Above, Below and On Water

      I have considered translucence with you before but, today I have more to add. When Leonardo Da Vinci first tackled the sensation of translucence  while still working in Verrocchio’s workshop, the subject was the baptism of Jesus as he stood in a stream (River Jordan). Da Vinci observed that Jesus’ feet below the water were slightly darker in value than his shins above the water. Everything below the water has a diminished range of contrast vs. the territory above the surface of the water.  Notice the same conditions are true in John Singer Sargent’s watercolor of  translucent water in a stream. Sargent creates  the sensation of translucence by glazing the watercolor with a blue-green tint and insures that the objects and area within the stream have a narrower range of contrast than the areas above the water. that is the lights are not as bright  as the light-reflecting rocks above the stream and, the darks are not as dark as the dark-shadowed areas above the water.  For watercolorists reading this entry I will pause to explain that Sargent glazes his watercolors with tinting washes after the area to be glazed has completely dried.  He does this to avoid picking up and mixing with the underlying colors.  For oil painters, Da Vinci also glazes with an oil tint to mute the water area’s color after the previous layer has already dried.  In my example, I have taken translucence in a different direction.  I partner with uncertainty.  With indistinctness I am able to give  water a subtle sense of movement and confuse the depth at which the leaves seem to in habit the water. Are they on it or, in varying degrees slightly below it? Some leaves are more blurred and subdued; and therefore, appear to be more submerged  than brighter or more clearly defined leaves. Because all the leafy components are softly cross-hatched with gentle undulating strokes they seem to coccupy  uncertain depths in this shallow autumn pool.  The indistinctness  encourages the viewer to guess about what and where.