View Large ! * Campo Cecina / Carrara / Toscana * Was time to leave this panoramic-view place ........ ......but before leaving , I felt to take a close-up photo of the marble-quarries....... and I had thoughts of how much work is behind a sculpture ! And here men working very hard ! -------------------------------------------------------------- Workman at Carrara c. 1911 The Art Institute of Chicago, IL Watercolor and pencil on paper 39.4 x 52.1 cm (15 1/2 x 20 1/2 in.) Olivia Shaler Swan Collection Jpg: local source ( there was small paintings with this text.......but could not paste them here....."Angy Fotografie" ) Lizzatori I In the first study to the right, you can see men hauling ropes up the side of mountain steps. This is similar to the watercolor Carrara, Lizzatori I (though you can't see the men very well in the thumbnail). In that painting, the men are further up the steps. These workmen who apparently are called "lizzatori", cut the huge blocks and then Bringing down Marble from the Quarries to Carrar manually tie them with these massive hemp ropes, using what I assume to be block-and-tackle with wrenches along with sheer brute force to amazingly haul, drag, pull these immense stones down the mountain. In Sargent’s series of paintings, you can clearly sense the harsh climate they are working in. Bringing down Marble (above) is one of only two known oils, you can see the Carrara: Monsieur Derville's Quarry stunning contrast between the angular, unforgiving rock, to the rounded, pliable bodies, ropes, and clothing. In Carrara: Monsieur Derville's Quarry (left), we see the devouring sun beating down diluting all shades of color to a monocrome tonal-range. In Carrara: A Quarry (lower right), four men chip away at a massive block on a plateau of the imposing mountain in the lower part of the painting. Their bodies are nearly lost and only Carrara: A Quarry suggested with smudges of brown, the far right man using some sort of pole as leverage to shift the massive rock. We find them insignificant in their jagged world. Annette Blaugrund, in her essay called “Sunshine Captured . . .” says that the paintings done at Carrara show Sargent working in a tour de force of watercolor techniques from "scraping, wiping out, and waxing, used in combination with gouache and transparent layering to achieve Carrara: in a Quarry the glistening effects of sunlight on stone” (p. 231, JSS, Patricia Hills book) As I view these images I’m reminded of my own trips to the southwest of the United States, the sort of arid, dry, rocky paths up small mountains (really nothing more than large hills). I remember the sun would very much wash everything out. Looking at these images you can almost hear the crunch of gravel under boot, the ping of steel chisels cutting away chips of jagged Carrara: Workman earth, the groan of hemp rope taut around wooden creaking wrenches, and the reluctant guttural moan -- stone against stone -- of boulders pulled from eternal slumber; and if you look close enough, take the time to see the world that Sargent saw, you can almost taste the gritty stone-dust between your teeth, feel the burn of sun on your skin, and the soaked salty bandana hanging heavy around your neck. I think I need a glass of water.

The generator is all painted and drying...