John Singer Sargent was a well known portraitist around 1900 but began to create a transition towards watercolour up to 1910 where he rarely created portraits. Using watercolour naturally would push him away from the demand of his portraiture work as its just ideal to have a portrait in oil or acrylic; "looked to this medium as a means for personal expression, a respite from the constraints of mural commissions and portrait painting. Muddy Alligators seems to have been such a diversion, painted to offset the frustration of a work in progress"
I really like this piece because of the way he simply, or has appeared to, depicted such a realistic setting. The impression that it's simple is given to me by the brush marks. If you were to break down the piece its easy to see a few underlying layers of tone in each area with marks on top. I believe he has painted it this way to show the strength of the heat. The direct light has cast thick shadows, which has also bleached the skin on some of the alligators. There's quite a difference in colour between the one in the water and the large alligator in the centre.
John Singer Sargent is most likely the artist whose work I admire most and this is why.
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Muddy Alligators, 1917, Watercolour over graphite on off-white wove paper
34.3 x 52.1 cm, Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts
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http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Muddy_Alligators.htm
A "complete" collection of his works:
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