Volume Five of the John Singer Sargent catalogue raisonne encompasses a remarkably productive sixteen-year span when Sargent's creative energies were expressed in new and exciting aesthetic ventures. The young artist moved from Paris to London and successfully ignited his career as a portrait painter. His first years in England included a pastoral interlude during which he experimented with Impressionist techniques, painting en plein air and producing vibrant landscape, figure, and flower studies. Sargent's lush and seductive outdoor scenes and his concern with the depiction of light - most fully realized in his exquisite "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" - are chronicled in this volume. Of special significance is the account of Sargent's relationship with Claude Monet, the French Impressionist painter. This includes letters from Sargent to Monet, most published for the first time. In 1890, Sargent began work on a commission to execute a mural cycle for the Boston Public Library. This prompted him to travel to Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Spain, North Africa, and Italy in search of inspiration. The works he painted are a testament to his intellectual preoccupations, and underline his versatility and artistic reach. Following its predecessors in this series, this beautiful book illustrates nearly all of the paintings in colour. Each work is documented, with provenance, exhibition history, and bibliography, and accompanied by relevant studies and drawings.