SARGENT, AMERICAN EXPATRIOT
by Joan K. Yanni
"An American born in Italy, educated in France, who looks like a German, speaks like an Englishman, and paints like a Spaniard." Thus did a contemporary describe John Singer Sargent, master of portraits and landscapes, expert in oil, watercolor, and charcoal.
Sargent was born of American parents in Florence, Italy, in 1856. His father was a New England doctor and his mother a painter of watercolors. The boy showed artistic talent early in life, and at 14 he was entered in the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence. When he was 18, he went to Paris to study with Carolus-Duran, an esteemed artist/teacher of the time, and the most important influence in Sargent's career. Duran was an admirer of the work of Velasquez and Manet, and the influences of both can be seen in Sargent's work. By the time Sargent was 21 his portrait of Miss Watts was accepted for showing at the Paris Salon. The next year his Oyster Gatherers of Cancale won an honorable mention.
Ambitious and eager to learn, Sargent traveled to Haarlem to see the work of Hals, and to Spain and Morocco where the sensational El Jaleo, now at the Gardner Museum in Boston, was conceived. He made his first trip to America in 1876 and quickly became the most sought-after portrait painter in New York and Boston as well as in London. In 1882 he painted The Daughters of Edward D. Boit, which, in composition, shows a definite relationship to Velasquez's Les Meninas. In the Paris Salon of 1884 he displayed one of the strongest portraits of his career—the startling (by Edwardian standards) Madame X—actually Mme. Gautreau, now in the Metropolitan. The painting of a beautiful woman in décolleté and lavender-powdered skin caused such a scandal that Sargent was forced to shift his studio from Paris to London.
Another portrait which caused dissent was his picture of Isabella Stewart Gardner, done in 1888. Sargent showed Mrs. Gardner wearing a low-cut black dress. It is said that her husband thought the picture improper and forbade his wife to show it in their home. After Gardner died in 1898, the painting was hung in her new museum. Sargent and Mrs. Gardner remained friends throughout her life, and after she suffered a stroke which prevented her from walking, he painted a last portrait of her, Mrs. Gardner in White, two years before she died in 1914.
Sargent did not lose commissions in his move to England. Though he had a heavy schedule of portrait sittings, he managed to visit Monet at Giverney and to travel and paint constantly, both in oils and watercolor. The apparent ease and flourish of brush strokes in his work disguises his exacting standards which caused him to rework a passage repeatedly until he was satisfied with it.
In the 1890s Sargent was at the peak of his activity, traveling constantly and winning the highest awards. In 1907 Edward VII recommended him for knighthood, as "the most distinguished portrait painter in England," but Sargent declined the honor because he would have had to relinquish his American citizenship to receive it.
During this time a mural commission for the Boston Public Library became particularly demanding. Sargent worked on the project for parts of 26 years until the murals were finally installed in 1916. As a relief from the intensity of this work, he turned to doing bust-length charcoal portraits.
In 1918 Sargent began to serve the Imperial War Museum of London, sketching troops in France. During his last years he spent more time on murals, carrying out works for the Boston Museum and the Widener Library of Harvard University. He died unexpectedly in Chelsea in 1925.
MAG has two of Sargent's works: the oil on canvas Mrs. Shakespeare (57.14), painted in London around 1894, and a vibrant charcoal head of Mrs. Charles Hunter (70.52). Mrs. Shakespeare was the wife of singer, composer and conductor William Shakespeare, and was hostess at music soirees where Sargent, an accomplished pianist, and other musicians assembled. Eva Ducat, a friend of Mrs. Shakespeare, describes her as "wearing a pale silk celadon gown, with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a jeweled brooch in the form of a bird on the bodice" in MAG's work. She describes our painting as "one of the most tender, gentle, intimate things ever done in oils," and relates that Sargent tried to capture the sitter's characteristic wistful expression by telling her sad tales as he painted her. Though she looks quite young in the painting, Mrs. Shakespeare had a 24-year old son at the time of the sitting. The painting is signed by Sargent on the upper right and inscribed "To my friend Shakespeare" on the upper left.
Mrs. Hunter was also one of the leading London hostesses of the day, the wife of a wealthy coal mine owner. She had begun to collect art under Sargent's guidance, and Sargent remained her close friend, standing by her when her fortune declined in later years. Energetic dark strokes surround the subject's face and bring the fluttering fur and feathers of her hat and coat to life.
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