Happy #SummerSolstice! How will you spend your extra hours of sun? ☀️
John Singer Sargent admired the way that Claude Monet spent his summer evenings outdoors, painting - en plein air (the French term for completing entire paintings outdoors) 🍃. Sargent often copied this approach in his own work. in 1885 he made a painting of Monet at work, capturing his methods as well as the patience of his wife, then Alice Hoschedé, who sits behind him while he paints.
Although artists have long painted outdoors to create preparatory sketches or studies, before the 19th century finished paintings wouldn't have been made entirely outside. This is because previously, painters made their own paints by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil, a much more laborious and messy process. 🎨🐾 The popularity of painting en plein air increased in the 1870s with the introduction of paints in tubes (like modern toothpaste tubes).
John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood 1885. 🌳