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diff --git a/42828-0.txt b/42828-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c30842 --- /dev/null +++ b/42828-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,962 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42828 *** + + MASTERPIECES + IN COLOUR + EDITED BY -- + T. LEMAN HARE + + + SARGENT + + + + + IN THE SAME SERIES + + + ARTIST. AUTHOR. + VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. + REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. + ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. + GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. + BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. + ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. + BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. + FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. + REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. + LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. + RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. + HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. + TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. + CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. + GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. + TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. + LUINI. JAMES MASON. + FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. + VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. + RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. + WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. + HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. + BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. + VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. + FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. + MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. + CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. + RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. + JOHN S. SARGENT T. MARTIN WOOD. + + _Others in Preparation._ + + + + + [Illustration: PLATE I.--LORD RIBBLESDALE. Frontispiece + + (In the collection of Lord Ribblesdale) + + A portrait of the author of "The Queen's Hounds and Stag-hunting + Recollections": esteemed one of the finest of Sargent's works.] + + + + + SARGENT + + BY T. MARTIN WOOD + + ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT + REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR + + [Illustration: IN + SEMPITERNUM.] + + LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK + NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO. + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Plate Page + + I. Lord Ribblesdale Frontispiece + In the collection of Lord Ribblesdale + + II. La Carmencita 14 + In the Luxembourg, Paris + + III. Ellen Terry as "Lady Macbeth" 24 + In the National Gallery, Millbank + + IV. W. Graham Robertson, Esq. 34 + In the collection of W. Graham Robertson, Esq. + + V. Carnation Lily, Lily Rose 40 + In the National Gallery, Millbank + + VI. Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Lady Tennant 50 + In the collection of the Hon. Percy Wyndham + + VII. The Misses Wertheimer 60 + In the collection of Asher Wertheimer, Esq. + + VIII. Mrs. A. L. Langman 70 + In the collection of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G. + + + + + [Illustration] + + + I + + +Was there ever a more romantic time than our own, or a people who took +everything more matter-of-factly? The paintings of a period contain all +its enthusiasms and illusions. We remember the eighteenth century--at +least in England--by Reynolds' and Gainsborough's art, the seventeenth +century by Van Dyck's; and when we remember the eighteenth century in +France, it is to think of Watteau, who expressed what his world, +drifting towards disaster, cared about--an illusion of a never-ending +summer's day. These names are expressive of their times, and Sargent's +art, with disillusioned outlook, mirrors an obvious aspect of English +life to-day. Above all others he has taken his world as it is, with the +delight in life, in its everyday appearance, with which the +representative artists of any period have been gifted. + +Perhaps the next generation will feel that it owes more to him +than to any painter of this time. For the ephemeralities of the +moment in costume and fashion are the blossoms in which life seeks +expression--whatever its fruit. It is agreed that everything is +expression, from a spring bud bursting to a ribbon worn for a moment +against a woman's hair. And who deals with the surface of life deals +with realities, for the rest is guess-work. + +Often enough this content to take the world as it is may result in +things which do not charm us, and perhaps Sargent has never been one of +those as fastidious in selection as in delineation. Sometimes he gives +his sitters away--for there are traits in human nature, belief in +thevery existence of which we are always anxious to forego. Nothing +escapes him that is written in the face. Yet he is not cynical, but man +of the world, the felicity of living in a world where everything is +charming being only for those with the gift to live in one of their own +making. + +The side of life which he expresses is that in which time seems given +over wholly to social amenities, long afternoons spent in pleasant +intercourse, hours well ordered and protected, so that the most fragrant +qualities in human nature can if they will spring to life. We almost +hear the teacups in the other room, and none of his sitters seem really +alone. We feel they have left the life to which they belong to sit to +the artist but only for an hour or so. The social world to which they +belong will absorb them again. This world Sargent paints. Even in many +of his single figures we are conscious always of its existence in the +background. In portrait after portrait there is scarcely a suggestion of +self-consciousness--but the man or the woman just at the moment of +posing, as if environed still in an atmosphere of their own, and of the +world from which they have withdrawn for the sitting. For it is +Sargent's gift to remove the impression that his sitter has posed, that +the dress was arranged, and his gift to arrest his sitter's habitual +gesture, the impression of sparkling stones, almost the clink of bangles +at the wrist in expression of the moment. Most unjustly was it said that +he could not paint pretty women. It would appear to be within his power +to paint almost anything that has its existence in fact, and if in a +matter-of-fact way, what more to the point if the facts are so beautiful +that fancy itself would have to defer? + + [Illustration: PLATE II.