The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy

This is an oil painting on canvas, a little over two feet tall and about twenty-two inches wide, so it is a modest, upright picture. It shows a couple outdoors at a fountain in Frascati, Italy. The scene is full of water, light and color, painted in loose, lively strokes in the style called Impressionism, which tries to catch how a moment looks and feels rather than every exact detail. It is part landscape and part portrait. The two people are real individuals, painted as friends enjoying a day outside.

John Singer Sargent, an American painter, made this in 1907. That year was a turning point for him. He had a successful career painting portraits, but he daringly stepped away from it to paint outdoors, which is called plein air painting. The couple here are Wilfrid and Jane Emmet de Glehn, both professional artists and frequent traveling companions of Sargent. The picture looks spontaneous, as if painted in a flash. In fact rain kept interrupting him, so he finished it over several days, and his friends had to pose for long stretches.

This painting captures Sargent at a moment of change, when he was moving from portraits toward painting outdoors. It combines both, so the people matter, but so do the setting and the shifting light. It speaks of friendship and of the shared work of painters traveling together. It also celebrates color, the texture of paint on the surface, and fleeting effects of light and movement. Look at the whole scene for a little longer and notice how the sense of a passing moment feels so easy, even though it was built up patiently over several days.