Mountain Landscape 1871 - 1872

Editor: This is John Singer Sargent's "Mountain Landscape," a pencil sketch. The quick lines suggest a vastness, but also a kind of quiet industry in rendering the textures of the mountains. What stands out to you about this piece? Curator: Look at the paper itself. It's humble, a common material, and the graphite equally so. Sargent, famed for his portraits of wealth, here engages in a more direct form of labor. How does this shift in material and subject affect its value? Editor: That's a great point. It makes me think about how art is valued depending on labor and materials. Curator: Exactly. It pushes us to question the hierarchies inherent in art history, doesn't it? Editor: It really does. I see it differently now.