Venetian Glass Workers

The blowers of a glass furnace work at their glowing trade, the crimson light of the annealed glass striking across the dusk of the workshop. John Singer Sargent painted Venetian Glass Workers in 1880–82 during his first extended stay in Venice; already the most brilliant portraitist of his generation, he was painting the working life of the city as eagerly as its palaces, and here the molten plumes of glass let him explore the colour he loved most — a deep, lurid red thrown against umber shadow. The quick, liquid brushwork and the concentration of the crouching craftsmen give the canvas a drama far removed from the tourist’s Venice, and it ranks among the finest of the painter’s Venetian genre scenes, anticipating the sunlit figures of the great portrait years to come. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.