“En Route Pour La Pêche” by John Singer Sargent.
Courtesy | National Gallery of Art
The Dow Journalism Department and the Hillsdale Art Department hosted the inaugural Kenyon Cox Art Critics Essay Competition earlier this semester. This year, students were invited to imagine that The Metropolitan Museum and the Musée d’Orsay would lend Hillsdale College one of three works by American painter John Singer Sargent: “Setting Out to Fish,” “Portrait of Edouard Pailleron,” or “An Outdoors Study.” The object was to choose one of his paintings for display on Hillsdale’s campus.
Sophomore Grace Brennan, assistant culture editor at the Collegian, was awarded the $1,000 prize for her essay in favor of “Setting Out to Fish,” or, in the French, “En Route Pour La Pêche:”
Not every story comes from the great books. As much as Hillsdale College prides itself in the liberal arts tradition, it lacks an emphasis on storytelling through art. John Singer Sargent’s oil painting “En Route Pour La Pêche” tells a human story better than words could convey.
Sargent, an American artist and portraitist of the 19th century, painted “En Route Pour La Pêche” in 1878 as his second submission to the Paris Salon. He visited the fishing village of Cancale on the North Coast of Brittany, France, during the summer months of 1877 to make oil and pencil studies of his models on the beach. Among his observations were the routines of oyster gatherers.
Sargent took 12 studies back to his Paris studio, and painted four women and two children making their way to the low-tide shoreline to fish for oysters on a winter morning. Sargent’s subjects, dressed in wool, clogs, and bonnets, show that this outing is not for summer play but winter work. Their clothing, the baskets they carry, and the puddles of water that mirror the sky, are dappled in sunlight. In the distance another group of peasants makes its way to the water, creating an s-curve that repeats throughout the painting, leading the viewer’s eye to the girl in the center.
The other s-curves are found in the clouds and the puddles of water, which, apart from acting as radial lines to the girl in the center, also touch the edges of the canvas, creating an open composition. Sargent purposefully creates an inviting composition so the viewer feels welcomed into the scene. Only the right side of the canvas is closed so as to help the viewer follow the oyster gatherers in the direction of the sea.
Sargent’s brushstrokes are bold and intentional. He uses thick strokes of white to brighten the scene and grab the viewer’s attention. This choice of color and contrast acts as another radial line. White jumps from long strokes of sand and sky to speckled light that moves from the center girl’s shoe to her skirt, basket, sleeve, then her bonnet flowing in the breeze.
Sargent was never afraid to make false lines of light and shadow for the sake of controlling the eyes of the viewer. Sharp strokes of white mark the skirt of the girl in the center, giving off the effect that the skirt is reflecting fragments of light. But a wool skirt cannot reflect light. Although these strokes of white may be a false illusion of light, that doesn’t mean they aren’t necessary. Every few inches Sargent switches up the figure-ground relationship so that an object is at one point lighter and at the next point darker than its background. He subtly changes color and contrast with every stroke so as not to distract from the shapes or the scene at large, but rather to enhance the realism of the moment.
Sargent was especially talented for knowing how to paint at a high level without having been taught yet in Spain. In Spain, he would learn that Diego Velazquez took the same approach to figure-ground relationships. After copying “Las Hilanderas” by Velazquez, Sargent began to intentionally make those technical decisions in his own work. Sargent’s observation of detail was a sign of excellence rare in his time, and exceptionally rare in ours.
Sargent spent two months in Cancale observing the routine and behavior of oyster gatherers. He was on the same beach at the same time every morning, watching the way their clothing and baskets were affected by light and shadow. Sargent’s understanding of the way nature interacts with humans and their material qualities is one of the most noteworthy things about this painting. People often recognize Sargent for his portraits of important people in high society, but “En Route Pour La Pêche” showcases his ability to accomplish a more relatable human image: the image of selflessness, and the humility of labor.
“En Route Pour La Pêche” tells the real story of simple people doing honest work — a traditional concept that is disappearing in modern art. Art is supposed to tell the human story. In his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech renowned author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn emphasised the importance of communicating stories carefully and clearly through artwork. “The task of the artist is to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and the outrage of what man has done to it, and poignantly to let people know,” he said. Sargent does just that in “En Route Pour La Pêche.” In a time when flesh and blood have been replaced with AI, and abstractism has overtaken realism, artists like Sargent should be honored and studied. Hillsdale College should exhibit “En Route Pour La Pêche” as an example of disciplined work that is beautiful for its detailed and traditional approach to art.
