El Jaleo, John Singer Sargent, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum


This is currently my favorite painting. I dropped in to see it last Wednesday and it was as intense as I remembered it. This huge oil painting is at the end of a darkly lit mock cloister on the first floor of the museum which is decorated with cathedral tracery pieces and glazed blue and gold tiles. I had been thinking about this painting a lot after seeing a copy on the outside of a tapas restaurant in Brookline, MA:





I can't quite put my finger on why this painting has been on my mind. Maybe it's because I've been thinking more about becoming better-versed in Spanish and traveling to places like Argentina and Spain. Or perhaps it's just that Sargent has done such an amazing job capturing the passion, emotion and mystery behind flamenco. Maybe still, it's just an amazing painting that draws out the dramatic interplay of darkenss and light. Whatever it is, it has my wheels turning...

4 more 411: http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/El_Jaleo.htm