# Have You Heard Of John Singer Sargent?



## ArtMusic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent

One of the finest American artists of mid-19th century to early 20th century. Splendid life likeness of his portraits in particular. Considered by his contemporaries as the hten modern day van Dyck. Here are some examples of his lady of society portraits.


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## ArtMusic




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## ArtMusic

Great art speaks for itself ....


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## Taggart

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he failed to make it in Paris. The reception given to _Madame X_ in 1884 forced his move to London.


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## Couac Addict

I've seen his portrait of Fauré is in the Music Museum in Paris.


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## brianvds

I'm a huge fan of Sargent's work, though I wish he had painted fewer high society portraits and more other stuff. I'm particularly fond of hos watercolours; the only other artist who could paint watercolours at the same level was another American, namely Winslow Homer.

Some Sargent watercolours:


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## brianvds

What boys did to relax, before the days of video games:










And then of course the famous "Carnation Lily, Lily, Rose":










Magical stuff.


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## PetrB

Nope. Haven't heard of him.

Yep. I know of him, have seen some of his works "in person."

BTW, the artist, and his works, are not at all considered 'obscure.'


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## StlukesguildOhio

The Portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau or "Madame X" was far from being one of the more outrageous paintings exhibited in Paris during the late 19th century. Must of the outrage was due to the fact that Virginie Amélie Avegno had been born in the United States (New Orleans) yet married the wealthy French banker and shipping magnate, Pierre Gautreau after which she reportedly carried out a rather ostentatious life-style as a Parisian socialite included numerous reported affairs. Many among the French social elite thought of her as a "gold-digger" or one of the egregious American "_Nouveau riche_"... although in reality, her mother was a descendant of French nobility and her father had been an American officer.

One of the men she was rumored to have had an affair with was the suave physician, Samuel Jean de Pozzi.



Pozzi was a handsome and highly cultured man. He had published Charles Darwin's _Expressions of Emotion in Humans and Animals_ and during the Dreyfus Affair he had supported the side of Émile Zola who rightly believed that Dreyfus was innocent. He was friends with Sarah Bernhardt, Robert de Montesquiou, Marcel Proust, and Georges Clemenceau. Pozzi married Therese Loth-Cazalis, heiress of a railroad magnate. The marriage was a rather unhappy one due to her insistence on having her mother live with them. As a result, Pozzi had numerous affairs with women including Sarah Bernhardt, the opera singer Georgette Leblanc, the widow of Georges Bizet, and most importantly, Emma Sedelmeyer Fischof. Daughter of an art dealer and wife of a horse breeder, Fischof was a beautiful, cultured woman of Jewish heritage who became Pozzi's mistress in 1890. His wife refused to grant him a divorce but Firschhof remained his companion for the rest of his life. Pozzi also was reported to have had an affair with Madame Gautreau.

At the same time that Sargent painted Gautreau he also painted a portrait of Pozzi. Pozzi was portrayed in a flaming red robe before a fiery red background. With his piercing eyes and pointed beard he looked like a veritable devil:



Exhibited along with the _Portrait of Madame X_ the French elite were outraged at this American social climber exposing her charms seen side by side with the man she was reportedly having an affair with. The outrage... as with Manet's _Olympia_... had nothing to do with the formal elements of the painting... or even the sexual improprieties... but rather with the "unseemliness" or portraying such openly.

Sargent, unfortunately, took the criticism to heart. His move to Britain and later, back to America, had definite adverse effects upon his career as an artist. The British... and even more so, the Americans had notoriously conservative tastes in art, and Sargent was frequently forced to churn out the expected usual stiff formal portraits. It would have been more than interesting to have seen just what an artist with his technical skills might have achieved in Paris as the Parisian art scene grew ever more daring and experimental.


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## Taggart

The Pozzi painting dates from 1881 not 1884. The Guardian has a different slant on Madame X.

One of Singer-Sagent's more iconic pictures is that of Ellen Terry in a famous performance of William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, wearing a green dress decorated with iridescent beetle wings.


