Charles Herbert Woodbury 1921

John Singer Sargent painted this portrait of Charles Herbert Woodbury in 1911 using oil paint. The umber and grey brushstrokes are built up in layers, emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Sargent and Woodbury. I imagine them, painter and sitter, studying one another in conversation. What might Sargent have been thinking as he brushed the paint across the canvas? It’s like Sargent is dancing with the paint, each stroke alive with his intention. See how the paint is thin, almost translucent in places, yet thick and creamy in others, particularly in the face where he models light and form. The lines of Woodbury’s jacket are like a cascade, full of energy. I think about Sargent's work in relation to other painters, and how artists are in an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas across time. Like painting, life is ambiguous and uncertain. We embrace multiple interpretations and meanings, never fixed or definitive readings.