La Carmencita 1890
John Singer Sargent
Italy 1865-Great Britain 1925
oil on canvas, 232.0 x 142.0cm
On the 24 of February the students of c.i.t photography headed to the National Gallery of Australia to see the Marsters from Paris exhibition. As I couldn’t make it Brooke Fisher from class A lent me the Exhibition Book she purchased. While reading through the book I came across John Singer Sargent’s La Carmencita and couldn’t look away.
Sergeant portrays La Carmencita as a confident, poised woman. This is shown through the positioning of her stance and face as she is shown looking down on the viewer.
A lot of lighting on the figure and detailed dress and shadowing in the background makes it hard not to focus all your attention on her. It’s almost a representation of how the audiences of the time would have seen her, on stage as she was a dancer and singer.
Resources:
http://jssgallery.org/paintings/La_Carmencita.htm
Dixon, C. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay.
