Although I may admire Durer more for his precision, Rembrandt more for his allegorical wonders and Turner more for his daring, there is no painter that fills me with such joy as Sargent. He captures the "decisive moment" of his subjects, be they portraits or Venetian interiors, and renders them with a dynamic fluidity and a glowing palette unlike any other painter.

The full extent of Sargents magic cannot be discerned from reproductions in books or on the net. They lose their inner glow, their visual depth, their often hidden sensuality and that living voice which speaks directly to those that want to listen.

The Sargent retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was, without equivocation, the most expressive art exhibit I have ever seen. Everything about it, from the sequencing of the works to the lighting added immensely to the pleasures flowing from Sargents paintings. For me though, the "dot on the i" was the CD-ROM audio guide. The audio quality was superb, the fast CD-ROM access a delight over those dreadful audio cassettes that were the norm, the chosen text appropriate and wonderfully read by all , plus - and this is the part that really got me - the addition of music for some of the selections. The marriage of text and melody and Sargents images had me often completely transfixed, standing there with goose bumps, often breathless, completely immersed in the works and the moment.

There is little as personal as ones reactions to music, words or art. Thus what follows are my own idiosyncratic responses to these works. I am not an art scholar but "I know what I like"