he did-all he needed to do. There is NO fussing around in either of these passages.
Same in these two examples. Here's Lady Agnew in all her glory with arrows pointing to all these passages Here's a challenge for you: Select a single rose or carnation or any flower with zillions of petals. Taking your clues from Sargent, do a study of this flower using only a dozen brushstrokes. Here's a hint:
Begin with the shadow areas, then mass in the halftones with a single pass, then place the lights. Doing this, you will experience how less is always more.
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