W. Turner's watercolors and their proto-abstract sensibility as precursors to Sargent's, which often include their own nondescriptive forms, scattering and reforming themselves into depictions of places and things.
While the plein-air paintings of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists seem studied in comparison with the informality of these watercolors, we search the Sargents for evidence that their creator was aware of the developments in abstract art during the first decades of the 20th century.