--LA CARMENCITA + + (In the Luxembourg, Paris) + + Painting of a Spanish Dancer. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in + 1891; acquired by the French Government.] + +Supreme is the art of Sargent in its appreciation of those pleasures +which would almost seem for art alone: pearls upon the colour of flesh; +slight transitions of colour charged with great secrets of beauty; +pearls painted as they would be regarded by a lover, as ten thousand +times more beautiful than if they were lying in a box. And the touches +of the brush--for Sargent shows every touch--breathe sympathy with every +change of colour as the chain of pearls falls first across white silk +and then across black velvet, and the little globes take to themselves +new variations. A fan is opened, and upon the ivory sticks the light +like silver trembles, a web of colour is spun across upon the open ribs; +a book is half-open, it may be a Bradshaw, but we will believe it is a +book of old verse, for everything that comes into the picture, the +particular picture of which I am thinking, comes into a charmed circle. +There are people for whom the opulent world of Sargent's art is their +everyday world--whose life competes with the splendour of day-dreams. +How essentially romantic--although so matter-of-fact--must be the art +that leaves us with this impression! To be matter-of-fact is, we see, +far from being unromantic; the reverse indeed is true, for with our face +turned from the world romance vanishes. + + + II + + +I once had occasion to call on Mr. Sargent, and was shown into a room +with a black carpet. Only a colourist loves black, and sees it as a +colour. And this room, so free from all that was novel and without +associations, helped to explain to me why, though his method is so +modern and of the moment, his pictures of aristocrats accommodate +themselves to ancestral surroundings. For it is true that not only the +face and the clothes of his sitters are given, but somehow, in the +material of paint, their social position and their distinction. Now this +is not by any means the least of Sargent's qualities; it is not a common +one. Well-bred people drive up to the door of a modern studio almost +visibly cloaked in the traditions of their race, but we are led to +believe that they must have left all this behind them in the carriage +when we see the portrait in an exhibition; the artist has shown nothing +of it, has used his distinguished sitter simply as a model. For lack of +inspiration novelties are proffered in its place, _L'art nouveau_ on +canvas. Sargent does not paint modern people as if they all came into +the world yesterday landed from an airship. No, he is like Van Dyck, who +not only painted the beautiful clothes, the long white hands, and the +bearing of his sitters sympathetically, but also the very atmosphere of +the Court around them, painting, as all great painters do, invisible as +well as visible things. If there is not in Sargent's painting courtesy +of touch, if his method has not suavity in painting elegant people, this +is rather as it should be in an age which trusts implicitly to the +dressmaker and tailor for its elegance. And without a word here as to +the worth of some of our modern aims, at least the age is too much in +earnest for a pose. The poses and fripperies of the pictures of Van Dyck +and Kneller are done with; and besides, the modern baronet is not +anxious to show his hands, but is painted gloved, and Work goes +unimmortalised. Meunier the sculptor and other modern artists having +gloried in the war of labour, its victories go unsung; its victors +surviving only as fashionable men. + +The portraits of some painters suggest nothing but the foreign +atmosphere of a studio, but Sargent seems to meet his sitters in the +atmosphere of their own daily, fashionable life, and that is why his +pictures are romantic, for isn't there romance wherever there is wealth? +The people whose wealth is such that they can take as their own +background all the beautiful accessories of aristocratic tradition, are +entitled to them if they like them well enough to spend their money in +this way. And it is the peculiar gift of our age to recognise in +ourselves the heirs of the centuries of beautiful handicrafts, which +we close with our machines. They certainly are the heirs to any kind +of beauty who have the imagination to enjoy it. And the imagination +for past associations, who have this more than the Americans? We +believe in England that all Americans are rich, that they can buy +whatever they appreciate. So by the divine right of things going to +those who appreciate them, the rich American is now, even as Sargent +paints him, environed by old French and English things and their +associations. And in connection with the accessories in Sargent's +pictures, might we not ask the question whether it could not be +considered a test of the worth or worthlessness, from a point of +beauty, of any ornament or furniture whether it would survive +representation in a picture? How much modern stuff we should have to +sweep aside! And now that one thinks of it, modern pictures have +left modern furniture rather severely alone--the painters have not +been faithful to their brethren the makers of modern tables and +chairs. Who is more modern than Sargent--and I am trying to think +has he ever painted a modern room--that is, a room with modern +things in it? The rooms that the most modern people live in are +oddly enough the ones that are most old-fashioned, filled with +eighteenth-century things. This, to reflect upon, has arisen through +thinking about Sargent's interior paintings, which so very vividly and +accurately reflect the attitude of the modern world to its own time. +In that word modern, if we are not using it too often, we must seek +the nature of Sargent's painting, its spirit; it is the most +interesting thing in connection with painting to come as close as +possible to its spirit. And what a test before any work of art, to ask +whether it is worth a search for the incorporeal element; although in +vain, in spite of Walter Pater, does painting aspire "towards the +condition of music," since music is as ghostly as the ghosts that it +contains. + + [Illustration: PLATE III.