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The Olive Grove

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)

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  • The rapid sketchy brushstrokes in this work reflect the artist’s impressionist style.
  • This canvas shows a picnic with Sargent’s traveling companions in the background.
  • The Olive Grove was probably painted on the Greek isle of Corfu during one of Sargent’s trips to the Mediterranean.
John Singer Sargent and Landscape Painting
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John Singer Sargent is best known as a portraitist of high-society figures. However, he tired of this practice in 1907. He even complained that he had to talk to his clients while they sat, feigning interest in their conversation. Instead, Sargent turned to landscape painting. He traveled extensively, visiting the Mediterranean islands, the Alps, and Italy. These trips yielded numerous landscape studies.

The Olive Grove, probably set on the Greek isle of Corfu, is an impressionistic record of a picnic during one of Sargent's journeys. The figures in the landscape are most likely his traveling companions. Painting en plein air was part of Sargent's methodology, perhaps due to the pervasive influence of Impressionism, which he encountered in 1870s Paris.

Swinglehurst, Edmund and John Singer Sargent. John Singer Sargent. California: Thunder Bay Press, 2001.

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Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York, New York; given to the John Herron Art Intitute, Indianapolis, Indiana, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 1954.

Object Information

artist
John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)
creation date
about 1910
materials
oil on canvas
dimensions
22-1/8 x 28-3/4 in.
31 x 37-3/4 in. (framed)
other title
The Olive Grove at Corfu
accession number
54.171
credit line
Gift of Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York
copyright
Public Domain
collection
American Painting and Sculpture to 1945
colors

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