Black is the New Green

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

P ortrait of Carolus-Duran by John Singer Sargent

Now that traditional representational painting is seeing something of a revival in art galleries, there is a lot of interest among painters in the techniques employed by masters of the oil painting medium. All of us learn from those who have preceded us, and there are so many great painters from which to glean vital knowledge. In particular, there is intense interest in the work of John Singer Sargent, and to fully understand his craft, one must examine the teachings of his mentor, Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran.

During his life, Carolus-Duran had established himself as a master of genre and portrait painting, whose naturalistic painting techniques derived from his studies of past masters, most notably, Velazquez. By studying and copying works by Velazquez in museums, Carolus-Duran was able to understand and incorporate Velazquez’s techniques into his own painting style. That painting style not only won him awards and…