--ELLEN TERRY AS "LADY MACBETH" + + (In the National Gallery, Millbank) + + A portrait of Miss Ellen Terry purchased from the Sir Henry + Irving Sale at Christie's in 1907, and presented to the nation + by the late Sir Jos. Duveen, who also bequeathed a sum of money + for the erection of the Turner Room now being added to the + National Gallery at Millbank.] + + + III + + +Dancing has been a theme always appealing to artists because of its +rhythm, its grace in reality, its incarnation of femininity. It contains +all the inspiration for a painter in any one moment of movement. No two +things could be further removed from each other than Lancret's "La +Camargo Dansant" and Sargent's "Carmencita," yet some alliterative +resemblance in the name and some resemblance in the dancers' costumes +bring these two figures together in my mind--the one the fairy +artificial dancer, the princess of an unreal world, the other a vivid +sinuous presentment. With both painters the costume has interested them +as much almost as the figure, for the dress of a dancer, indeed the +dress of any woman, is in a Sargent picture a part of herself, nothing +mere dead matter, everything expressive, the brush having come at once +to the secret that no one material thing is more spiritual than another. +For ever Carmencita stands, waiting for the beginning of the music, just +as La Camargo is caught upon the wing of movement, seeming to revive the +music that was played for her and cheating us with a sense of a world +happier than it is. In Carmencita we have that living beauty from which, +after all, a dreamer must take every one of his dreams. It is Sargent's +wisdom to stand thus close to life. In the sense of this reality, and +the difficulty of approach to it with anything so constitutionally +artificial as a painter's colours, do we apprise the real nature of his +gifts. The roses on La Camargo's dress are artificial roses, but not +more artificial than her face and hands. This figure is only a little +nearer to nature than a china shepherdess, it is the fancy of a mind +cheating itself with unrealities as realities. Sargent himself has +painted artificial things, the rouge on lips, the powder on a face; +since it is natural for some folk to rouge, that is the nature which he +paints. Only an imaginative woman makes herself up. A painter with more +imagination than Sargent would enter into the spirit of her arts. +Sargent's betrayal of his fashionable sitters has frightened many, but +if anything it has increased his vogue; for above everything an +imaginative woman is curious to know what she looks like to others, and +a Sargent's portrait is intimate, unflattering, perfectly candid but +perfectly true as an answer to her question. + +Everything on the stage is artificial; what will this art, that has had +of the reality of things all its strength and life, make of a purely +theatrical picture--Miss Ellen Terry in a famous part? The artificiality +of the stage always presents two aspects, that one in which we forget +its artificiality and that other in which we remember it. And this +latter, to my mind, is the aspect in which Sargent has painted this +picture, without, as it were, ever stepping over the footlights into the +world that only becomes real on the other side of them. But the +exactness of his interpretation beautifully explains the scene. + +"Carnation Lily, Lily Rose" was painted in a garden by the Thames. Two +children are lighting up the Chinese lanterns, and in their light and +with flowers surrounding, Sargent sees for a moment life itself by +accident made idyllic. The picture is Japanese in its sense of +decoration, as if decoration and idyllic moments always went together. +It would almost seem so from the study of art, for without exception, +those painters who have been conscious of the ideal and idyllic element +in life, have always shown this through composition which, whilst +dealing with a real scene, has taken a little of the reality from it. +There must be an essentially musical element in the art which takes a +mood as well as a scene from nature, and brings us by way of real scenes +to that imaginative country which exists in every nature-lover's mind; a +country partly made up of the remembrance of other places which have +been like the place where he now stands. + +Great tiger-lilies hang over the children. We almost expect in these +surroundings pierettes or fantastic lovers, but we are kept close to the +beauty of reality by the naturalism with which the children have been +painted. Not one touch is given as a concession to their fairy and +dramatic background, not one ribbon, nothing in the costume to enable +them to enter into the patterned world of art as part of a design. For +above everything the painter has wished to persuade us of life itself as +a picture, and not of his ability to make these children the motifs of +design. Their ordinariness irritates me personally, they do not seem +quite to belong to their fairy land, but I recognise that this +matter-of-factness peculiarly belongs to Sargent's art and am interested +in the attitude that takes beauty so matter-of-factly. + + + IV + + +No one has encountered the beauty of woman's face more casually than +Sargent, no one has made us realise more fully its significance as a +fact in the world. After all we had thought perhaps we were partly +deceived in this matter by the illusions of poets and love-sick +painters, but approaching it without ecstasy, art has not been closer to +this beauty than here. I am looking at a half-tone reproduction of a +lady by Sargent, wondering whether in the history of English portrait +painting an artist has approached as closely to the thoughts of his +sitter. The expression of the face is determined partly by thoughts +within, partly by light without. And it is as if with the touch of a +brush a thought could be intercepted as it passed the lips. This is the +nearest approach that thought has ever had to material definition. +Thought is the architect of her expression, by accuracy of painting it +is copied, just as the back of a fan or bracelet is copied--things so +material as that. So after all thoughts are not so far away from the +material world with which we are in touch; are scarcely less visible +than air. The impressionists have rendered air; and would it be too +far-fetched to hint that the shadow on the lips almost serves to bridge +one province with another, the atmosphere without and that which reigns +within the sitter's mind. It is when Sargent's brush hesitates at the +lips and eyes, at the threshold of intimate revelation, that we really +begin to form an adequate conception of his genius. Yes, of things +fleeting, a thought flitting across the face, interrupted gestures--and +the mysterious suggestion of conversation hanging fire between the +sitter and ourself, Sargent is the master. Sometimes a portrait painter +will create a face on canvas, of pleasant expression, which is not like +his sitter, and it is as if with every touch he could change the +thoughts as he changes the expression in the face he is creating. + + [Illustration: PLATE IV.