Apollo in His Chariot with the Hours 1925

John Singer Sargent created this drawing of Apollo in His Chariot with the Hours sometime between 1916 and 1925. It's a work on paper, and it's all about the process of drawing, about working up a form out of shadow and light. The drawing feels like a study, but a very complete one. It's mostly monochromatic, with the figures emerging from a dark ground, but there are so many shades of gray. The surface is worked, but not overworked. There’s a real sense of light and movement, like the horses are about to burst off the page. The figures feel solid and classical, but they’re also full of energy, like the horses are about to burst off the page. The spokes of the chariot wheel are rendered so sharply in contrast to the figures, whose bodies are blurred by the implied movement. Sargent was influenced by the dynamism of Italian Baroque artists such as Bernini. But there's also something very modern about the way Sargent captures a sense of constant movement and transformation.