Ragusa (from Sketchbook) 1904

Mary Newbold Sargent made this landscape drawing with graphite on paper. It's from her sketchbook, so it’s likely a quick study, capturing a sense of place through a series of marks. The whole scene is rendered with a scratchy, almost frantic energy. Look at how the marks build up to describe the trees! See the little steeple poking out from behind? There’s a beautiful looseness to the line work, as if Sargent is thinking on the page. The soft gray of the graphite creates a hazy, dreamlike quality. The textures feel almost tactile, you can practically feel the roughness of the paper and the grain of the graphite. The way she builds up the tones with short, quick strokes is reminiscent of some of Monet's drawings. Both are great at capturing a sense of light and atmosphere with just a few simple marks. The whole thing feels incredibly immediate and alive. It’s less about the thing itself and more about the experience of seeing it.