Madame X is, perhaps, John Singer Sargent's most famous painting. It is certainly his most notorious. Sargent kept it in his personal collection for 32 years, hanging it in his studios in Paris and London and exhibiting it occasionally. In 1917, he appealed personally to the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, imploring him to purchase the painting for the museum, saying, "I suppose it is the best thing I have ever done." They purchased the painting. Sargent breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Madame X should now be well-protected.
When I moved to New York City in 1990, the Metropolitan Museum still was (shamefully) hanging Madame X in a back stairwell. As mentioned previously, the academic art world—snobs who are better at condemning than painting—relegated Sargent to the dust bin of the Artists' Pantheon. In the early Twentieth Century, anger, disruption and "messaging" became the coin of the realm in the art world. "Beauty" and "art" were deemed incompatible—at least by "those who knew best." I suppose when an artist lives and works at the end of a given period (like Sargent, who closed-out the Gilded Age), it is easy to call them "old-fashioned" and toss them out—regardless of how talented they are. And when an artist lives and works at the beginning of a new period (like Cubism or Abstract Expressionism), it is easy to over-inflate that artist's technical ability—regardless of how talented they are. For me, Artistry—that is, the skill with which an artist manipulates his or her medium—will always be more important than shocking novelty.
Madame X is a portrait of Sargent's acquaintance, Virginie Gautreau. She was an American, like Sargent, and she came to Paris to reinvent herself. She was married to a rich banker, a man twice her age, and Virginie wasted no time developing her celebrity in Parisian society. Think of her as one of those "influencers" who is most famous for being famous.
Sargent asked to paint her; Madame X was not a commission. When the painting was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884, Parisian society was scandalized. Critics viewed the work as arrogant, vulgar, insouciant and sexually suggestive. Perhaps the French didn't like the real Madame Gautreau's self-promotion. Perhaps they didn't like the fact that she was an American.
When the painting was first exhibited, it was shown as Sargent originally had painted it: with the bejeweled right strap of her dress slipping-off of her shoulder. Could this have been the straw that broke the camel's back? Could the French, even in 1884, be so (how do you say it) puritaine? Sargent eventually did re-paint the shoulder strap in the upright position—a small concession to popular opinion.
The knives came-out. Madame Gautreau was reduced to tears (don't worry, she bounced back). And Sargent eventually decided that his future would be brighter in England. Naturally, the scandal was a great accelerant for Sargent's fame. And today, according to the Musée d'Orsay, Madame X has become the Mona Lisa of the Metropolitan Museum's collection. Madame X was certainly the centerpiece of this exhibit, Sargent & Paris, which was filled with showstoppers.
At long last, everyone got a happy ending. Virginie Gautreau has become what she had always wanted: a legend. And John Singer Sargent can look-down and see that his favorite painting, Madame X, now has pride-of-place within the pantheon of the world's greatest paintings.
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