John Singer Sargent

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Born: 1856

Died: 1925

Summary of John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was the most famous portraitist of his time, famed for portraying high society people in Paris, London, and New York. In order to convey his sitters’ character and even repute, he modernised a centuries-old tradition by utilising vivid Impressionistic brushstrokes and unconventional compositional solutions. Sargent’s interests went beyond portraits to include impressionistic landscapes, which he painted en plein air with his friend Claude Monet. He also created official murals commissioned by government leaders in both the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as a large quantity of nude drawings that were most likely intended as personal works.

Sargent’s particular way of bringing out the best in his sitters while also portraying their personalities, goals, inclinations, and distinguishing features set him apart from others in the portraiture genre. Many customers grumbled or just refused to accept the service after viewing the final results. His infamous painting of Madame X, for example, which emphasised the sitter’s scandalous conduct, was heavily criticised by both the sitter and the large crowd at the annual Salon.

Sargent updated the finest of formal compositional development he learnt from Old Masters such as Anthony Van Dyck and Diego Velázquez with a pseudo-Impressionist style he learned from an anti-Academic tutor. As a result, there emerged a more colourful form of portraiture, albeit it was enhanced by its foundation in the finest of the past.

Sargent’s paintings of sensuous male nudes, carefully kept away by the artist so as not to jeopardise his lucrative career as a social painter, reveal a level of inquiry hitherto unseen in his work. There is a lot of conjecture about the artist’s sexual inclinations, as evidenced by his oeuvre and his relationship with Henry James.

Childhood

Sargent’s ancestors were among the first colonial immigrants in Massachusetts, and his father’s line was one of them. Sargent’s father Fitzwilliam left the family shipping company to pursue a career as an eye surgeon in Philadelphia. He married Mary Newbold Singer, the daughter of a prominent Philadelphia merchant, in 1850. The next year, their first child, a daughter, was born and died in 1853. The couple was so distraught that they decided to leave the United States for an extended length of time. They went across Western Europe, including Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, from their base in Paris.

John Singer Sargent was born in 1856 in Florence, Tuscany (before to the Italian Renaissance). He didn’t visit his homeland until he was 20 years old, despite being an American. He got minimal official schooling as a result of his family’s itinerant lifestyle, and was educated in languages, history, arithmetic, and music by his parents. He was able to communicate in Italian, German, and French. Fitzwilliam hoped that one day his kid would join the US Navy. Meanwhile, Sargent’s mother, who was herself an aspiring artist, fostered his early interest in painting and drawing. “If we could afford to give him really good lessons, he would soon be quite a little artist.” she reportedly said.

Early Life

Fitzwilliam and Mary thought that Paris was the ideal place for their son’s ability to blossom. In 1874, Sargent began studying under Charles Auguste Émile Carolus-Duran, a well-known portrait artist. This Frenchman would have a huge influence on the development of his technique and approach to painting over the following few years, pushing his students not to rely on preliminary sketches or drawings while producing a portrait, but to start with the subject’s face right away.

Sargent passed the arduous admission test for the École des Beaux-Arts, France’s top art school, in 1874, and drew the attention of other artists and influential individuals in the modern art world almost immediately. J. Alden Weir, an American impressionist painter, saw Sargent at this period and described him as “one of the most talented fellows I have ever come across.”

During his time at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Sargent made friends with Paul César Helleu, a younger man who would go on to become a well-known social portrait painter, and met James McNeill Whistler, Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin (whom Sargent painted in 1884), and Edgar Degas via him.

In 1876, Sargent travelled to America for the first time with his mother and younger sister Emily, taking part in the Philadelphia Centennial celebrations and visiting Niagara Falls. In 1877, he began showing his work in the Paris Salons, where he received immediate critical and popular recognition for his use of highly theatrical clothes and poses that gave his figures a unique, dramatic aspect. In 1879, he set off on a long trip to Holland, Spain, and Venice in order to further his knowledge of the Old Masters.

Mid Life

Several portrait assignments awaited Sargent when he returned to Paris. His full-length portraits of high-society women drew a lot of attention, and he rapidly earned a reputation for portraying the distinctive features of his subjects. On a personal level, he had a reputation among his friends and classmates as a person who appreciated the better things in life. He had a big appetite, a stocky build, and was a heavy smoker as well as an urbane, if timid, speaker. In 1884, his painting Portrait of Madame X made a stir, forcing him to relocate to London.

Many portrait requests awaited him upon his arrival in 1886, after he had sent six paintings to the Royal Academy in London for display. The cold British reviewers who initially panned his work ultimately warmed up to him, and he remained in London for the rest of his life.

