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Sargent Tradition- Al Society Portrait Painter Or Revolu JOHN SINGER SARGENT PAGE 58/80 FEATURE PAGE 59/80 Si Sapsford in that the light bounces off the ridges of SARGENT the paint and raises the tonal value of conversation with the that particular area; that’s why it always TRADITION- curator Richard Ormond catches the light. Because he doesn’t have this early on, the tonal range is somewhat AL SOCIETY and the painter Rupert compressed. Later, the lightest light Alexander. becomes extended because of the impasto PORTRAIT that he uses – the kind of impasto Rembrandt and Titian pioneered. PAINTER OR Surrounded by the better-known Sargent Richard Ormond: Yes. Like the paintings: Dr. Pozzi; Carolus-Duran; and painting of Dr. Pozzi – this passage here REVOLU- Sargent’s first double portrait of the children of is straight out of Van Dyke and Titian Édouard Pailleron, we start talking about the – he’s even got the gesture and, also, TIONARY painting of Marie Buloz Pailleron, Madame the way that he has painted the white is LANDSCAPE Édouard Pailleron, which – whilst both very Velázquez; there’s a looseness and Rupert and Richard agree that is not their abstraction coming through. PAINTER? favourite painting – does bring the conversation RA: Well, as Carolus-Duran taught him, immediately to the subject of Sargent’s technique painting was all about abstract shapes; and to his modern impressionistic style; something not thinking too much about what you that I am keen to know more about. It doesn’t are painting but more about tonal shapes seem possible to look at his work without and how they relate to each other. acknowledging his technical virtuosity; he really RO: Even the shadows. was one of the great innovators of his day, and SS: The two portraits of Charles Stuart it’s not just the portraits but also his landscapes Forbes, from 1882 or 1889, and the one and watercolours which demonstrate his of Albert Belleroche which is from 1883, consummate skill. seem quite different but they are painted at a similar time, are they good example Si Sapsford: Rupert you were saying of the two approaches? earlier that the few notes that exist from RA: The Forbes portraits show alla Sargent are reports of how he taught. prima at its best, so everything is done Sargent encouraged his students to use in one shot; maybe two sittings. There plenty of paint, because he said “The is evidence within the impasto under more paint you use the more the colours will the forehead that there might be a flow into each other and you will get much looser second layer under there and he’s just modelling”. But in these earlier paintings responding to an inflection of light – the paint is actually quite thin. putting it down, mixing up, putting it Rupert Alexander: Yes, it’s more down; alla prima painting – adding the like how it was taught at the École des highlights, working it out, constantly Beaux-Arts. Not quite to the degree of moving around the head wet on wet, Bouguereau who used a very thin paint coming up with a finished wet on wet layer, but much less than he was doing painting; much more impressionistic. later on. Early Sargents are still quite Whereas the Belleroche shows a very bold, but they don’t have the body that is different approach: it’s much more about so indicative of his work later on. looking back to the seventeenth century – SS: So the impasto surface is missing in how Old Masters built up layers – although the earlier work? it is still done with a certain flare, he The Fountain, Villa Torlonia, Frascati, Italy RA: Yes, and because of this, the spent twenty sittings on it. 1907 Oil On Canvas paintings don’t have the reflection off RO: It’s very sculptural, very carefully 71.4 x 56.5 cm their surfaces, and this essentially lowers done – a studio piece. The Art Institute of Chicago their tonal value. The point of impasto is RA: Yes, and much more academic in TURPS BANANA ISSUE TWENTY JOHN SINGER SARGENT PAGE 60/80 FEATURE PAGE 61/80 its simplification of form. Whereas in this Forbes painting, he is going for every nuance of a scattering light effect, but in a much more impressionistic way. The later painting is much more simplified and academic, almost like a cast painting. RO: The shadow of the eye is so strong that the furthest eye barely seems to exist. RA: It also has much more of the tonality of the Old Masters, so everything is at the lower dark red end of the range. This Forbes portrait is keyed much higher, not just in the shadows of the eye, there is a general depth of tone and richness of colour. I think, in a sense, the two techniques were combined later on. I keep going back to the Henry James portrait, it has great alla prima technique, but it is also done in the layered manner; having the depth of tone that you find with layers combined with a bravura Opposite: Dr.Pozzi at Home manner of painting. 1881 RO: You get the feeling that Sargent Oil on canvas 201.6 x102.2 cm works on the whole picture; it’s the overall impression that he is after and he The Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York skips the detail – abbreviates the work. Clockwise:: He would never work in piecemeal Group with Parasols (Siesta) Around 1904–5 fashion – one in which you work on one Oil on canvas part one day and then another part on 56.8 x 72.5 cm another day – he’s always working over Private Collection the whole painting; the background at Carolus-Duran the same time as the head. 1879 Oil on canvas SS: Looking at the 1893 painting of the 116.8 x 95.8 cm actress Eleonora Duse, you can tell it’s Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, very quick. You told us “He only had one Williamstown, Massachusetts hour to do this”. Robert Louis Stevenson RA: He wasn’t expecting her to 1887 leave after an hour, so it leaves future Oil on canvas 51 x 61.8 cm generations of artists with an insight into Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio how he painted. There’s just one layer, and so to see the first hour of a Sargent is incredibly instructive. He’s just working on the big shapes. If we were to look at it in the dark, there is absolutely no variation; we don’t even see where the edges of the shoulders are. We can barely see where the edge of the hair is. He simply keeps thinking about the abstract idea of light into dark; the light shapes are cut out from dark. TURPS BANANA ISSUE TWENTY JOHN SINGER SARGENT PAGE 62/80 FEATURE PAGE 63/80 portraits? landscape painter. Obviously Monet RA: He wrote to someone, didn’t he, was painting these abstract ideas of light saying portraiture was “a young man’s sport and shade, but we find that Sargent was and I’m tired of it”? I understand that I’m right in there – of that ilk – and painting, personally only forty, and I sometimes as Richard says, these completely flat tire of the commissions because they’re compositions which are just abstract creatively restrictive and because, to a designs. I mean, where is there to be certain degree, you have to paint what found a Sargent painting with a classical the client wants. It’s a kind of battle composition – one with foreground, between what you want to paint and middle ground, and distance – with a what the client wants. But sometimes you sunset or clouds? Cathode – Si Sapsford 2012 do get an enlightened patron who lets I love the synthesis of these very modern Acrylic paint on board you paint the portrait how you want and sensibilities but with his academic 41 x 51 cm that’s kind of an ideal. training still coming into it. The beautiful SS: The early paintings that he did of drawing of the wrist and hand, the Courtesy of the artist Robert Louis Stevenson are so interesting articulation of the wrist, and the sense compositionally, and we also seem to get of the thighs and knees under the a return to an avant-garde compositional trousers is so well-drawn. And it’s the style with the landscapes. I am thinking coming together of these two worlds – of particularly of the Group with Parasols from academic precision, with raw abstract 1905 which seems almost abstract, and modernism – that I think really sets also The Fountain (1907), in the way that Sargent apart. Because, yes, Monet was he paints the white fabrics. Is this true? doing very clever revolutionary things RO: Yes. The landscape is given equal in painting but he didn’t have Sargent’s value to the figures and so there is no ability in terms of drawing or strength in cessation whatsoever, and it’s all about terms of the characterization of form and surface texture and about the play of shape. paint, and you don’t know where you are in space or how the bank on which they are resting works, and you don’t get more liberating than that. RA: I find the fact that he chose to paint this absolutely extraordinary. About half the painting is just a pile of rocks. He would often see the subject and say “Only a madman would paint this”, and then promptly set up his easel and start painting it.
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