Gone too Soon, Sargent

Turning the corner of the European paintings and sculpture galleries, you see it: SARGENT & PARIS in bold white letters streaked across the wall. Its luminosity draws you towards the entrance. This is the illustrious world of John Singer Sargent, a leading portrait painter of the Gilded Age and the Edwardian era. 

The exhibition itself, a collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay, is the apogee of exhibition design, a profession often more behind-the-scenes than curation but ultimately just as essential. All aspects of aesthetic intrigue (e.g., wall color, lighting, and arrangement of the pieces) amplify the visual experience of each painting, immersing the viewer in galleries that pop with bold expression. 

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was an American expatriate artist known in his early career for his extravagant portraits, often of the aristocratic elite. To have a portrait painted by Sargent in the late 1800s signified high social standing and impeccable taste in Parisian society. It’s no wonder that he was so popular, given his ability to depict the likeness of his sitters while also imbuing their figures with the elegance and poise with which they hoped to be viewed. With Sargent’s works from 1874 to the mid-1880s, the galleries evoke the ways in which Paris, the epicenter of the art world throughout the late 19th century, was the city that shaped the art as well as the artist, hence the name: Sargent & Paris. 

Sargent was only 18 years old when he arrived in Paris to study under French painter Carolus-Duran and attend the École des Beaux-Arts in 1874 (Duran’s La Dame au Gant (1869) is also featured). The exhibition presents artwork from this foundational period, displaying his quickly flourishing focus on depth, contrast, and anatomy, elements that would go on to shape his unique style. Sargent’s paintings are characterized by a fusion of Impressionism and Realism with intentional, suggestive brushstrokes that depict the subtleties of movement and light. Known for working quickly (another thing about Sargent that pleased his sitters), Sargent gave his paintings a look of skilled effortlessness. In Sargent’s Venetian Interior (1903), a single bold stroke is a streak of sunlight on the floor, giving a unique intensity to an everyday scene. One of Sargent’s greatest talents lies in his ability to depict the spirit of a place or a person, giving us a glimpse into what life felt like during his time. Throughout his travels to Spain and Italy, he chose to depict common men and women engaging in day-to-day activities with faithful reverence to the simplicities of everyday life, in contrast to the glamour of his commissioned portraits. 

Out of the approximately 100 works on display, a few highlights of the exhibition include The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882), Dr. Pozzi at Home (1881), and, of course, the infamous Portrait of Madame X (1884), all painted within a highly productive three-year period. Viewing The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a uniquely pensive experience. The piece is a visually arresting display of Sargent’s mastery of composition and light. Something about the positioning of the children in the composition (spread out so as to seem almost isolated within their own home), the sunlight emanating from an out-of-sight source, and the darkness emanating from the interior gives a somber and dreamlike quality. The fact that all four children seem to be unengaged in any activity, only standing or sitting idly in their own home among towering china vases, and that three of the four children stare directly at the viewer, is almost psychologically eerie. 

Moving on through the galleries, Dr. Pozzi at Home stops you in your tracks. Placed in the center of the room against a dark background, the piece’s red paint is near bioluminescent under the dim light, pulling viewers in for a closer look. Dr. Pozzi at Home, a life-sized portrait of French gynecologist Dr. Samuel Jean de Pozzi, is a bold piece that foreshadows the daring creative choices of Sargent’s later works. Known during his time to be a notorious (and good-looking) womanizer, Dr. Pozzi (nicknamed Dr. Love) and his magnetism are on full display in this portrait. Dr. Pozzi stands in front of a backdrop of red drapery, dressed head to toe in a bright crimson robe paired with embroidered slippers. 

The galleries are organized chronologically, and at the very end of the exhibit is Portrait of Madame X; it’s not only Sargent’s most famous work, but also the piece he called “the best thing I have done” when he gifted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a period from 1883-1884, Virginie Gautreau, an American of French descent from New Orleans, captured Sargent’s attention with her unique beauty. Madame X, notably, was not a commissioned portrait but a product of Sargent’s own intrigue. Near the portrait are his studies of Madame Gautreau and an unfinished replica of his final masterpiece, giving viewers insight into his “direct painting” technique. The simplicity and elegance of Madame X seem to be the culmination of his studies in Paris. Gautreau’s pale skin, which she achieved through the use of lavender powder, contrasts with her long black gown while she looks off to the right, showing off her distinctive profile. When the piece was exhibited in the Paris Salons in 1884, a later altered aspect of the painting created a scandal for both Sargent and Gautreau. Originally, the left strap of Gautreau’s dress was shown loosely hanging off her shoulder (the scandal!). This, in combination with the wedding ring on her finger (a single stroke of white paint), angered the Parisian public, who saw it as suggestive of loose morals and promiscuity. Sargent repainted the strap after the painting’s debut, so viewers today can see that the left strap of the dress was painted in a much simpler fashion than the right. 

Throughout his artistic career, Sargent seems to have gone back and forth with subject matter: he was drawn to subtlety and the everyday, but also the grandeur of portrait painting and the world of aristocracy it unlocked. Towards the end of his career, Sargent expressed his discontent with the restrictions of portrait work, eventually closing up shop for his aristocratic clients and turning to landscapes en plein air (outdoor) and murals for public spaces. Nevertheless, whether an aristocrat, a fisherman, or a mountain pass, Sargent’s works exude a sense of dynamic mood and drama, an artistic style so seemingly effortless yet keenly sensitive that still, for modern audiences today, holds an irresistible allure.