--W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON, ESQ. + + (In the collection of W. Graham Robertson, Esq.) + + A portrait of the writer of the children's play "Pinkie and the + Fairies" and many charming children's books illustrated by their + author, himself an artist of high attainment.] + +Sargent's accuracy is such that the expression that passes over the face +in his portraits is one which all the sitter's friends recognise; so +close is he in touch with the delicate drawing, especially round the +lips, that his brush never strays by one little bit into the realm of +invention. There are other painters painting as carefully, faces as full +of expression, who do not come near a likeness of their sitter. In what +provinces close to nature are they wandering, since, striving to paint +the face before them, they paint another face? We must not forget, in +thinking of Sargent's greatness, that he unfailingly is in close touch +with his sitters' expression, that is, almost with their thoughts. + +Although Sargent has proved in many landscapes his powers in that +direction, he too well enters into the spirit of the portraiture to +which he has put his hand to attempt to introduce naturalistic effects +into backgrounds obviously painted in a London studio. The landscape +background is sometimes charming if under these circumstances it remains +a convention; for there are moments when nature herself is out of place, +pictures in which human nature must be the only form of life,--with the +exception perhaps of flowers, for these accompany human nature always, +to revelries where sunlight is excluded, and even to the tomb. It is art +of little carrying power that is exhausted upon some transcript of +beautiful detail, colour of the glazes of a vase, a bunch of flowers. +Sargent embraces difficulties one after another with energy unexpended. +Physique, but never genius will give out. Energy of this order always +goes with a generous, because very human, outlook; success on occasion +being modified not through failure to accomplish, but through failure to +respond. + + + V + + +The life of a busy portrait painter, with its demand for inspiration +every morning, is of the most exacting nature, and the quality of the +painter's output must of necessity vary. The nervous strain is great, +for sitters are capricious, and always is the temptation present to the +one sin that is unforgivable, compromise with the Philistine--the +concession of genius to stupidity, of perceptions nearly divine to +ignorance. Genius has always had difficulty in working to order, yet +nearly all the great portraiture work in the world has been done to +order. But one imagines that the conditions under which the masterpieces +of a modern painter, with so great a vogue as Sargent's, have been +produced must be unparalleled by anything in the history of ancient +painting. A crowd streamed through the studios of Gainsborough, +Reynolds, and Romney to be painted, but the world was smaller then, and +their art was more easily done. They worked within a convention narrower +than Sargent's, compromising with nature at the very start; a convention +more beautiful than his, a garden, beautiful because it was confined and +seen in an accustomed light. If things are beautiful at all they become +more so when they are no longer unaccustomed, when they fit in with an +old frame of mind. Sargent deals with the unaccustomed--in which at +first perhaps we always see the ugly--whilst, as we have said, he does +not destroy, as the vandalistic art of some painters does, the +connection between the past and present. It is the present which his art +embraces, but we might almost say we are never thoroughly accustomed to +the present until it has become the past. So to us Sargent's art is not +as beautiful as Gainsborough's, for it has constantly to throw over some +old form of perfection to embrace a new difficulty. In the eighteenth +century there was less variety in the life which art encountered. The +life of even a Gainsborough or a Reynolds would be circumscribed in just +the same way that their art is circumscribed, uninterrupted in its mood, +and beauty is to be found in uninterrupted moods. + + [Illustration: PLATE V.--CARNATION LILY, LILY ROSE + + (In the National Gallery, Millbank) + + This painting was bought for the nation under the terms of the + Chantrey Bequest in 1887, seven years previous to the painter's + election to associateship of the Royal Academy.] + + + VI + + +Something should now be said of Sargent's method--of that which is +spoken of as his technique. And of method, it is not something to be +separated from the painter's temperament, it is always autographic. +Somehow, temperament shows even in a person's handwriting, giving it +what is really its style, though the fashion of writing imposed upon a +pupil by his master is also called a style. In art there is no word that +is oftener debated. And of those who speak most of style in their own +work, the measure of their self-consciousness in the matter is often the +measure of their distance from it. They are in the position of a +schoolboy taking writing lessons, and their style, if ever they are to +have one, does not begin until thinking and painting have become for +them almost one process. But this is a difficult matter to make clear, +and apology should perhaps be forthcoming for touching on so debatable a +point thus hurriedly. I may have said something perhaps to convey to the +lay reader the significance of the particular method of treating his +subjects which we identify with Sargent. The pupil of Carolus Duran, his +method was formed under the most modern influences; whatever effect +quite another kind of training might have had on Sargent, still nothing +but the traceable element of self would have determined for us his +style. The method of applying paint to canvas has always resolved itself +into more or less a personal question, though certain schools are to be +identified with different ways of seeing; every method is a convention, +and