John Singer Sargent

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John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent, one of the greatest portrait painters of all time, was also an historian.  He did not write about his era.  He recorded the wealthy and successful people of his time in paintings that say more about the late Victorian and Edwardian age than words ever could. His portraits of the rich and famous capture the spirit of the time they lived in.  His paintings of the women of the era often reflect the world’s changing attitudes towards them.  His treatment of American sitters expresses the differences between them and his wealthy British subjects.  

Sargent did not just create likenesses of his subjects.  The way that he posed them, the props he used, and even the people he chose to paint tell the viewer a great deal about the world that surrounded him.  When he died in 1925 Sargent was considered to be a sort of has-been.  In the post-war world, his paintings of the wealthy seemed distasteful to many.  But time has proven the value of his work.  Today, Sargent’s portraits are looked on as a valuable chronicle of the past.

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence in 1856.  His parents were Americans who had moved to Italy for a temporary stay that became permanent. In fact, Sargent did not see America until he was twenty years old.  When he was very young his artistic talent became evident, and the family moved to Paris so that he could attend art school when he was eighteen.  Sargent had rapid success in the Paris art world. By the age of twenty-five, he had already won a second class medal in the prestigious Salon.  Henry James, famous writer of the time and friend of Sargent described his work as generating “the slightly ‘uncanny’ spectacle of a talent which on the very threshold of its career has nothing more to learn.” (Meisler 69)

Three years later Sargent’s success in the Paris art world came to an abrupt end.  He painted an American divorcee, Virginie Gautreau, who had married a wealthy Frenchman.  He scandalized the salon with this portrait. The painting came to be known as Madame X.  One of the nouveau riche, Gautreau was not very respected by society.  The way that Sargent portrayed her---in a low-cut gown with the shoulder strap falling down her arm---did nothing to help people’s perception of her.  Paris was shocked. One critic wrote, “Never have we seen such a downfall of an artist who once seemed to excite so many expectations.” (Meisler 72)  Without commission prospects, Sargent was forced to leave France.

The people’s reactions to Sargent’s work say a great deal about the time period.  Madame Gautreau is presented as the type of woman that was then called a “professional beauty”.  Although she has the dress and attitude of a woman of class, her pose, her make-up, and the fallen strap of her gown suggest that she is not posing, but instead working.  In her book Interpreting Sargent, Elizabeth Prettejohn compares Madame X to Mlle de Lancey by Carolus, Sargent’s former teacher. She says, “…Gautreau appears self-consciously to pose herself, while de Lancey seems to be posed.  Carolus’s sitter appears relaxed and at leisure, but Gautreau is at work.” (Prettejohn 27)

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This was all too much for Parisian society.  Sargent seemed to be mocking them.  Even Gautreau herself acted outraged and asked that the painting be removed from the salon.  Sargent did repaint the strap of Gautreau’s gown, but everything else stayed the same.  Years later, when he sold the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he said that it was probably the best work he had ever done.  

Today, a scandal means welcome publicity for an artist, but in Sargent’s day, it did nothing for his career.  He knew that he would not be receiving ...

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