Abriès c. 1912

John Singer Sargent made ‘Abriès’ with watercolor on paper; you can see how the light floods in, pooling on the ground and the wooden beams like memory. I can imagine Sargent standing in front of this barn, trying to capture the structure with thin washes of brown, ochre, and the odd splash of green. He’s looking up, trying to capture the essence of the space, that play of light and shadow. It’s almost like he’s building the barn again, right there on the page, piece by piece, with each stroke. I see kinship with other landscape painters who were fascinated by light, like Turner, who took the atmospheric effects of watercolor to a whole new level. Paintings like this remind me that art is all about seeing and feeling the world around us, whether it's a grand landscape or the inside of an old barn. Each artist brings something unique to the conversation, and we get to listen in.