Inspired by Sargent, The Black Brook at Glencree by Janetta Mellet

The Black Brook at Glencree by Janetta Mellet

John Singer Sargent's marvellous painting The Black Brook (1908), which hangs in The Tate London, inspired me to try and paint a picture of my daughter Ashley sitting on a rock in the river at Glencree.

The original photograph I worked from was in black and white and taken by my son Laurent.

I had the good fortune to see The Exhibition of Light -- Sorolla and Sargent in the Petit Palais in Paris some years ago. I was overcome, and actually moved to tears, by the luminous light in both artists' work and their extraordinary technical ability. I returned several times to the exhibition and found myself more and more enthralled. I do not think I will ever see an exhibition of this calibre again!

The girl seated in the foreground of this painting is the artist's niece, Rose Marie Ormond (1893–1918), daughter of Mrs Francis Ormond and later wife of Robert Michel. She appears with her sister, Reine Ormond (Mrs Hugo Pitman), in another painting ‘The Brook’. which was in the possession of Mrs Francis Ormond's second son Mr F. Guillaume Ormond in July 1961 (information from Mr Hugo Pitman, 18 July 1961), where they are dressed in Oriental costume. The site in both pictures is almost identical, a mountain stream at the Chalets de Purtud, near Courmayeur, Val d'Aosta, just south-west of Mont Blanc and almost 5,000 ft. above sea-level.

There is a resume of Sargent's very colourful life on .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent

 

The Black Brook by John Singer Sargent

JANETTA MELLET

Born in County Tipperary, Janetta married an officer in the French Fleet Air Arm and lived for some years in France. She has two children.

Her son is the sculptor Laurent Mellet, who currently shows in the Solomon and Cross galleries and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Her daughter, Ashley Mellet, is an actress who lives in London.

On the death of her husband, Janetta returned to Ireland with her children and now lives in Dun Laoghaire.

She won the Dun Laoghaire Poetry Prize for her work but now devotes most of her time to painting.

She works principally in oils and some pastel. She draws on her country childhood experiences and her knowledge and emotional response to plants, animals and people to imbue her work with life. Janetta believes implicitely that if you want to paint a flower, you must know its natural habitat, the smell of the soil it grows in, its fragrance, colour and texture and also in the old adage “paint what you know”

She studied under Bob Doupe in Waterford and is a member of the Dublin Art Society, the Park Art Group and the Dublin Painting and sketching Club.

She has exhibited in James Adams, Whytes, The Beaufield Mews and the Framework Gallery.

Her work includes: Portraits Landscapes Flowers Still Lifes Animals She accepts commissions.

You can contact Janetta here by email.