University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1999 Performing Identities in the art of John Singer Sargent Leigh Culver Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the American Art and Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Culver, Leigh, "Performing Identities in the art of John Singer Sargent" (1999). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 3084. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3084 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/3084 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Performing Identities in the art of John Singer Sargent Abstract In the elegant society portraits by John Singer Sargent, body language created social identities. The fallen dress strap and obvious makeup in Madame X, for example, declared her a “professional beauty”; the costume of Charles Stewart proclaimed him a British lord. Critics often conflated appearance and character in Sargent's images, yet Sargent used theatre and masquerade in numerous works to problematize essentialist links between appearance and character that were fundamental to turn-of-the-century class, gender, and racial stereotypes. This dissertation concentrates on the art Sargent produced after Madame X, as he recovered from the scandal it provoked in 1884 and as he established his patron base in England and America. Many of Sargent's later works can be seen as a response to the issues raised by Madame X concerning the relationship between appearance and character. An analysis of theatrical elements in Sargent's paintings elucidates the function of these images in variously maintaining and challenging notions of social identity. Chapter One discusses the critical reception of Sargent's art in the context of a turn-of-the-century culture engaged in classification and performance activities.