Beautiful FACES

The portrait artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) wrote, “I do not judge, I only chronicle.” Yet, he wasn’t above being provocative, painting a portrait of Isabella Stew art Gardiner that her husband wouldn’t allow to be shown publicly while he was alive, and painting a portrait of a Parisian socialite for the 1884 Salon that set Parisians on their ear.

- JOHN O'HERN

Today, Sargent’s painting, Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Madame Gautreau used a lavender powder on her skin which appeared creamy white in candlelight. In the original portrait, one of the jeweled straps of her dress had slipped off her shoulder. In the photograph of the painting in Sargent’s Parisian studio, he had already repainted the strap in a more proper location. The provocative, plunging neckline, however, remained.

In his biography, John Sargent, Evan Charteris wrote about the brouhaha when the painting was exhibited at the Salon. “There was a grand tapage (uproar) before it all day…I found him (Sargent) dodging behind doors to avoid friends who looked grave…I was disappointed in the colour. She looks decomposed…”

Sargent included a reference to Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon and hunting in Madame Gautreau’s tiara, which is in the shape of the crescent moon. He included another classical reference in the table legs that taper into winged sirens from Greek mythology.

Often in portraits, artists will include references to classical themes as well as to aspects of the sitter’s life. Alexandra Tyng explains, “When I paint portraits, I allow hints and details of my subjects’ lives to creep into the portraits, while keeping the story firmly in service of the purpose of getting an accurate likeness and a balanced composition.”

Michael Bergt says, “I’ve always been fascinated with the figure beautifully rendered and by pattern and decoration. In my new work, I focus on these two interests: my figure studies are given a context within the designs found in erotic Japanese ‘Shunga’ prints, Persian miniatures and the pattern traditions of Eastern Art.”