John Singer Sargent: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Watercolour

In my opinion watercolours were always a second-rate artform. I’m sure my contempt dated back to primary school art lessons. The clumsy splotches of watery colour, the pools of paint, the ubiquitous brown which seemed to annex every other tone, from a young age I associated watercolours with chaos. And not creative chaos either but sheer anarchy, albeit of a watered-down variety. As far as I was concerned watercolours barely even classified as art, unless your idea of a masterpiece was a soggy sheet of crumbling paper.

Therefore when I learnt of the Sargent: The Watercolours exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery I was conflicted. John Singer Sargent, one of the defining figures of fin-de-siècle opulence and painter of the startlingly seductive Madame X, seemed an eternity away from the messy and mediocre world of watercolours. But having seen some tantalising glimpses of the work on display I bit the bullet and visited.

Never in my life have I seen watercolours created with such delicate and effervescent beauty. Sargent’s palette seems to sparkle out of the frame in a way that oil paintings could only envy. I could feel the Mediterranean sun toasting his Venetian palazzos, while swaying with the water surging underneath. The way he draped light over his landscapes addsan extra layer of ephemeral gorgeousness to the underlying view, like a piece of couture over a naked body. The evening sun reflecting off Santa Maria della Salute smoulders sensuously, as if the church itself throws ‘come-hither’ eyes in our direction. These pictures peer out from a dream landscape, one too perfect, too idealised for our own universe.

I entered the exhibition with a distaste for watercolours: I left intoxicated with their beauty. I wandered if I should give them another shot myself. But I doubt I could rival Sargent’s gift for the sublime. I might just leave it to the experts.