For a long time, John Singer Sargent was recognized principally for his society portraiture. He was the greatest portraitist of his time and he made his living painting pictures of wealthy people. He charged his patrons up to $5,000 for a picture (equivalent to $190,000 in today's dollars). Alas, it was this portrait work which would be disparaged by "academic elites" in the Modernist Era (educators, curators, art dealers, and jealous artists who lacked Sargent's technical brilliance). They viewed Sargent as "simply" a talented technician who painted flattering pictures of rich social climbers. It is probably truthful to say that, for this kind of money, the subjects wanted something impressive to hang in their dining rooms. But Sargent's oeuvre included so much more than society portraits. He painted many works—landscapes, cityscapes, architecture, labor scenes, nudes, and non-commissioned pictures of friends—which show that he was a widely talented (and accomplished) artist. In 1907, at the age of 51—while at the height of his commercial popularity—Sargent decided to retire from society portraiture. He had grown tired of the long and exhausting process (it might take many months, and a dozen sittings, to complete a "spontaneous-looking" oil portrait). Furthermore, Sargent is quoted as saying, "Painting a portrait would be quite amusing if one were not forced to talk while working . . . What a nuisance having to entertain the sitter and to look happy while one feels wretched." He did continue to accept commissions for charcoal portraits—which he could complete in two or three hours—for $400 (over $14,000 in today's dollars).
Sargent spent the next 18 years of his life traveling and painting what he wanted to paint. The pictures, shown here, are all paintings of females—though not necessarily the glamorous, commissioned society portraits for which he was (then) most-famous.
The picture above, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, was painted in the family's Paris apartment in 1882. The Boits were Americans living in France. This unusual composition—moody and psychologically compelling—has been analyzed and interpreted to a fare-thee-well. What is undebatable is the spontaneous brilliance and Modernity of the work—not your standard, "pretty picture" of four young sisters. There is a complicated (threatening?) energy to the work. What secrets lie in the Boit household? It is unclear if Mr. Boit commissioned the picture or if Sargent completed it for his own satisfaction. To me, it has the feeling of a still life painting. Note Sargent's brilliance in conveying the pattern, texture and sheen of the glazing on the tall Chinese vases. Observe the tiny reflection of window light glancing off the mirror in another, darkened room. Sargent admired (and emulated) the Spanish Baroque painter, Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). Sargent's picture was influenced by Velázquez's Las Meninas (1656), a painting which he knew well and had copied (at small scale) in 1879 (when he was 23, while visiting Spain after art school in Paris). Some paintings will always remain "fresh"—as though they had been painted yesterday. The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is one of those "evergreen" pictures.
After time spent in Spain, Sargent headed to Tangier, Morocco for two months. He began this painting while in Morocco—a fanciful composition of a woman perfuming herself—to explore the theme of white-on-white. It is titled Fumée d'Ambre Gris ("Smoke of Ambergris," 1880) and he completed the work when he got back to his studio in Paris. The painting coincided with the Aesthetic Movement and Orientalism, and may have been influenced by another prominent American artist, James MacNeil Whistler. The two would meet in Venice in the Autumn of 1880, though their friendship was complicated by Whistler's precarious financial circumstances, his prickly personality—and his annoyance with Sargent's popularity as "the brilliant new American painter."
Sargent painted this picture, Dans les Oliviers à Capri ("Among the Olive Trees, Capri") in 1878. It was exhibited in the Paris Salon on 1879 to great acclaim. At the time, Europe was being transformed by the pollution and frenzy of the Industrial Revolution. Fantasy scenes of unspoiled, natural beauty were very popular with urban collectors. Furthermore, Capri's history of Greek and Roman occupation gave the island a nostalgic "Classical" pedigree, desirable amongst late Nineteenth Century collectors. The painting's unusual composition—with the subject's back to the viewer—also makes the picture compelling.
A Gust of Wind (1883-1885) captures Sargent's friend, Judith Gautier, negotiating a breeze atop a crest in the French countryside. She was the daughter of a French poet and an Italian ballerina. Her girlhood home was filled with her parents' friends, accomplished writers Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, and Charles Baudelaire. She became a distinguished scholar of Chinese poetry herself. And she had been lovers with Richard Wagner, a composer whose music Sargent enjoyed. This picture, painted en plein air, really leans-in to the Impressionist style. Sargent captures so much with very few bold, spontaneous, and economic strokes.
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