Sargent began experimenting with painting en plein air in 1885 and 1886, partially influenced by his relationship with Impressionist Claude Monet (painting outdoors to reproduce time-specific visual conditions). During trips to Monet’s house in Giverny, some of this work was completed in his presence.

There he created Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, which would become his first great triumph in England (1887). Two girls burn lanterns in a colourful English garden in this picture. The Tate Gallery bought the artwork after it was displayed at the British Academy. Sargent gained additional British and American customers as a result of the work’s positive response. Sargent was so well-known by the 1890s that he could charge $5,000 for a portrait, which is about $130,000 today, and he was regularly invited to the United States for commissions.

Late Life

Around the turn of the century, Sargent was at the pinnacle of his popularity, but he was becoming tired of portraiture and the constraints of painting for clients. He quit his workshop in 1907 and concentrated on landscapes, watercolours, and architectural studies. During this time, he also painted murals for the Boston Public Library, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and Harvard University’s Widener Library (together with painter and illustrator Edwin Austin Abbey).

Many reviewers dismissed Sargent’s art as old fashioned and out of touch as Fauvism, Futurism, and Cubism spread across Europe and America. Nonetheless, he continued to push himself creatively, painting landscapes around North America as well as large portraits of John D. Rockefeller and Woodrow Wilson between 1916 and 1918. When he returned to England in 1918, the British Ministry of Information commissioned him as a war artist, and he went on to paint images from the First World War in both oil and watercolour. In 1922, he co-founded an art gallery and school in New York with painters Walter Leighton Clark and Edmund Greacen.

Sargent, widely regarded as the greatest portrait painter of his period, if not all of American art history, produced almost 2,000 watercolours, nine hundred oil paintings, and an incredible amount of works on paper. Despite the fact that his work went out of favour during the height of modernism, interest in his contribution has increased steadily during the 1950s and 1960s.

Famous Art by John Singer Sargent

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

1882

The impact of the Old Masters on Sargent may be seen in this early piece. He uses Diego Velázquez’s unorthodox square format in Las Meninas (1656), as well as the Spanish artist’s approach of portraying individuals in an unposed, natural manner in order to convey something of their personalities.

Portrait of Madame X

1884

This picture of a young socialite, an American expatriate called Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau and known as Madame X, who was married to a French banker, Pierre Gautreau, is perhaps Sargent’s most renowned painting. The piece was not commissioned by the Gautreaus. Sargent, in fact, was the one who started the project, enticed by the chance to photograph this notorious Parisian social figure known not just for her amazing beauty but also for her reported love relationships. The idea of painting a portrait that reflects the personality of the sitter was novel at the time. As a result, Sargent’s Madame X is considered one of the most important works of modern portraiture.

Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood

1885

Though Sargent’s watercolour work is usually associated with his latter years, this picture shows how he experimented with many mediums and techniques early on in his career, when establishing himself as the preeminent portrait painter of the social elite.

Sargent met Monet while still a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the two became friends throughout the years. During the 1880s, Sargent paid several visits to Monet’s residence at Giverny, just outside of Paris. Sargent uses Monet’s en plein air method in this photograph of his buddy painting nature outside. Alice, Monet’s second wife, is seen in the backdrop, patiently waiting.

BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)

Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver

• John Singer Sargent was the most famous portraitist of his time, famed for portraying high society people in Paris, London, and New York.
• In order to convey his sitters’ character and even repute, he modernised a centuries-old tradition by utilising vivid Impressionistic brushstrokes and unconventional compositional solutions.
• Sargent’s interests went beyond portraits to include impressionistic landscapes, which he painted en plein air with his friend Claude Monet.
• He also created official murals commissioned by government leaders in both the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as a large quantity of nude drawings that were most likely intended as personal works.
• Sargent’s particular way of bringing out the best in his sitters while also portraying their personalities, goals, inclinations, and distinguishing features set him apart from others in the portraiture genre.
• Many customers grumbled or just refused to accept the service after viewing the final results.
• His infamous painting of Madame X, for example, which emphasised the sitter’s scandalous conduct, was heavily criticised by both the sitter and the large crowd at the annual Salon.
• Sargent updated the finest of formal compositional development he learnt from Old Masters such as Anthony Van Dyck and Diego Velázquez with a pseudo-Impressionist style he learned from an anti-Academic tutor.
• As a result, there emerged a more colourful form of portraiture, albeit it was enhanced by its foundation in the finest of the past.
• Sargent’s paintings of sensuous male nudes, carefully kept away by the artist so as not to jeopardise his lucrative career as a social painter, reveal a level of inquiry hitherto unseen in his work.

Born: 1856

Died: 1925

Information Citations

En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.

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