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## Ingélou

I love this picture of Ellen Terry, and always think of Oscar Wilde's comment: "Lady Macbeth seems to be an economical housekeeper and evidently patronises local industries for her husband's clothes and servant's liveries, but she takes care to do all her own shopping in Byzantium."


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## joen_cph

There is a Sargent Family House museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts: 
http://sargenthouse.org/

Colour photos from real life were rarities in Sargent´s days, but _Albert Kahn_´s attempts at a global archive of documentary "autochromes" was one of the incredible treasures. The vast collection includes some more or less similar motifs too, though the registrating of various social classes and customs around the world was overall much more diverse.

















_Louis Lumiere_ also made a lot of autochromes:


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## Figleaf

I'd never seen that painting of Pozzi before, or indeed heard of him. What a stunner! I thought Sargent only painted pretty ladies. I'm going to have to find out more about this painter, as I love anything fin de siecle.


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## StlukesguildOhio

The Pozzi painting dates from 1881 not 1884. The Guardian has a different slant on Madame X.

The source I used dated the painting from 1884, but most other sites do indeed date the work from 1884. I forget the source (a book of Sargent?) from which I gleaned the information as to the two paintings being seen together. Perhaps in Sargent's studio? Pozzi was certainly known in some circles as the "Love Doctor" and rumors of his affair with "Madam X" persist.

The Guardian article presents an interesting alternative interpretation of the reasoning behind the scandal of _Madam X_. Of course it is but a single writer's interpretation. The Parisians were shocked by having ostentatious wealth and decadence paraded before them? I find that hard the believe on several levels.

First of all, having wealth and decadence paraded before the viewer in the form of beautiful and fashionable women, was not something unheard-of in painting. Ignoring the works of the Old Masters... portraits of kings and aristocrats... we have the examples of paintings by James Tissot:



James Whistler:



Giovanni Boldini:



*****


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## StlukesguildOhio

Anders Zorn:



Gustav Klimt:



... and even other paintings by Sargent:



The other problem that I have with this theory is that it suggests an outraged Middle-Class at a time when the opinions of the Middle Class were of little importance to the artist. Even today... when a painting by a relatively unknown painter may take several months to complete and be priced at $5000... $10,000... or more, artists are not overly concerned with the opinion of the larger audience who can afford to purchase their work.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I might note that the portrait by Anders Zorn, of Isabella Stewart Gardner, was seen by many as equally shocking. Gardner had a reputation not unlike many of today's celebrities. She had a taste for fashionable clothes and was especially known for her long string of pearls which she would swing about. The press portrayed her as having "caused a near panic" when she arrived at a concert of the very formal and staid Boston Symphony wearing a white headband emblazoned with the phrase, Oh You Red Sox!" Gardner was also known for her "jet-setting" around the world... visiting "exotic" locales such as Venice, the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey, and Asia. Isabella was skilled in Jujitsu, smoked cigars and drank beer, loved boxing... and even organized bouts. She was also known for befriending "Bohemian" artists and writers, and there were rumors of affairs and an outlandish sex life which were reinforced when later in life, she reputedly sought to edit her biography by burning intimate letters that revealed a bit too much. Gardner was a major art collector (Her and her husband's private collection comprises the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum... one of the finest private museums in the world). Among the works she commissioned is Anders Zorn's portrait, which portrays Gardner, full of energy and personality bursting forth into the viewer's space, her pearls dangling down past her waist. Zorn handles the paint in an outlandishly gestural manner that equals the energy of the model.

Sargent's painting, by way of contrast, was overly rigid and formal... to the point that there were rumors that Isabella Gardner wasn't overly fond of the painting.


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## Figleaf

I want to be cured by the Love Doctor...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Just for you, Figleaf... proof that John Singer Sargent was not only the painter of fashionable women:


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## StlukesguildOhio




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## StlukesguildOhio

The drawing, by the way, is of William Butler Yeats.


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## Bellinilover

Oh yes, I know who Sargent was. The National Gallery and the American Art Museum (Smithsonian) here in Washington, DC have several of his paintings. Here's one I like that they don't have, _An Interior in Venice_ from 1899:


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