John Singer Sargent

Sargent painted A Boating Party during a late summer vacation on England’s River Avon. During the extended holiday with his sister Violet and friends Paul and Alice Helleu, he experimented with Impressionist composition and technique. The unfinished background at the upper right shows that he had not yet mastered the use of broken brushstrokes, but his confidence is apparent in the placement of figures, the reflections in the water, and the asymmetric organization of the boats. With an amusing sense of photographic cropping, Sargent keeps the flat red punt from slipping out of the picture by anchoring it with lanky Paul Helleu’s leg.