John Singer Sargent

By Sandra Forty

Painter of languid, elegant, Edwardian beauties and sharply dressed gentlemen, John Singer Sargent was the ultimate society painter. He knew everyone who was anyone and was on personal terms with many of them, including Edward VII and the U.S. presidents Roosevelt and Wilson. This social standing was justified. Sargent was one of the greatest portrait painters ever, able to convey the personality and style of his sitters—comparable to the great Velázquez himself, of whom he was a great admirer. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, in early January 1856 while his American parents were on an extended European tour that turned into a lifetime of travel. Sargent would continue the traveling tradition that he was born into for the whole of his life. Sargent never married and never had children, but his much younger sister, Violet, was a frequent subject of his paintings, watercolors, and sketches. From 1897 to 1907, Sargent was in great demand as a portraitist, on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1907, however, he had wearied of the portrait and turned his attention to landscapes, primarily done as watercolors. In 1918, during WWI, Sargent traveled to the Western Front in France. What he witnessed there would inspire his next major work, Gassed, which currently hangs in the Imperial War Museums in London. Sargent had a rare wide-ranging talent and pursued it agressively.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TAJ Books International
• Release date: Mar 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781844062775

Sandra Forty

Sandra Forty is a graduate of London University where she studied medieval and early modern history, including a spell at the Courtauld Institute learning about Renaissance art from Professor Gombrich. Since then she has worked as a journalist in London, then as a book editor and writer. She is the author of a number of books, most on art and architecture. Sandra lives in south Devon with her husband, children and many cats.

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JOHN SINGER SARGENT

1856–1925

Painter of languid, elegant, Edwardian beauties and sharply dressed gentlemen, John Singer Sargent was the ultimate society painter. He knew everyone who was anyone and was on personal terms with many of them, including Edward VII and the U.S. presidents Roosevelt and Wilson. This social standing was justified. Sargent was one of the greatest portrait painters ever, able to convey the personality and style of his sitters—comparable to the great Velázquez himself, of whom he was a great admirer.

Although Sargent was painting throughout the late-19th and early-20th centuries—a time of great turmoil in art—little hint of this is reflected on his canvases. At most, Sargent gives only a shimmer of light to the clothes of his sitters and to their backgrounds. For such a conservative approach, he was roundly criticized by some detractors, and indeed, after his death, his work went out of fashion and largely disappeared from the public consciousness. A reappraisal of his skill and an unbiased view of his exceptional ability began to gain momentum in the 1960s. Since then, estimation of his work has risen with each passing year.

One reason for Sargent’s fall from grace was that at the peak of his fame he turned