the difference of conventions always one of vision, affecting +handling only in the sense that it has to be accommodated to the vision. +It would be out of place here, perhaps, and far too technical, to define +the difference between such a method as Sargent's and say that of +Pre-Raphaelitism. But roughly, the Pre-Raphaelite concentrates on each +object. For each object, say in a room, is in turn his subject as he +paints that room. The impressionist, Sargent, only has the one subject, +that room, the different objects in it explaining themselves only in so +far as their surfaces and character are defined in the general +impression by the way they take the light--in short, almost an +impression as it would be received on a lens. If we remember all this we +can appreciate the extreme sensitiveness both of Sargent's vision and +touch. For his brush conveys almost with the one touch--so spontaneous +in feeling is his work--not only the amount but the shape of the light +on any surface. Thus the shapes of everything in the picture are finally +resolved, and we might also say without curiosity as to their causes. We +are given the impression, which would have been our own impression: +since in regard to a portrait, for instance, when we meet a person our +curiosity does not immediately extend to such details as the character +and number of buttons on his coat. With this method always goes +spontaneity, Sargent's pre-eminent gift. He values it so highly that he +does not scruple to recommence a picture more than once and carry it +through again in the one mood, if in the first instance his art may have +miscarried, not permitting himself to doctor up the first attempt. To +the constant sense of freshness in his work which such a way of working +must imply, I think a great measure of his vogue is to be attributed, +though others have coloured more prettily, flattered more, and +subordinated themselves to the amiable ambitions of their sitters. + + + VII + + +Is it a fancy?--but I see a resemblance between the art of Sargent and +that in writing of Mr. Henry James. The same pleasure in nuances of +effect in detail, and the readiness to turn to the life at hand for +this. To enjoy Sargent is above all to appreciate the means by which he +obtains effect in detail, the economy of colour and of brush marks with +which he deceives the eye, and the quality of subtle colour in the +interpretation of minor phenomena. On the large scale, in the general +effect, the quality of his colour is sometimes uninviting. But when at +its best it takes the everyday colour of things as if it was colour, +without the hysterical exaggeration with which so much youthful +contemporary art attempts to cheat itself and other people. If Sargent's +admirers do not claim that he sees all the colour there is in things, +they claim for him that he sees colour and has the reverence for reality +which prevents a tawdry emphasis upon it for the sake of sweetness of +effect. And after the sweetmeat vagaries, which have followed in the +wake of Whistler, by those without that master's self-control, this is +refreshing. + +Sargent's brush seems to trifle with things that are trifling, to +proceed thoughtfully in its approach to lips and eyes. In painting +accessories around his sitters there is the accommodation of touch to +the importance of the objects suggested, and nowadays, since interior +painting is the fashion--to suit the taste of a young man of genius +imposing his peculiar gift upon the time--there are many portraits where +the sitter is brought into line with an elaborate setting out of _objets +d'art_, the painter's pleasure in the treatment of these manifesting +itself sometimes at the sitter's expense. Translating everything by the +methods we have described, Sargent preserves throughout his pictures a +certain quality of paint. The impression of the characteristic surface +of any material is made within this quality, by the responsiveness of +his brush to the subtlest modification of effect which differentiates +between the nature of one surface and another, as they are influenced by +the light upon them at the moment. There are painters who do not +translate reality into paint in this way, but who have striven to +imitate the surface qualities of objects by varying, imitative ways of +applying their paint. Sargent is not this kind of realist. + + [Illustration: PLATE VI.--LADY ELCHO, MRS. ADEANE, AND LADY + TENNANT + + (In the collection of the Hon. Percy Wyndham) + + A portrait group of the daughters of the Hon. Percy Wyndham. In + the background is the famous portrait of Lady Wyndham, mother of + the Hon. Percy Wyndham, painted by the late G. F. Watts, + O.M.R.A.] + +He is a realist in the sense that Goya, the great Spanish painter of +the eighteenth century, was one, for the Spaniard had just such an +eagerness to come closer to the sense of life than the close imitation +of its outside could bring him. Sargent is more polite, less impetuous, +but still it is life as it is, that quickens his brush and informs all +his virtuosity. His technique presents life vividly, but presents it to +us with a sense of accomplishment in art, the equivalent of the +accomplished art of living of the majority of his sitters. I am thinking +of a portrait of a lady, and she is turning the leaves of a book, and in +the lowered eyes, and the movement of the hand, there is more than +arrested movement, there is an expression of an attitude consciously +assumed which ordinarily would have been an unconscious one, and so +accurate is the painting, that the sitter is detected as it were in this +self-consciousness. In portraits of a ceremonial order, for people to +sit in a group with a pleasant indispensable air of naturalness, is of +course an affair on the artist's part of very thoughtful arrangement. +But while composition should not betray the affectation of natural +movement, movement must not be conveyed in a merely sensational, +snapshot manner. For the slightest reflection on this matter will betray +to us that in the latter pretension we are cheated, since we cannot fail +to remember that to complete the canvas the sitter must have recovered +the pose day after day, hour after hour, in the studio. Sargent's +instincts are so tuned to the appropriate, having the tact which itself +is art, that whilst in this kind of portraiture we do not question the +grouping or the movement of his sitters as unreal, we do not accept it +as quite natural. We instinctively know that in proportion as it is made +to