All' Ave Maria

All’Ave Maria, whose title references late afternoon vespers, depicts the church and school of Santo Spirito, adjacent Renaissance structures facing the promenade on the Zattere. This is one of Sargent’s more rapidly executed watercolors, painted without any preparatory drawing and executed wet into wet, so that strokes bled into one another. Forms such as the boats and figures are suggested by loose, almost abstract brushwork. The artist’s use of wet wiping to lift color off the paper is evident in the variable blue of the sky.