Mrs. Cecil Wade Distinctively Visual Analysis Essay

Mrs. Cecil Wade is the title of the piece i've grown quite fond of. Before i speak on the piece itself let's talk about who created this masterpiece and his name is John Singer Sargent. He was one of the most successful portrait painters of his time. He was born in Florence, Italy to American parents and studied in Italy and Germany, and then Paris. He studied with Carolus who heavily influenced Sargent’s style. The style derived from the traditional academic approach that required careful drawing and underpainting. The approach was very accurate and relied on the proper placement of tones of paint. Sargent passed on April 14th, 1925. This particular piece was created in 1886 and is on display at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. The painting
The painting portrays a woman in a very bright and sheer dress sitting on a bench. In the background there is polished wood furniture as well as sheer curtains with a hint of light escaping from the window sil. Behind Cecile is mostly an emptiness as if to make her stand out even more so in the foreground. My first impression was that the dress looks expensive. I immediately states scanning aesthetically scanning the dress because it stood out so much more than anything else on the canvas. The gray scale values are widely ranged to create depth. La Ricitos is very similar to Cecil Wade in the sense that there is a woman in a dress as the main focal point. This woman is not in a bright and sheer dress she is in a darker colored black, red, and gold dress with a primarily dark background. There are other people behind her in less focus interacting with each other. My first impression was that this woman does not care about a thing in the world. I was drawn to her facial expression that looks like she has her lower lip covering most of her upper with her head tilted up and cigarette in
Cecil Wade is more formal and uptight. The scenery is of higher class as with the fancy sheer curtains and lavishly decorated red bench and polished antique furniture in the background. The floor seems to be very glossy and well taken care of because you can see the shine from the small opening in the window that light is protruding out of. Even with the lesser attention to detail in the background you can still tell that it looks very high classed. The woman with the elegant and embellished white dress with gold jewelry fits the setting wonderfully. I can tell the artist used a more profound red bench to as what the main subject is sitting on to make the woman stand giving that red is such a bold color and that anything else would not have the same effect for example a simple wooden chair. The woman is sitting in a manner that looks somewhat painful but makes the viewer feel lesser as if this woman is above them. She is looking towards the left with a stern gaze and not towards the viewer. Now if were to jump to the less formal piece La Ricitos we can automatically see less color within the foreground as well as the background. The setting in this piece is more dingy. The woman in her multi colored dress is smoking with a carefree manner in a less uptight stricken pose. She is also showing a lot more skin. Both of her shoulders are almost fully exposed. The background is all in all darker than in Mrs. Cecil Wade but does have people instead of a window