look too natural it would be unreal, untrue to the conditions which +the painter's art actually encountered. Sargent, who permits nothing to +stand between him and nature, will not permit such an inartistic lie to +stand between us and the sincerity of his painting. He does not betray +us in his love of what is of the moment, by giving us sham of this kind +instead of the real thing. + +At every point at which we take his art and examine it, the evidence all +points to one form of success. The sitters posing are really posing, +their action is not even made unnaturally real as we have shown, and in +the distances in the room round them, there is the reality of space +dividing them from things at the other end of the room. Reality, within +the confines of the particular truths to which his method is subject, +has been the evident intention all through his art. From this standpoint +it often compels admiration in cases where it would have to be withdrawn +were we substituting in our mind another ideal, examining his work, for +instance, only in the light of a sensitive colour beauty which the +painter has not put first and foremost. Some artists have embraced +reality only as it justified their imagination. If we look on Sargent's +art for anything inward except that which looks through the eyes and +determines the smile of his sitter, we shall find our sympathies break +down. Unnecessary perhaps to say this, yet it were as well to make quite +clear the light in which we should regard the work of an artist who has +wholly succeeded in self-expression, the only known form of success in +art. + +In analysing some men's work, we wish above all to know them, to know +the mind that thus environs itself. With others it is their art which +tempts us to further and further knowledge of its truths while, as with +Shakespeare, the artist behind it becomes impersonal. Thus it is with +Sargent's art. It is true that if we wish to know an artist we can never +under any circumstances become more intimate with him than in his art, +whether we find him in it far away in remote valleys or at the centre of +fashionable life. And this though the dreamer may be a man of fashion +and the painter of society live a life retired. + +Of Sargent's water-colours, much might be said. To some extent they +explain his oils, yet he seems to allow himself in them a greater +freedom, just as the medium itself is freer than that of oils--more +accidental, and the masters of this art control its propensity for +accidental effect as its very spirit, guiding it with skill to results +which baffle and perplex by the ingenuity with which they give illusion. +First, as last, a painter has to accept the fact that he conveys nothing +except by illusion; that he can never bring his easel so close to the +subject, or his materials to such minuteness of touch, that his art +becomes pure imitation; nor can he secure the adjustment of proportion +between a large subject and a small panel which would give in every case +such imitation. The supreme artist accepts the standpoint first instead +of last, and the greater his art becomes, the greater his power in its +mysterious control of effect. + + + VIII + + +There are some painters whose work we may personally wholly +dislike--dislike their outlook--even our favourite subjects becoming +intolerable to us in their art. It is something in their nature +antipathetic to our own. Of course, mediocre work does not assume such +proportions in our mind. Then there are painters who, through some +affinity of temperament with our own, make everything their art touches +pleasant to us. And then there are the impersonal artists, Velazquez, +Millais, and Sargent, taking apparently quite an impersonal view of +life. Sargent's world is everybody's world, and if we are affected one +way or another by it, it is as life affects us. + +One has heard a painter say, "I can paint those things because I love +them." Judged by his treatment of so many things, of nearly everything, +how much must Sargent love life. One man can paint flowers and another +marble--Sargent paints everything; and, to paraphrase, almost it might +be said that what he doesn't paint isn't worth painting. But all this is +nothing if he never penetrates, as Meissonier and others never +penetrated, below the surface; if he gave no symbols in his art of +things invisible. + + [Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE MISSES WERTHEIMER + + (In the collection of Asher Wertheimer, Esq.) + + Portraits of the daughters of Asher Wertheimer, Esq., the + eminent art-expert. Mr. Wertheimer is himself the subject of one + of the best of Sargent's portraits.] + +We like some of the subjects he has painted, others we dislike so much +that we wonder he has painted them; just as in life there are people and +surroundings to which we are attracted, and others from whom we keep +away. + +To the realist by temperament the effect of the details of any scene +accepted direct from nature provide exciting inspiration, and he least +of all is likely to turn to decorative composition, which, with its +resemblance to a form imposed in verse, only aids in the interpretation +of the subject in proportion as it is imaginatively inspired. A painter +pre-occupied with the opportunities which any incident may offer for the +interpretation of subtleties, will often accept any scene from nature +and almost any point of view as composition. For the old formulas of +composition--of the time when composition was regarded as something to +be taught--went with a decorative conception of things, was in itself a +form of decoration. And whilst it has been said that all art is +decorative, it will perhaps be found that the naturalistic painter is +too much excited with incident to scheme much for a rhythmic +presentation of it in the frame. Such a canvas as Sargent's "Salmon +Fishing in Norway," lately exhibited in the McCulloch collection, a +portrait painted in the open, of a youth resting on the bank of a river +with caught salmon and tackle beside him, the centre of a skilfully +painted piece of landscape, is a case in point. The difficulties which +subjects have presented have often seemed Sargent's inspiration in +landscape: rocks presenting surfaces to the light with a thousand +variations; the wet basins of bronze fountains receiving coloured +reflections and the diamond lights in the fountain splashes; grey +architecture with its soft shadows, architecture white in the sun with +its cool blue shadows, like fragments of night in the doorways. It is +this mysterious sensation of light and shadow alternating everywhere, +changing the colour of the day itself as the day advances, which Sargent +meets. He is one of the few painters who have faced the noon. He has +this great command of art's slender resources, and he is matter-of-fact +enough to be happy at this uncompromising time of day, unbelieved in by +the workers, so inconsiderate to the lazy with its heat. The noon has +not many with its praises, and "all great art is praise." Painters have +got up at dawn to communicate to us its everyday recurring freshness, as +of an eternal spring, and has not evening always been the painter's +hour? Sargent has faced the noon, which demands so much sensitiveness +that the over-sensitive shrink. His brush has given it in water-colours +the finest interpretation it has yet received. + + + IX + + +To go back to the matter of composition again. In his portrait groups, +where the mere fact that the sitters have to be grouped implies that he +is not dealing from the start with an impression direct, we find he is a +master of the finest composition, as in his group of Mrs. Carl Meyer and +children. And yet to one who will take not one touch with his brush from +what is not before him, such a view of his subject must be incalculable +in its difficulties. + +The painter has never made a passage of painting the excuse for +incongruity. The arrangements in his pictures are always probable. It is +legitimate in many cases that they should only be imaginatively +probable. Any arrangement is probable in a studio, and affording +themselves too much licence in this respect some painters wonder why the +public are inclined to discredit most of what they do. The logical +quality, the sanity of Sargent's art is yet another reason for its +vogue; it has not the unreasonableness of studio production, it commends +itself to a world that perhaps is not wrong in assuming that the +artistic licence is applied for by those who are not sane. Sargent has +on occasion had to resort to all sorts of devices to obtain effects +and composition that he has desired, but he has always kept faith with +the public, and had the true artist's regard for their illusions. He +allows his sitters to wear their best clothes, but he never dresses +them up; no, to please him they must wholly belong to the life of +which they are a part, it is the attitude in which they interest him +and all of us. We have then to think of Sargent not only as a painter, +but as the maker of human documents--like Balzac, the creator of +imperishable characters--with this advantage over Balzac, that all his +characters have especially sat to him. It is how posterity will +undoubtedly regard this array of brilliant pictures. Of the people they +will know nothing but the legend of their actions and Sargent's record +of their face. We have undoubtedly felt that when a man of real +distinction of mind has worn them, the top hat and cylindrical trouser +leg were not so bad. They have indeed, under the influence of +personality, seemed on occasions the most august and distinguished +garments in the world. But there must come disillusion, the humour of it +all will some day dawn, but it will not be before a Sargent picture. He +has at any rate immortalised those things, just as Velazquez has made +beautiful for ever the outrageous clothes in which his Infantas were +imprisoned. We are reconciled to such things in art by the same process +as we are in life, in Sargent's case by the unforgettable rendering of +the distinction of many of his sitters. + + + X + + +It is the work of the secondary artist that is always perfect--of its +sort; for it will not accept its reward, to wit, the finished picture, +until the last effort has been expended. With the masters of the first +order, it is otherwise. We have said they paint as they think; who but +the amateur always thinks at his best? When a man's art has become a +part of him, it suffers with his moods. He always works, and his work is +always his companion, an indulgence. In his exalted moments it rises to +heights by which we estimate his genius, but which sensible criticism +does not expect him to live up to, any more than we expect a brilliant +conversationalist always to be equally brilliant. This is why a master's +work is always so interesting. That it has become so flexible an +expression of his own nature is its charm, if we really regard it as +art, and do not look upon the artist as a manufacturer who must be +reliable, who having once turned out of his workshop a work of +surpassing perfection, must be expected to keep to that standard or be +classed with the defaulting tradesman whose goods do not come up to his +sample. A painter makes or mars his own reputation by the care or +carelessness of his work, but it is his own work, and he is not under +any obligation to us to keep it up to a certain standard if it does not +interest him to sacrifice everything for that standard. Sargent's work +has been splendidly unequal. Sometimes it has been disillusioned, tired, +at other times all his energy has seemed gathered up into a _tour de +force_. An intensity there is about Sargent's earlier work which we +cannot find in some of his later pictures, sureness of itself has +brought freedom and with it freedom's qualities, which we must take +pleasure in for their own sake. + + [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--MRS. A. L. LANGMAN + + (In the collection of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G.) + + A portrait of the wife of A. L. Langman, Esq., C.M.G., who + served with the Langman Field Hospital, in connection with the + equipment of which for the South African War his father, Sir + John Langman, Bart., is remembered.] + +It is frequently enough the weakness of painters to return constantly in +their art to some particular gesture or arrangement in which their +mastery is complete. This has not been the case with Sargent; instead, +his mastery has completed itself only through a constant encounter with +new difficulties. + +A quality of all great art is reticence, something which will never let +the master, to whom it is not disastrous to be careless, be so; for +carelessness nearly always means over-statement, and exaggeration. Ah! +just the qualities if a work of art is to arrest attention in a modern +exhibition. A common question at the Royal Academy is "Where are the +Sargents?" by some enthusiastic visitor who has passed them several +times. No, Sargent's victories do not startle, winged victories do not, +but advertisements do. + + + XI + + +Sargent was born of American parents in Florence in 1856, and passed his +boyhood there. No art, it would seem at first, is further away than his +from all the Florentine traditions, and yet in the decorative colour +values, which give distinction to his finest works, he is the child of +Florence. The Renaissance attitude towards life itself was highly +imaginative, so into visionary art reality was carried. Consulting the +origin of all their visions, the Florentines returned imaginatively to +what was real. It is the beauty of reality which is the fervour of their +great designs, and as a humanist, Sargent is their descendant. + +When, at the age of nineteen, he came to Paris, he was already, we are +told, an artist of promise, and he went to Carolus Duran with youth's +conscious, ardent necessity of embracing a fresh view of the world +altogether. The lighter touch of Carolus Duran, the worldly painting, +the lively art of things living, if a superficial art, was refreshing, +no doubt, to one accustomed only to the beautiful memories of ardour +expressed five centuries before. And superficiality, demoralising to the +superficial, could only give some added swiftness to a brush inclined to +halt with too much intensity whilst life, its one enthusiasm, was racing +by. He never experimented under Carolus Duran. He was beginning that +unerring sensitiveness of painting, which is only learnt by drudgery, +the almost luxuriously easy virtuosity, before the acquirement of which, +complete freedom of expression cannot begin, or sympathy declare itself +as from a well-played instrument. + +An artist with individuality is careless of asserting it, and it is +perhaps just the one thing in the world which cannot but assert itself. +Those who strive for originality through the unaccustomed may without +hesitation be put down as those who are without confidence in their own +nature. The individuality of Sargent, as striking as any in his day, is +unself-consciously expressed. If we could strain from a work of art the +self-conscious, which is always the unnatural element, all that ever +gave it any force would still be left in it. Submitted to this test, how +much so-called originality would crumble, while the individualism of +Sargent still remained. + +When leaving the studio of Carolus Duran, he painted a portrait of that +painter, a summing, as it were, of all he owed to him before he courted +another influence. He went to Madrid, there to study the living elements +of art in the school of a dead master, Velazquez, in whose life +encompassing art nothing has gone out of fashion--no, not even the +farthingale which the children wear. It was early in the eighties that +the Spanish visit ended and Sargent worked in Paris, already a man of +note, for the Carolus Duran portrait had been followed by "Portrait of a +Young Lady," exhibited in 1881, and "En route pour la Pêche" and "Smoke +of Ambergris." In 1882 he exhibited the _tour de force_ "El Jaleo," the +sensation of the season, and immediately afterwards the "Portraits of +Children"--the four children in a dimly-lighted hall, one of the most +well-remembered of his pictures of that time. Then came the wonderful +"Madame Gautreau." Paris was his headquarters but his visits to England +were frequent, and they grew more frequent as the time went on and as +his reputation grew in London. It was about half-a-dozen years after the +Spanish visit that he came to this country to live here permanently and +make his art our own. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy +in 1894, a Royal Academician in 1897. + + + XII + + +We should say something of Sargent's influence on contemporary art, +which has been immense. It has been thought that, deceived by the +brilliance of his results, with their great air of spontaneity, younger +painters have been led astray. This, we believe, is a mistake. The +weakest go to the wall, but it is probable that the example of Sargent +has succeeded in lifting the whole standard of painting in the country, +bringing--even the great incompetent, within measuring distance of a +useful ideal; an ideal of sympathy disciplined with every touch, and an +ideal of difficult things. Is not Art always difficult? It has been so +to Sargent, with everything at his fingers' ends; with everything so +much at his fingers' ends that under special circumstances he once +completed a life-size three-quarter length portrait in a single day. He +was in America, and had promised to paint the portrait. The sittings +were put off, and at last the friend who was to sit was suddenly called +away; but Sargent came with his materials in the morning, and the sitter +gave him the day. They were probably both nearly dead at the end of it, +but a large finished painting had been begun and ended. + +Sargent's countrymen have appreciated every manifestation of his gifts. +Lately he exhibited eighty-three of his water-colours in Brooklyn. He +will not part with them singly. Brooklyn enthusiastically bought the +whole collection for its Art Museum. + +Fame has not spoilt his retiring nature, and even by his art a barrier +is raised, in front of which the master will not show himself, but I +hope it is an intimacy that we have established with him in his art. +Mine is but the privilege of murmuring the introduction, and any charges +to be brought against me must be laid at Sargent's door. For a great +artist creates not only his art, but that which it inspires. This is +indeed the mysterious province of artistic creation; the artist creating +beyond his art that which comes into our minds through contact with it; +so framing our thoughts and setting in motion waves infinitely continued +in the thoughts that pass through every man to his companions. + + + The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London The + text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh + + + + + Transcriber Notes: + +Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. + +Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. + +Throughout the document, the oe ligature was replaced with "oe". + +The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus +the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in +the List of Illustrations. + +Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected +unless otherwise noted. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sargent, by T. Martin Wood + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42828 *** |